Seven Days
(1998-2001)
Aired on CBS.
Created by Christopher and Zachary Crowe.
Starring Jonathan LaPaglia, Justina Vail, Don Franklin, Alan Scarfe, Nick Searcy, Sam Whipple, Norman Lloyd, Kevin Christy
Rating: ******
5/6
“We have built a machine,”
This we see on our screen,
“That will send
One man
Back in time
Seven Days.”
These are the first words we hear in the intro
Of a show called Seven Days.
It was an action sci-fi drama
With suspenseful and thrilling ways.
Frank Parker being tortured.
Its starts out in a hospital.
Of the Psychiatric kind,
That took injured military personnel
And tried to fix their minds.
A man named Frank Parker
Was one such mental case.
He had been through terrible, traumatic times,
And was thus sent to this place,
Bradley Talmadge, their leader.
But despite a soldier’s problems,
He is still owned by the State,
So when the NSA comes to give him tests,
They forever alter his fate.
They hook him up to a battery,
And make him write a test.
They shock him continuously throughout,
And laugh when he tries to protest.
Ramsey, Chief of Security.
They come to realize, however,
That Frank’s a stubborn guy.
He aces his test nonetheless,
And then punches the torturer guy.
Now let’s look at the facts
That we know about Frank.
He’s a soldier with mental problems,
But can concentrate while being yanked.
Donovan, the understudy.
Now let’s go back in time a few days
To a Top Secret government base.
We see a team of people jump in surprise
When a phone call stops them in place.
This isn’t just any call, we find out.
It’s one that should not have been made,
Because the person making that call
Had neither been found nor trained.
The Top Secret Sphere of Project Backstep.
They send out a unit to pick up the man
At the other end of the phone.
They bring a complete stranger into the base,
One who was out in the desert alone.
They meet Frank Parker for the very first time.
He’s a man that none of them had met.
He looks around at familiar faces,
And remembers when they had all met.
Olga and Frank.
He says he was sent from the future
To stop a terrorist attack.
He says that he had received his training here,
And that it felt good to be back.
The team is confused, surprised and shocked,
For they had not been quite ready for this.
They were in the process of finding a new chrononaut.
They were a little behind as it is.
Something must have happened of such urgency
That they had found, trained and sent a man back.
It must have been a big emergency
To rush like this. That’s a fact.
Once he begins talking, they become more alarmed
When they learn of the full situation.
They decide to believe every word that he says
For the safety of the whole nation.
The second episode in, and Ramsey’s already committing treason. Backstep time!
They give him assistance and he goes off to kill
The mad lunatics who will do this.
He shoots the two innocent men in the face.
He’s the only man who knows they did do this.
Thus does Frank start his adventures.
Now he’s on a long and dangerous path.
He’ll see the bizarre and unthinkable,
And he’ll try not to cry and to laugh.
Frank gets an ouchie in the line of duty.
He has to tell his team everything,
But some events are so weird
That he’ll keep a few things to himself,
Things that get undone when he disappears.
Bradley is the leader of their team.
He decides whether to send Frank back.
Olga is their medical doctor.
She tries to keep Mr. Parker on track.
Ramsey is their security chief.
He does not fully trust Frank at all.
Dr. Ballard is the lead scientist.
He cannot walk, so he’ll roll.
Isaac and Owlsey are scientists, too,
And later replace Dr. Ballard,
Whose Character moves to an island,
Right after with money he’s showered.
Dr. Einstein…er, Jughead…er, Ballard.
Captain Donovan is the comic relief,
As Frank Parker’s understudy.
He never gets to go back in time,
So all he can do is study.
Two solid seasons were made of this show,
With the third one not quite as strong,
But for a show about going back in time every week,
It was right more often than wrong.
He stops terrorist acts, reverses the Plague,
And sometimes stops World War III.
Frank often stops his friends from their treasonous acts,
And brings them back to life for free.
People would tune in to this show all the time,
And relish Frank saving the dames.
Then one day the World Trade Center fell,
And the world was no longer the same.
The writers chose to ignore that event
And carry on like before.
The NSA team and their chrononaut pal
Fixed the world like it was an easy chore.
It was good while it lasted. I’m not going to whine.
It could have kept going forever.
They shut it down at the perfect time,
And went onto other adventures.
Jonathan LaPaglia, the star of the show,
Would later guest star on NCIS.
Most of the others are working still.
I give this a five out of six.
An important meeting.
.
.
.
.
.
Yes, I know this isn’t
A way for you to watch this show,
But until it comes out on video,
The music is the way to go.
Seven Days: Original Music From The Television Series
