ORBzine - Seven Days TV Review

Justina Vail

Nick Searcy [ American Gothic ]

Season 1

Seven Days [Season 1, Episode 1-2] Pilot (1-2)
Shown 07-Oct-1998
Shown 22nd May 2001 - Tuesday

Jonathan Paglia [spitting image of the guy from Season 2 of Murder One ] is in a version of The Village - a high-security mental ward for ex-CIA, Special Forces and so on. Being highly-trained and utterly expendable he is soon recruited for a secret US project which will send him back in time up to seven days and allow him to make changes. As in Quantum Leap, he must put right what once went wrong. Perhaps a better comparison would be with the dreadful BBC series Crime Traveller.

The Lurrve Interest is a frigid Russian head-shrinker played by Justina Vail . Nick Searcy [ American Gothic ] plays the Head of Security, a paranoid dumb-ass redneck.

Episode One is the hero's preparation for the mission, with the backstory being the villains' destruction of the White House. Episode Two is the mission itself, where the hero races against time to save the US President [who probably doesn't deserve it].

Seven Days [Season 1, Episode 3] The Gettysburg Virus
Shown 14-Oct-1998
Shown 29th May 2001 - Tuesday

Hero-boy gets a vacation - a USAF survival course.

A jesus-freak steals some Ebola samples, and releases the virus in an airport. It spreads so rapidly that it takes out most of the HQ staff at back-step! Luckily, the hero has memorized the entire bible.

Seven Days [Season 1, Episode 4] Come Again?
Shown 21-Oct-1998
Shown 5th June 2001 - Tuesday

The guest-star is Kirk Baltz [the cop in Reservoir Dogs]. He plays a Cold Fusion expert who our meddling monk must save. However, keeping him alive requires multiple back-steps! At least we get to listen to the Shaft tune repeatedly.

Justina Vail portrays the most evil, obnoxious, selfish bitch imaginable. Oops, sorry, I left out frigid.

                  5.1-500328-Oct-1998
Vows

Seven Days [Season 1, Episode 6] Doppelganger [Part I]
Shown 04-Nov-1998
Shown 12th June 2001 - Tuesday

Red China invades Taiwan. The US President refuses to assist his ally, which is totally unbelievable. Nick Searcy, the token fascist, expresses a yearning for the days of Eisenhower and the Cold War. General Stock, a so-called American Patriot [with an English accent!], uses stolen nukes to blackmail the US Government into turning the country over to him. With the assistance of sidekick Brian Thompson he captures one of the Back-Step scientists ...

Meanwhile, hero-guy goes back in time and gets duplicated. The duplicate is not completely identical ...

Seven Days [Season 1, Episode 7] Doppelganger [Part II]
Shown 11-Nov-1998
Shown 19th June 2001 - Tuesday

The back-room types try to outsmart hero-guy's evil clone. However, because they're cardboard characters they don't get much screen time. The frigid ruskie woman tries to seduce him ...

The good version of the hero [?] reappears - sort of. It really isn't worth trying to work out the logic of the show.

Seven Days [Season 1, Episode 8] Shadow Play
Shown 18-Nov-1998
Shown 17th July 2001 - Tuesday

James Morrison [ Space: Above & Beyond ] blows up a US Secret Police - err, NSA - office.

The investigators blame Gina Philips , an NSA data analyst, even though they have no evidence against her. This episode gives LaPaglia the chance to get a love interest other than Justina Vail.

Seven Days [Season 1, Episode 9] As Time Goes By
Shown 25-Nov-1998
Shown 24th July 2001 - Tuesday

A strange hi-tech pod is discovered, seemingly a UFO. Parker breaches security to investigate it.

The pod's sole occupant is instantly recognisable to the Russian babe. He says he was loyal to his country but he jumped in 1992, after the fall of the USSR, and his wife defected to the USA.

There's a cool gun that fires supercharged protons at 3000 feet per second. Somehow this is slow enough for the good guys to duck under!

