S01.E01: Way Leads Onto Way

[DanaK]

Quote

"WAY LEADS ON TO WAY" ORIGINAL

09/20/2021 (10:00PM - 11:00PM) (Monday) : SERIES PREMIERE - After his college graduation, Joe Kimbreau is faced with a pivotal decision that steers his life down three drastically different paths.

 

[KaveDweller]

I liked this. I like the idea of seeing different versions of the same people, although I hope they don't get too into the love triangle. I think it is fine if they have him being happily married to two different people depending on what else is going on in his life. I hope they don't have rock star Joe be too much of a jerk about his wife not wanting to get pregnant right away or about tracking down the son that was adopted. That was the only parts/version where I found him unlikable.

I am curious why in one reality without Joe, Jenny gave the baby up for adoption and in another she raised it on her own and still became a lawyer.

The whole premise makes me think of The Midnight Library, which I just finished reading. Only the show is less depressing than that book.

However, I went to Syracuse, so I am going to have to pick apart that graduation scene. That scene was outside. The stadium at Syracuse (where they have graduation) is inside the Carrier Dome. It is one of the things the school is known for, an indoor football stadium. Also, when I graduation no one wore orange robes, even though that is the school color. The students all wore black robes. All that orange was pretty ugly looking.

Edited September 21, 2021 by KaveDweller

[Cloud9Shopper]

I will give this another chance, but I’m curious how far and long the premise will go of Joe being three different people/unable to make a decision. It did seem a bit vanilla to me but not to the point of being unwatchable. Some of the scenes were touching, though, especially with Lucas looking up at the constellation display. 

I am way too attentive to random little details but I noticed that when he was a doctor that they were using the Chicago Med set with a different hospital name. I know that’s a thing that happens but I was just watching Med over the weekend so I had it fresh on my mind.

 

[Bulldog]

I liked it.  I wonder if the show would be stronger with only two storylines instead of three.  Kind of gave you whiplash switching back and forth as it did.  I'll keep watching to see where it goes. 

I did wonder why in the nurse segment the whole family seemed so fascinated by rain.  

And apparently the choices you make affects the hairstyles of your friends in the future. 

[Lady Calypso]

So, for a pilot, it was still a bit rough, but it has potential. I think the three storylines could either be done well OR be a total mess. I know This Is Us has done the different time periods done fairly well, but that's different than three different timelines with the same characters at the same age. I will have to note which colour filter they're using for each timeline (blue=cop, green=nurse, red=rockstar) but I do like the idea of seeing how different choices impact people.

I started out liking the rockstar plot the most but then it turned a little too cliche for my liking and that's the one where I think the Love Triangle will rear its ugly head the most. I hope not, and I like the idea of Joe going to find his son, but I'm definitely a bit worried with what they'll do here. I wonder how finding his son will affect Joe and Amy.

The nurse timeline has a lot of potential. I like the idea that they've set up.

And the cop timeline? Actually, I change my mind. THIS one might be where the Love Triangle is at its worst, since this one has a single Joe and Jenny/Amy starting to reappear in his life.

I'm annoyed at the three cliche careers that Joe has. How predictable that it's the exact same three careers that shows always have their leads portray. I kind of wish they would have had...maybe not a rockstar path, or not a cop path. Anything different would have been great. 

It does have some potential, so I'll give the show a chance.

[Kleav]

Christopher/Lucas is great!

[windsprints]

I liked it enough to watch a few more. It reminds me of the movie Sliding Doors. 

[bros402]

This pilot was a bit rough, I was not expecting to like it too much, but I think it has potential. Right now, it seems like it is stretching itself thin with three different timelines - I think two would've been more manageable. Rock Star Joe is definitely cliche, but it might be interesting to see how he handles finding the son that was given up for adoption. Cop Joe is going to be a love triangle, so that is going to be annoying. Nurse Joe felt the most fleshed out and the most interesting of the timelines.

However - I have one question: What degree did Joe do that he can be a cop, a nurse, and a rock star? He was giving off music major vibes in the opening - and you can't be a nurse or a cop with a music degree, so maybe he did a degree in nursing, then just decided to become a cop in blue timeline?

[Leeds]

I thought it was - okay.  Maybe I'm stupid but I had a hard time keeping up because some of the scenes were really quick.  Also, the only actor I recognised was his buddy Eric, who was in a couple of the Chicago shows, so that also had me confused.

[shapeshifter]

8 hours ago, Leeds said:

I thought it was - okay.  Maybe I'm stupid but I had a hard time keeping up because some of the scenes were really quick

I decided it was a creative choice to make some of the transitions vague and confusing; I’m not sure that’s a good choice, though. 
 

