A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon what I thought was a new scifi series on the manly-man channel, SPIKE. It turns out to be a rather older scifi series called, 7 Days, that ran from 1998-2001 on UPN (now known as the CW). Which makes sense to be me now, as to why I never heard of the series, much less watched. At that time, I was knee deep with a successful online store (don't ask), and pretty darn busy. But more than that, my DirecTV service, at the time, did not have a UPN station for us.

It wasn't until Smallville and Enterprise began their series (fall of 2001) that I broke out an old rabbit eared TV in our detached garage, strung up some wire from window to window, and desperately tried to watch the two shows with my stepson through what little reception we could obtain, locally. Talk about being dedication to scifi, we watched the two hours of new shows standing up (The garage was quite a mess).

7 Days stars Jonathan LaPaglia (yes, Anthony's lil brother) as Lt. Frank Parker, a former Navy Seal/CIA op recruited from a government mental ward to travel back in time, thwarting disastrous events ... terrorist attacks, stray nuke explosions, deadly viruses, etc.

How does he do it? I am glad you asked ... it appears that Area 51 does indeed keep the bodies and wreckage of alien visitors. And has been working to adapt alien technologies. In this case, a sphere that can transport one human being back in time seven days. Why only seven days, you ask? Good question, and the same one I had when I started to watch this series. Unfortunately, I began with an episode from the third and final season called, Olga's Excellent Vacation (Olga gets naked, an unexpected bonus). It wasn't until SPIKE rolled the series over from the beginning (many thanks!) this past week, that I was able to get that answer from the two-part pilot. Simply put, it has to do with a limited power source, so seven days is all they get to turn back time and save lives.

Overseen by the NSA, and kept secret from even The President, Project: Backstep consists of a team of government officials, the military and scientists.

• Lt. Frank Parker, the chrononaut - Jonathan LaPaglia (Moonlight, Gryphon)
• Dr. Olga Vukavitch, former Russian scientist hottie - Justina Vail (Conan, Highlander: The Series, Carnosaur 3: Primal Species, The X-Files, 1993 TV version of Journey to the Center of the Earth)
• Dr. Bradley Talmadge, the head of Project: Backstep - Alan Scarfe (Babylon 5: The Lost Tales, Andromeda, Earthsea, Stargate: Atlantis, Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital, Mysterious Island)
• Capt. Craig Donovan, Frank's friend and chrononaut wannabe - Don Franklin (Journeyman, Day Break, and SeaQuest DSV)
• Nathan Ramsey, Frank's nemesis gov reb - Nick Searcy (played Deke Slayton in the amazing HBO mini-series From the Earth to the Moon, American Gothic)
• Dr. Isaac Mentor, head scientist - Norman Lloyd (actor, producer, director spanning decades ... can anyone say Alfred Hitchcock Presents?)
• Dr. John Ballard, goofy scientist - the late Sam Whipple (Special Unit 2, Dark Skies, Space Rangers)

When radical Russian terrorists fly a bomb filled place into the White House, killing both the President and Vice President, then use a surface-to-air missile to kill the Speaker of the House, THEN release a deadly gas killing grade school students ... the team scrambles to finish the device, and find a suitable pilot. Why not recruit from a government funny farm? The only requirements are a high threshold for pain, and be expendable. How about an ex-Seal who was captured and tortured in Somalia, and went a little nuts. Parker also has a photographic memory, which makes him a prime candidate to sending back exact information needed to prevent past catastrophes. Why would they believe some nut who claims to be from the past? Glad you asked ... a simple code word is used to alert the team at Project: Backstep ...

Conundrum

I can't find the series on DVD (grrr, I want this one for my collection), so you'll have to do what I do ... tune in Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights at midnight (or set your DVR like me) on the SPIKE channel.