Chuck and Journeyman -- Yay or Nay?

Well, Chuck is up first, and I had high hopes for this show thanks to the presence of Adam Baldwin (who is not one of the Baldwin brothers), who played Jayne on Firefly.  The premise was pretty silly -- guy gets the contents of some giant government computer downloaded into his brain through email thanks to his old college roommate -- but the show is actually surprisingly endearing.  The chemistry between the three leads is pretty good, the two plots so far have actually been interesting and kept me guessing, and the supporting cast isn't too bad (even the "low-rent Seth Green" playing his best friend, as someone on RPGnet called him).  There's been a few good twists, such as the doctor's faked death and doublecross this week, and Adam Baldwin is doing quite well at his comedic tough guy role.  I hope that the show can keep it up and stay on; ratings-wise, it sounds like its very much on the bubble.

Journeyman also sounds like it's on the bubble, and I admit at first blush, I labelled this as Quantum Leap with more angst, and didn't think it was going to be that good.  The first episode had an issue because it didn't seem to have much in the way of grounding -- unlike Quantum Leap, where the interplay between Sam and Al provided something to build on and gave the audience a frame of reference, Journeyman didn't really seem to have that.  However, with the second episode, the expansion of the role of Livia, the main character's ex-fiance who also seems to be jumping around in time with him (and is apparently dead as a result of a plane crash in the present) seems to have added some of that same dynamic.  However, it seems like the show is dwelling an awful lot on his problems in the present and not really doing a whole lot with the time travel itself, which makes the premise seem a little gimmicky.  Still, while it's not as enthusiastic a yay as with Chuck, I think I'm going to give this show a bit longer to see if they do anything with the metaplot and deal more with the time travel than the modern day angst.