I actually live with an escape fantasy in my mind of different universes in which I was a weather person, or a professor, or a musician, or a courtroom sketch artist. 

I thought it was going to be sort of scifi or supernatural, but I guess not…??

I’ll give it one more episode to prove it’s not just another This Is Us show, but it doesn’t look like my cup of tea, and there’s too many shows to watch.

ETA: I’d watch Wolk in a reboot of “Early Edition” in which he gets tomorrow’s Tweets today. 

Edited September 21, 2021 by shapeshifter

[Petunia13]

8 hours ago, Leeds said:

I thought it was - okay.  Maybe I'm stupid but I had a hard time keeping up because some of the scenes were really quick.  Also, the only actor I recognised was his buddy Eric, who was in a couple of the Chicago shows, so that also had me confused.

I was confused as well. I was playing scrabble here & there during but still. I think they tried to shove too much into the premiere & thats why. 

[absnow54]

I know it would have been nitpicked for its plausibility, but I wish they gave Chris/Lucas the same name in all 3 timelines, because that's going to be hard for me to keep straight.

I admit I wasn't paying close enough attention, has Amy been introduced in the nurse timeline? 

Edited September 21, 2021 by absnow54

[Lady Calypso]

Just now, absnow54 said:

I know it would have been nitpicked for its plausibility, but I wish they gave Chris/Lucas the same name in all 3 timelines, because that's going to be hard for me to keep straight.

On the other hand, I kind of like that they didn't give him the same name, because it goes to show that small changes can really alter a lot, such as a child's name. In the Nurse Timeline, Joe/Jenny raised their child together, so they gave him the name of Joe's father. In the Cop Timeline, Jenny raised their child alone, so he was given a name that meant something to Jenny. And I think the Rockstar Timeline will also have the child's name as Lucas, though I can't remember if Jenny told Joe what their son's name is or if that was just the Cop Timeline.

It might get confusing, OR it'll be a part of helping to differentiate the different timelines.

[Sandman]

I think it has potential, but what I've got so far is that heartbreak is universal. I was wondering if the show would weight one of the three possibilities heavily to hint at its being Joe's "right" future, the one where he really belongs, but I didn't have that impression -- at least not yet. I found the transitions pretty easy to follow; the RGB colour schemes were clear enough for me. I found it easier to distinguish one reality from another than, say, in Awake, which had a very similar, though binary, premise. (The colour differentiation in that show was a bit more subtle, if I remember right.)

Other than front-loading the tragedy a bit, I thought this was pretty good, as pilots go. I like the cast, I'm intrigued, and I think Wolk did a nice job making Joe a bit of an Everyman without making him bland. I think Joe has a consistent core across all three possibilities, and he seems like a decent man. I didn't expect that Lucas/Chris would be a constant in all three stories along with Amy, Jenny and Eric, but it would seem so.

Edited September 22, 2021 by Sandman

[KaveDweller]

9 hours ago, bros402 said:

However - I have one question: What degree did Joe do that he can be a cop, a nurse, and a rock star? He was giving off music major vibes in the opening - and you can't be a nurse or a cop with a music degree, so maybe he did a degree in nursing, then just decided to become a cop in blue timeline?

He said he was a music major, so he must have gone to nursing school after in that timeline. It actually would make more sense if he was a cop in the timeline where he married Jenny. She was pregnant and he would have needed a steady job right away. Going to the police academy has got to be faster than nursing school. Maybe that is why Jenny is only a paralegal in that timeline.....they couldn't afford law school and nursing school.

15 minutes ago, absnow54 said:

I know it would have been nitpicked for its plausibility, but I wish they gave Chris/Lucas the same name in all 3 timelines, because that's going to be hard for me to keep straight.

I admit I wasn't paying close enough attention, has Amy been introduced in the nurse timeline? 

Amy's married to his best friend in the nurse timeline.

[Chaos Theory]

The kid not having the same name makes sense.  Joe made a point in Rockstar Timeline of telling mom that he wanted to name his kid after dead father.    It would make sense he did the same thing in the nurse timeline.    Without Joe’s influence Jenny would have come up with a different name.    Heck in the rockstar timeline where Jenny put him up for adoption it’s possible he will have a completely different name.  

Edited September 21, 2021 by Chaos Theory

[saber5055]

I didn't get to watch this episode all the way through and only saw parts. But what is the significance of 9.23 and the number 23, all shown at different points in different timelines.

[Gregg247]

I enjoyed the show.  So far, the version of Joe I like the least is the nurse; he's so wimpy and beat down by life that I can see why his wife is getting fed up with him.  I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out she's been looking elsewhere for a replacement already.  This is the only version (so far) where his admitted indecisiveness seems to be a problem for him.