Seven Days [Season 1, Episode 10] Sleepers
Shown 16-Dec-1998
Shown 31st July 2001 - Tuesday

Hero-guy Parker and his African-American sidekick are sent to Washington DC for a soiree and a ceremony where they will be awarded medals. Nick Searcy is jealous, even though he has never been in combat or done anything to earn him a medal.

The show starts with a bunch of unexplained assassinations. Then, Parker gets strange b&w flashbacks from combat in the Navy SEALs. They're all wearing US Army uniforms, but that's beside the point. Yes, the episode basically rips off the far superior Telefon and Manchurian Candidate. The ex-SEALs are manipulated by a sinister Oriental [Soon-Tek Oh].

The best thing about the episode is the cameo - DSV-guy's proper father is played by Tucker Smallwood [ Space: Above & Beyond ].

Seven Days [Season 1, Episode 11] HAARP Attack
Shown 27-Jan-1999
Shown 21st August 2001 - Tuesday

A flight of USAF B52s take off from a US base in Turkey. However, their communications base is taken over by arab terrorists [with english accents!], and they are ordered to bomb a US base in Saudi Arabia. By some strange coincidence our time-travel crew are in NORAD HQ, and can watch all this on their big screens.

Parker goes back in time, but due to new modifications to the module something goes wrong. He regresses back to the mental age of ten - well, that's what he says, but he acts awfully immature. As a result, there's really phony tension as they waste five days. How contrived can it get?

Seven Days [Season 1, Episode 12] Last Card Up
Shown 03-Feb-1999
Shown 14th August 2001 - Tuesday

Somewhere in Idaho a mixed bunch of whites and African-Americans [anti-tax protestors NOT so-called White Supremacists] are besieged by the ATF. This is all highly reminiscent of the massacre at Waco, and as you can guess it all ends ... in fire. The team plan a Backstep - not because of the deaths of 61 people, but because it made the US President look bad at a Human Rights conference.

Parker gets drunk in a bar, and gets seduced by a story-hungry reporter. Purely on hearsay from the alcoholic bar-rat she has the network broadcast her unbelievable story about time travel!

After the backstep, Parker and the Ruskie woman go undercover in the farm as counter-culture misfits. Is the protesters' leader responsible for the massacre, or is it the psychotic ATF boss?

Once the mad bomber is out of the way, they have to deal with the press. Parker handles it in a hilarious manner, which unfortunately would confirm to the Russians that the program is in fact successful.

Seven Days [Season 1, Episode 13] Last Breath
Shown 10-Feb-1999
Shown 28th August 2001 - Tuesday

This week the Military-Industrial Complex's Death Machine is a Russian nuclear submarine. There are shades of Hunt for Red October, as the Captain has trouble with the Commissar. In what is perhaps a reference to the disaster of the Kursk, the submarine sinks in arctic waters and the crew are trapped.

So what? You no doubt ask. After all, this flag-waving American crap only lets on concern about yankee-doodle-dandies. Not only is the sub in American territorial waters, but the ballast water is contaminated with plutonium. When they surface, the radiation will wipe out all life in Alaska.

Conveniently, Parker is now learning Russian! The ruskie sub was on its voyage for eight days before it sank, so he has to do his time-travel underwater! He has the Fluid Breathing System from The Abyss . Parker is an ex-SEAL, but he's also claustrophobic.

Several episodes have mentioned that the Russians have their own time-travel project, and they must know that the US one is fully functional. So why don't they send their own rescue team?

                  14.1-14 24-Feb-1999
Parkergeist
                  15.1-15 03-Mar-1999
Daddy's Girl
                  16.1-16 31-Mar-1999
There's Something About Olga
                  17.1-17 21-Apr-1999
A Dish Best Served Cold
                  18.1-18 05-May-1999
Vegas Heist
                  19.1-19 12-May-1999
EBEs
                  20.1-20 19-May-1999
Walter
                  21.1-21 26-May-1999
Lifeboat

Seven Days

Seven Days [Season 1, Episode 2 ]
Shown th June 2006 [Wednesday]

Shown
Shown

This is reviewed in a special supplement!

Search This Site