The cop version seems like a guy who'd be cool to hang out with. (I guess this means the lead is a really good actor!) haha

[shapeshifter]

7 hours ago, Lady Calypso said:

On the other hand, I kind of like that they didn't give him the same name, because it goes to show that small changes can really alter a lot, such as a child's name.

Occasionally when my adult daughter and I have talked about guys,  I've thoughtlessly mused to that I should have married Guy X, Y, or Z and then she sorrowfully says, "But then you wouldn't have me!" to which I quickly reply: "I'd still have you. You'd just look a little different." 

So I'm guessing the adopted son will have the same disability because it would be the same actor. In a book they would probably explore him not having a disability due to a better situation during childbirth or something else. 

I've read that miscarriages are often due to the fetus not being viable. Amy bemoans that she "is broken," but perhaps Joe has a medical problem. His father died on 9/11, so maybe Joe was exposed to heavy metal ash in the air that affected his reproductive system.

This is all so sad. I'm probably not going to stick with it. 

[Chaos Theory]

2 hours ago, Gregg247 said:

I enjoyed the show.  So far, the version of Joe I like the least is the nurse; he's so wimpy and beat down by life that I can see why his wife is getting fed up with him.  I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out she's been looking elsewhere for a replacement already.  This is the only version (so far) where his admitted indecisiveness seems to be a problem for him.

My interpretation is that in the nurse timeline both Joe and Jenny are unhappy because neither of their dreams came true.  Joe never became the rockstar he wanted to be but also isn’t a police officer like his family wanted.   And Jenny is far lower on her career path then she intended.    Plus whatever passion they might have had fizzled over the past ten years.   If anything I would love to see Joe and Jenny work to get what they had back.  This is actually the most realistic timeline and I would love to see it play out as rediscovering a love that was always there.

[Crs97]

I didn’t realize he was a nurse, but that makes more sense than medical school if she only became a paralegal.  I like the nurse storyline best because it seems highly unlikely to become a triangle.  I thought all the characters were likable; I’m in for now.

[Cloud9Shopper]

I think he’s supposed to be a doctor because he mentions clamping an aorta. A nurse wouldn’t do that, as far as I know. I’d imagine he took post-bacc classes or something but this isn’t my field (I got my medical knowledge from ER and Google) so maybe someone else has insight. 

[brokenwing29]

51 minutes ago, Cloud9Shopper said:

I think he’s supposed to be a doctor because he mentions clamping an aorta. A nurse wouldn’t do that, as far as I know. I’d imagine he took post-bacc classes or something but this isn’t my field (I got my medical knowledge from ER and Google) so maybe someone else has insight. 

In the scene where the son wants to interview him about his profession, it is implied that Joe is a nurse. "Nurses are out curing covid, so that's cool too."

[funnygirl]

I like Joe with Amy. 

I think it's really messed up that in both Cop & Rockstar timeline, Jenny never told Joe that she was pregnant. Especially in Cop because she kept the baby, but even still in Rockstar because she carried to term. It's not like it was from a one night stand and they weren't close. They were close friends and on-and-off in college. That, at the very least, warrants a courtesy call. 

I strongly dislike when the simplest and most natural details are curtailed so writers can build a "dramatic" plot. 

[SuzieQ]

I was looking forward to this, but had trouble getting into it.  I will rewatch without interruptions to see if it seems more cohesive.  I want to give it a chance because I like the premise and the originality of it.

[KaveDweller]

30 minutes ago, funnygirl said:

I like Joe with Amy. 

I think it's really messed up that in both Cop & Rockstar timeline, Jenny never told Joe that she was pregnant. Especially in Cop because she kept the baby, but even still in Rockstar because she carried to term. It's not like it was from a one night stand and they weren't close. They were close friends and on-and-off in college. That, at the very least, warrants a courtesy call. 

I strongly dislike when the simplest and most natural details are curtailed so writers can build a "dramatic" plot. 

I agree, it is messed up that she didn't tell him. Especially since they were friends and she probably knew he wanted to be a father.

It wasn't like they were in a relationship and he dumped her....they were hooking up but "not exclusive" and he didn't go to the beach one weekend. She still would have had his number to talk later on. There would have been time between graduation weekend and when Joe was either a cop or a rockstar married to Amy. Plus, wouldn't she legally need his sign off to give the baby up for adoption?

If she had decided to abort in one timeline or had a miscarriage, then I would be more understanding about not telling him, because then there is no kid out there in the world.

[nilyank]

14 hours ago, KaveDweller said:

He said he was a music major, so he must have gone to nursing school after in that timeline. It actually would make more sense if he was a cop in the timeline where he married Jenny. She was pregnant and he would have needed a steady job right away. Going to the police academy has got to be faster than nursing school. Maybe that is why Jenny is only a paralegal in that timeline.....they couldn't afford law school and nursing school.

14 hours ago, absnow54 said:

And yet single and keeping the baby who has special needs,  she made Partner.

I like Cop Joe best as he seems to be the best looking of the three.

I also interesting about the lifepath of childhood friend Eric, Amy and Jenny

Nurse Joe - Eric very successful meeting Joe at the fancy restaurant and happily married to Amy. Uncertain if they have kids. Jenny is a paralegal and is seperated from Joe.

Cop Joe - Eric own his restaurant, is happily married (not to Amy) and is expecting a child. Amy is working for the congressman's campaign. Jenny became a district attorney years and raising Lucas

Rocker Joe - Eric is divorced (not to Amy) and has a child. Not certain if he successful or not, but needed Joe to perform at the reunion because he needed it. Jenny became Partner and gave up child for adoption. Amy was running the campaign for the congressman and will now be running herself.

The congressman was saved by Cop Joe by taking down shooter, saved by Nurse Joe when he was brought into the ER and saved by Rocker Joe who convince him into changing the venue where he gave his speech 

I honestly think one of two versions of Jenny should have aborted/miscarried the baby

Finally, I wished that Amy had punched Rocker Joe in the face when he started to press her about having a baby after she miscarried their twins when she previously miscarried twice before and told him that she was afraid that she was broken. Literally one day after the miscarriage.

Edited September 22, 2021 by nilyank
got mixed up with all the Joes

[LittleIggy]

Cop Joe timeline: Jenny didn’t give up her baby. She introduced Lucas to Cop Joe at the reunion. She brought Lucas with her to see the planetarium. She gave up the baby in the Rocker Joe timeline. I too wondered how she could give up the baby for adoption without the birth father signing away his parental rights.

[bros402]

14 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

I decided it was a creative choice to make some of the transitions vague and confusing; I’m not sure that’s a good choice, though. 
 

I actually live with an escape fantasy in my mind of different universes in which I was a weather person, or a professor, or a musician, or a courtroom sketch artist. 

I thought it was going to be sort of scifi or supernatural, but I guess not…??

I’ll give it one more episode to prove it’s not just another This Is Us show, but it doesn’t look like my cup of tea, and there’s too many shows to watch.

ETA: I’d watch Wolk in a reboot of “Early Edition” in which he gets tomorrow’s Tweets today. 

if you want more of a scifi, watch Awake - great show, only had a season

14 hours ago, Sandman said:

I think it has potential, but what I've got so far is that heartbreak is universal. I was wondering if the show would weight one of the three possibilities heavily to hint at its being Joe's "right" future, the one where he really belongs, but I didn't have that impression -- at least not yet. I found the transitions pretty easy to follow; the RGB colour schemes were clear enough for me. I found it easier to distinguish one reality from another than, say, in Awake, which had a very similar, though binary, premise. (The colour differentiation in that show was a bit more subtle, if I remember right.)

Awake's color differentiation was green and red - you could tell by the rubber band he wore on his wrist and the colors in the background

14 hours ago, KaveDweller said:

He said he was a music major, so he must have gone to nursing school after in that timeline. It actually would make more sense if he was a cop in the timeline where he married Jenny. She was pregnant and he would have needed a steady job right away. Going to the police academy has got to be faster than nursing school. Maybe that is why Jenny is only a paralegal in that timeline.....they couldn't afford law school and nursing school.

Amy's married to his best friend in the nurse timeline.

ok good so I wasn't crazy thinking that he was a music major. NYPD police academy takes six months - nursing school is a 2 year associates, but I bet it could be sped up a bit since he'd go in with the gen ed requirements done already.
 

20 minutes ago, LittleIggy said:

Cop Joe timeline: Jenny didn’t give up her baby. She introduced Lucas to Cop Joe at the reunion. She brought Lucas with her to see the planetarium. She gave up the baby in the Rocker Joe timeline. I too wondered how she could give up the baby for adoption without the birth father signing away his parental rights.

If she didn't list Joe on the birth certificate, then it might've been allowed to go through. In NY, "If the child's father is not known, or is unidentified, the father's agreement to the adoption is not required" - also "if the child's father is known, but he has not had much contact with the child, his agreement is also not required." - so it is technically legal!

[Leeds]

 

On 9/20/2021 at 9:42 PM, bros402 said:

However - I have one question: What degree did Joe do that he can be a cop, a nurse, and a rock star? He was giving off music major vibes in the opening - and you can't be a nurse or a cop with a music degree, so maybe he did a degree in nursing, then just decided to become a cop in blue timeline?

I was confused by this too, trying to work out a timeline of one choice after another.  Then I finally got my brain in gear and realised it was three concurrent stories (ie, at the same time, not consecutive or one after another).  So the premise of the show is following the hero as to which of three separate decisions immediately following graduation - police officer, nurse, or musician - not all three of them.

[Lady Calypso]

8 hours ago, nilyank said:

I honestly think one of two versions of Jenny should have aborted/miscarried the baby

I thought this was where it was going in the Rockstar Timeline when Jenny was telling Joe about how she was pregnant. But, of course, they want to bring drama with that tied to Amy having fertility issues. So of course we're getting the Joe finding Lucas/Christopher/whatever his name is in this timeline, in order to bring tension with him and Amy.

[Crs97]

I really need more of Jenny’s perspective to understand the double “I was pregnant and didn’t tell you” plotlines.  In one of them he said no to have dinner with his family.  How in the world does that make a woman decide he shouldn’t be part of her decision, especially when she decides to carry the baby to term?  I also really don’t like the idea of his family guilting him into being a police officer if he has been clear that he wants to do something else.  I’m still intrigued enough to watch, though.

[Guest]

I liked it enough to watch another episode and see if I keep liking it.

I wish the three plotlines were "more different." Like, not the same two women involved just in different capacities.

[proserpina65]

The premise is interesting, but a lot of the stories so far are pretty schmaltzy.  The acting is good enough that I'll give it another couple of weeks, but it's on borrowed time so far.

[Shanna Marie]

I had good hopes for this. I'm a sucker for "what if?" stories. Sliding Doors is one of my favorite movies. I also liked the lead from when he was in that ad agency sitcom with Robin Williams, where he sometimes managed to steal scenes from Robin Williams, which is a real accomplishment.

But it looks like it will be awfully dreary (not using those comedy skills at all, though they are using his musical talent). All the possibilities are pretty miserable. He isn't really happy in any of them. Either he got his dream but his personal life is a mess, he gave up his dream for his personal life and it's still a mess, or he gave up his dream out of obligation and he has no real personal life. At least Sliding Doors had one timeline where things were going well -- at least, up to the end. But that's one reason I like that movie. I find it reassuring that it was the difficult timeline where the timing was right for things to work out, but at least we had a fun timeline to watch up to that point so we weren't wallowing in misery through the whole thing. In this, there isn't really a possible happy outcome, unless maybe the cop gets a chance to pursue his rock star dreams and ends up getting to be a dad to his son, but he still missed out on a lot of his son's life and he'd be with someone who in the other reality apparently didn't give him a chance to pursue his dream and who, in this reality, hid the existence of his son from him when he chose to have dinner with his family after graduation instead of going out with her.

The fact that he was capable of having success with his music makes the other two timelines feel kind of sad because it seems like he was pressured to give it up for something more "certain" when he actually did have the ability to make it. And did that mean Amy was the only person in his life who really believed in him, while his family and his longtime friend/girlfriend didn't?

I can get the possibility of him becoming a cop, given his family history and the training requirements. But I can't quite wrap my head around the idea that someone with a music degree who needed to quickly be able to support a family would turn to nursing as a fallback career. It takes at least a couple of years of training before you start making money. A more likely scenario might have been him becoming a school music teacher instead of performing. Maybe there's some additional backstory we haven't seen yet. The child is special needs, so maybe he was inspired by what they experienced when the baby was born to make a career shift to nursing.

I'll give it at least one more episode because I really like the cast and I enjoy the music bits, but it may be too depressing for me to stick with.

The beginning did remind me of the guy I met at my university graduation when we had to arrive super early to go through security because we had the president as our graduation speaker, and then had to stand lined up forever. I started chatting with the guy in line behind me, and we really hit it off. I was thinking how ironic it was if I met Mr. Right at graduation when we'd been in the same college all along, though we had different majors in a big college in a massive university. Alas, when we got into the stadium to be seated, I ended up on the end of one row, with him at the beginning of the next row, so we were far apart and I didn't find him afterward, so we didn't exchange any info. Now I have to wonder what path I'd have been on if I'd found him again ...

[KaveDweller]

21 hours ago, nilyank said:

And yet single and keeping the baby who has special needs,  she made Partner.

Maybe being a single mom to a special needs baby helped her drive to succeed at work, because she needed to be the sole provider for him?

I don't know....it is really interesting to think about how small changes can have such a big impact on so many other people.

[DearEvette]

On 9/20/2021 at 11:11 PM, KaveDweller said:

However, I went to Syracuse, so I am going to have to pick apart that graduation scene. That scene was outside. The stadium at Syracuse (where they have graduation) is inside the Carrier Dome. It is one of the things the school is known for, an indoor football stadium. Also, when I graduation no one wore orange robes, even though that is the school color. The students all wore black robes. All that orange was pretty ugly looking.

LOL.  Same.  Not a single thing about the SU setting was correct -- the gowns, the dome, the quad.  Hell, not even the tassels, since the tassel color is based on your major/discipline. 

 

On 9/21/2021 at 10:05 AM, Sandman said:

I think it has potential, but what I've got so far is that heartbreak is universal. I was wondering if the show would weight one of the three possibilities heavily to hint at its being Joe's "right" future, the one where he really belongs, but I didn't have that impression -- at least not yet. I found the transitions pretty easy to follow;

For me it wasn't the color scheme so much as I was following along with Joe's hair.  Rocker Joe's hair is the super messiest, all the time.  Cop Joe is a littler neater, just a little rumpled.  Nurse Joe is the neatest of all.

One thing that I did like at the beginning was how different that first night with the hail was.  Cop Joe stopped the senator from getting shot, in Nurse Joe's TL he was shot (because obvs cop Joe wasn't there to take the shooter down,) and Rocker Joe's concert prevented the speech from happening so no shooter. So I think the show did a good job of demarcating the three timelines in addition to the color and hair cues.  But the cuts are so quick and the story jumps between the timelines so quickly they need to be careful about not getting too cute.  One thing that took me out of the story was during the reunion, Rocker Joe's "new song" was being sung in all three timelines.  I am sure we are supposed to realize that in Rocker Joe's TL it was 'in-story' music whereas in the other two it was just soundtrack/score music but in a show like this that little element confusing because my first thought was how was Rocker Joe's "new" song being sung at the other two TL reunions when he doesn't exist?

10 hours ago, deaja said:

I wish the three plotlines were "more different." Like, not the same two women involved just in different capacities.

I think my biggest con is every plot line the angst factor for Joe is high.  He seems like a sad sack in each one, except maybe the cop one where the family scenes at least look fun.

And each TL seems to center around his romance/fatherhood situation. 

It would have been nice if at least one of his lives was more lighthearted or had a different focus.  And there are probably constraints with cast etc. but it feels more plausible that his different lives would have had him meet and have different circles of people.  Sure Eric and family would be constants but it feels convenient for Amy and Jenny to be the only possible women in his lives (and in one case, Eric's life).  For a guy with three different lives, his world feels very small.

I will say so far it feels like the Cop Joe TL will be the one that has a purely romantic triangle TL.  Too bad because so far I think I like cop Joe the best. 

But the story potential for Rocker Joe is more sudsy which is up my alley.  The triangle there feels like it will be between Joe, Amy and his adopted son, not so much Jenny.    I'd be disappointed if it becomes a romantic triangle because Rocker Joe seems like he is really in love with his wife.

Nurse Joe's story is just depressing. 

[KaveDweller]

6 minutes ago, DearEvette said:

LOL.  Same.  Not a single thing about the SU setting was correct -- the gowns, the dome, the quad.  Hell, not even the tassels, since the tassel color is based on your major/discipline. 

LOL....I was going to mention the tassels being wrong too, and then I thought I had babbled on about SU enough and left it off.

[Crs97]

I also noticed that he is successful in each timeline - superstar singer, heroic cop, great nurse.  I wouldn’t have minded if he was struggling with more than his love life.  That is one of the great things in Sliding Doors.

[LittleIggy]

I liked the first episode. I just don’t trust NBC with high-concept series. Remember Timeless and Reverie?

Edited September 23, 2021 by LittleIggy

[bros402]

22 hours ago, Leeds said:

 

I was confused by this too, trying to work out a timeline of one choice after another.  Then I finally got my brain in gear and realised it was three concurrent stories (ie, at the same time, not consecutive or one after another).  So the premise of the show is following the hero as to which of three separate decisions immediately following graduation - police officer, nurse, or musician - not all three of them.

If it were the start of college, sure, he might've done different things, but I am wondering how he went from Music Major to nurse when his kid was born around 9 months later. You can't just become a nurse as a music major.

[DearEvette]

7 hours ago, bros402 said:

If it were the start of college, sure, he might've done different things, but I am wondering how he went from Music Major to nurse when his kid was born around 9 months later. You can't just become a nurse as a music major.

The show picks up 10 years after graduation. Plenty of time to go back to school for nursing and get a second degree.

The real question is why nursing?  Cop makes sense because that was a family vocation.  Musician, of course, that was his stated passion from the jump. But I don't get what path led him to nursing?

[shapeshifter]

21 minutes ago, DearEvette said:

The real question is why nursing?

I am now wondering: What kind of nurse/nursing degree? Community colleges have pretty quick LVN programs, some with paid internships --or whatever it's called when a nursing student is working in a hospital, which I recall is most of the program's second(?) year.
I think EMT programs are similar, which would have been closer to the cop career because of the emergency services component.
But IIRC, I think RVN programs are almost as lengthy as MDs?
But maybe he was going to start with the LVN with the goal being to go for an MD eventually, which he did not, which contributed to his sad-sack-state of mind (which is now a title for a song I want his alter ego to write).

Edited September 23, 2021 by shapeshifter

[Sandman]

12 hours ago, DearEvette said:

... and Rocker Joe's concert prevented the speech from happening so no shooter.

Nice catch! I didn't pick up on that.

12 hours ago, DearEvette said:

One thing that took me out of the story was during the reunion, Rocker Joe's "new song" was being sung in all three timelines.  I am sure we are supposed to realize that in Rocker Joe's TL it was 'in-story' music whereas in the other two it was just soundtrack/score music but in a show like this that little element confusing because my first thought was how was Rocker Joe's "new" song being sung at the other two TL reunions when he doesn't exist?

Maybe take this with a grain or two of salt, given my missing of the detail mentioned above, but I think the song being played in all three timelines was not Rocker Joe's new song but Sometime Around Midnight. At least I heard it a few times in the episode, and I don't think the show means to conflate the two. I could be mistaken. (Again, see above comment.)

[Shanna Marie]

4 hours ago, DearEvette said:

The real question is why nursing?  Cop makes sense because that was a family vocation.  Musician, of course, that was his stated passion from the jump. But I don't get what path led him to nursing?

That's why I'm suspecting there will be some backstory we get later to explain that leap. The child has special needs, and in the timeline where she gave him up for adoption she talked about how small he was, so there may have been a lot of time in the NICU. That experience might have made him want to get into nursing, so it might not have been a case of "oops, I've got to support a family, so I need a job instead of following my music dreams" but rather pursuing something that had become meaningful to him. He seems to have really gotten into it, to the point that it was interfering with his marriage, so it's not like it's something he had to do because of his family situation.

Really, the cop scenario seems like it would have been more likely in the "have to support a family" life. If he had to get married right out of college because a baby was on the way, so he needed a steady job with benefits, that's when the uncle would have jumped in with "I can get you in the police academy and you'll be done with training and have a job before the baby comes." In fact, that's the only way I can see him choosing to become a cop. Would one family dinner have been enough to sway him away from his dream like that if there weren't other circumstances?

It's also interesting that the mom managed to follow her dream while being a single mom, but not while married to him. Does that mean that they were actually bad for each other and shouldn't have married just because of the kid? That wouldn't bode well for a happy outcome in the cop life if they get back together after he learns about the kid, unless maybe it's like Sliding Doors and about the timing, where they're different people now and might make it work, though there's still that issue about her hiding the child from him just because he went to dinner with his family after graduation instead of going out with her.

I wonder if they'll do any flashbacks to show how he got from graduation to the 10 years later scenarios.

[bybrandy]

On 9/21/2021 at 11:27 PM, LittleIggy said:

Cop Joe timeline: Jenny didn’t give up her baby. She introduced Lucas to Cop Joe at the reunion. She brought Lucas with her to see the planetarium. She gave up the baby in the Rocker Joe timeline. I too wondered how she could give up the baby for adoption without the birth father signing away his parental rights.

She just says she doesn't know the birth father?

I wonder why she had more money/support in the cop timeline and wonder if maybe Uncle Joe who is so set on his nephew not being derailed on his rise to a powerful position in the police force might not have maybe given the mom money to help support Lucas.   It is a gross story but I can understand why she doesn't tell rockstar guy he's a dad because he's involved with somebody else and she doesn't feel like she can single mom but why wouldn't she tell single cop guy?   So I think maybe she tried and his family got in the way.
 

[DearEvette]

32 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

That's why I'm suspecting there will be some backstory we get later to explain that leap. The child has special needs, and in the timeline where she gave him up for adoption she talked about how small he was, so there may have been a lot of time in the NICU. That experience might have made him want to get into nursing, so it might not have been a case of "oops, I've got to support a family, so I need a job instead of following my music dreams" but rather pursuing something that had become meaningful to him. He seems to have really gotten into it, to the point that it was interfering with his marriage, so it's not like it's something he had to do because of his family situation.

Really, the cop scenario seems like it would have been more likely in the "have to support a family" life. If he had to get married right out of college because a baby was on the way, so he needed a steady job with benefits, that's when the uncle would have jumped in with "I can get you in the police academy and you'll be done with training and have a job before the baby comes." In fact, that's the only way I can see him choosing to become a cop. Would one family dinner have been enough to sway him away from his dream like that if there weren't other circumstances?

 

Right.  Now that I am thinking of it... Cop Joe would have made more sense with Nurse Joe's life.  He found out Amy was pregnant, they got married and he went into the academy to become a cop a the quickest way to make money, they get married and are now unhappy.

I know the conceit is that going to his family's house after graduation is what made him pick cop and choosing to go to the lake with Amy i where he learned she was pregnant.  But it could have just have easily worked out the other way around.  Going to the lake where he learned she was pregnant made he realize he needed to man up fast and get a job and put his music aside.  Whereas going home with the fam and getting the hard push to become a cop had the opposite effect and made him dig in his heels to do anything BUT become a cop.  And in this timeline he is single still because he didn't meet with either girl and the profession could have been anything.  Even a series of failed starts and stops.

19 minutes ago, bybrandy said:

 wonder why she had more money/support in the cop timeline and wonder if maybe Uncle Joe who is so set on his nephew not being derailed on his rise to a powerful position in the police force might not have maybe given the mom money to help support Lucas.   It is a gross story but I can understand why she doesn't tell rockstar guy he's a dad because he's involved with somebody else and she doesn't feel like she can single mom but why wouldn't she tell single cop guy?   So I think maybe she tried and his family got in the way.
 

I admit the stories moved so quickly I may have missed something, but I figured Amy came from money.  at the beginning she said her parents got her a place on the shore for the weekend.  So money may not have been an issue for her.

Edited September 23, 2021 by DearEvette

[Sandman]

13 hours ago, Crs97 said:

I also noticed that he is successful in each timeline - superstar singer, heroic cop, great nurse.  I wouldn’t have minded if he was struggling with more than his love life.  That is one of the great things in Sliding Doors.

I think Joe is shown consistently as driven, but I wouldn't say he's equally successful in each timeline: he does act bravely as a cop, but the heroism seemed to arise out of timing, rather than skill -- he was in the right place, at the right moment to save the senator. And Nurse Joe seems to be a hard worker, but not especially gifted or successful. (If the show is weighting the storylines to suggest one is more "real" than the others, it might be Rocker Joe's red-hued storyline -- where his passion and talent align -- that hints at this, for me.)

[AzraeltheCat]

13 hours ago, DearEvette said:

I think my biggest con is every plot line the angst factor for Joe is high.  He seems like a sad sack in each one, except maybe the cop one where the family scenes at least look fun.

ugg, I did not like the family dinner scene.  Nothing wrong with being close with family and probably typical for family to ask about marriage but NO, mom [Joe's mom said something like "that's what people in their 30s do" re marriage/kids] not everyone in their 30s gets married/has kids or wants to --guess which camp I fall into? 😆   Also, even if you want those things, they don't happen instantaneously.  You have to find the right partner and even then it may not happen [See, e.g., Rocker Joe and Amy's miscarriages].  He seems the most "stuck" in this timeline - became a cop because of family pressure (an assumption), hangs out with his mom/uncle/best friend from elementary school on a Friday night... I hope he doesn't still live in his childhood home! 

 

13 hours ago, DearEvette said:

For me it wasn't the color scheme so much as I was following along with Joe's hair.  Rocker Joe's hair is the super messiest, all the time.  Cop Joe is a littler neater, just a little rumpled.  Nurse Joe is the neatest of all.

 Also, I think Nurse Joe is the only one that wears glasses. 

On 9/21/2021 at 7:32 PM, Cloud9Shopper said:

I think he’s supposed to be a doctor because he mentions clamping an aorta. A nurse wouldn’t do that, as far as I know. I’d imagine he took post-bacc classes or something but this isn’t my field (I got my medical knowledge from ER and Google) so maybe someone else has insight. 

This! And not only is he clamping the aorta, he seemed to running the trauma. I was sure he was going to be a medical resident but the convo with his son sure sounded like he was a nurse. 

 

Interesting premise, shaky execution.  I liked Rocker Joe in the beginning - musical dreams realized; seemed to be down-to-earth and a loving husband; still friends with someone from pre-fame days.... and then sorta out of nowhere he acts jerky -  like he doesn't want to be with wife anymore if she ain't birthing him some babies STAT and not being at all supportive about her career.  Also, really don't like that Jenny didn't tell him of pregnancy during two timelines.  They were supposed to be these super best friends with benefits but he missed one night with her and she doesn't tell him? Call him or see him the day after graduation to tell him? Makes me not like her but maybe we'll get more explanation. 

[karenc3]

I think this is an interesting premise for a show, with the 3 timelines.   I did find it a bit confusing the way it went back and forth between the timelines.  I think it might have been better for me if they focused on one at a time for a segment of the show, to introduce the characters and relationships in each timeline.  I thought it was interesting though that they used the hailstorm to seemingly signify the same day.    I'll probably keep watching it.