By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
photo copyright 20th century Fox
I was recently made aware of just how many movies and television shows the younger generation have never heard of, never mind seen. So to that end, we look back at some characters you really need to see before you kick the bucket.
Long before he was Dracula in Blade Trinity, Lincoln Burrows in Prison Break, fire starter Mick in Legends of Tomorrow, Dominic Purcell portrayed a fascinating and endearing character known only as John Doe.
It ran for one season and like many other good shows was cut off in its prime and left us dangling forever on an unresolved cliffhanger. It ran for twenty one episodes and has a cult status to this day. All the episodes can be viewed on YouTube but I saw it on the television in 2003. As well as Purcell, it starred William Forsythe as Doe’s friend and bar owner Digger, John Marshall Jones as Detective Frank Hayes, Jayne Brook as Frank’s boss Jamie Avery and Sprague Grayden as Karen Kowalski.
The pilot episode lays it out. John wakes up naked on an island off the coast of Seattle. He falls into the ocean and is rescued by a fishing boat. It is a beautifully shot opening in black and white and colour. We quickly learn that John can only see the world in black and white, can speak any language and knows everything…except the most basic things like his name, where he comes from and does he like spicy food. He doesn’t know what his fashion sense is but knows there are 363 dimples on a golf ball. All he can do is speculate and then discovers he can predict every at a race track using mathematics and physics. He quickly runs up a small fortune buying a car and renting an apartment so he can have a base of sorts to figure out his past by running a think tank. He has a Celtic design branded on his chest but he has no idea what it is or how he got it.
Every episode opening after that used the voiceover that said,
I woke up in an island off the coast of Seattle. I didn’t know how I got there….or who I was. But I did seem to know everything else. There were things about me I didn’t understand…..the brand, being colorblind and extreme claustrophobia. And while my gifts provided answers for others, I still search for my own. My name is John Doe.
Drawn to a bar, he plays Funny Valentine on a piano earning him a regular slot from Digger. However the case of a kidnapped child sends him to the police when he sees her photo in colour. Figuring it has to be significant he convinces Frank to let him help against the advice of his boss Jamie Avery. When John is able to tell him details that no one knows Frank thinks he is a clairvoyant but accepts his help. What seems to be a random kidnap case turns out to be a father dying of cancer, who faked his death two years previously, spending some time with his daughter before he dies. But in a final twist John hears a woman calling and waving to him from a ferry boat calling him Tommy. And he can see her in colour. He learns that her name is Theresa. This ability would come in handy to steer him in the right direction many times.
But John would not just use his abilities to help break cases, he would become a strong loyal friend to Frank, Jamie and Digger. He would help Frank through his divorce and appeal for access to his children. He and Digger would go undercover to a mental help unit after a friend of Digger’s is murdered. Digger it seems is hiding more than a few secrets. When Karen was murdered, John discovers that there is an organisation tracking him which is also tied to Digger’s murdered friend. They discover the unit is being used as a front to run illegal experiments on patients to test their psychic abilities as a group for remote viewing. Rescuing a remote viewer Michael who is blind they learn about what is going on. But Phoenix burn the hospital down and Michael is seemingly killed.
They would create a fake life for him to keep him off track where his parent’s best friends have all the answers he needs. But when he finds it is all a lie, John realises that he is somehow central to their operations.
But they are not the only ones that John’s abilities have caught the attention of . When he finds out a man who was fished naked out of the water like him, John goes to the hospital to see him. The man seems to recognise him. John them meets a doctor that offers to show him the answers to what happened to him. John goes along with it but finds himself on a boat where the doctor is harvesting organs for the black market. A woman and her kid also arrive on his doorstep claiming that he fathered her child via a sperm bank. It teases John into wanting answers even more as he warms to the idea of being a father. But it ends up that it is a think tank of geniuses, one of which is really the boy’s father.
In the two part episode The Mourner, John does an appeal on an Unsolved Mysteries type show asking if anyone knows him or help him trace any family. However the serial killer the Mourner becomes obsessed with him. He sets him challenges and his abilities like using his colourblindness against him or a gas bomb will detonate in a club. He pushes John to the limits with every test. The Mourner is his deadliest foe putting him in situations where the information overload brings too many variables throwing John into making the wrong decisions. The Mourner was played by X Files monster Eugene Tombs himself Doug Hutchison. The only way to defeat him and save the kidnapped Avery was for John to fake his own death to lure him out.
Karen is kidnapped and they end up back on the island John woke up on, Horseshoe Island. He also finds Theresa’s burnt driver’s license as they try to cover up their tracks. It makes him wake up to the fact that he is dealing with dangerous people whom he discovers is called the Phoenix Group. They are killing people just so they can perfect the remote viewing experiments as a weapon. Everyone connected to him is now a target and the fact they know all about him is unsettling as there could be family members he isn’t even aware of in danger too. John is taken by a branch of the NSA who want to take down Phoenix.
They have two prominent operatives, a female Yellow Teeth and the Trenchcoat man who communicates via sign language especially with their mysterious leader, Stocking Cap. They murder Karen leaving John in a pit of despair and rage. Yellow Teeth’s dying words are that Phoenix will watch him night and day until they find the staff. Then they will come for him so he can complete his destiny and theirs because he is the Phoenix.
In the season finale they get their chance to strike at Phoenix. John is suffering from painful psychic visions which is Michael and Theresa projecting into his mind to help locate them. Together with the discovery of a partially corroded man’s body, it leads John to the new Phoenix base. They capture the Trenchcoat Man who they think is deaf but is in fact fully verbal. He and John face off. John, the NSA, Frank, Avery and the police force storm the cannery where they are hiding.
Trenchcoat Man arrives too late to stop them but murders Michael before Stocking Man takes Theresa. The two remote viewers have just given him the last piece of the puzzle; a drawing of the Vatican. John pursues them and manages to save her while Stocking Man escapes up a ladder. However his cap falls off and John finds himself staring into the face of the mysterious head of the Phoenix Group; Digger.
So another great cliffhanger of a cancelled series. However this time I have a reveal of what was to come in the second season. It would be revealed that the Phoenix Group believed that John was the new Messiah. They were in fact protecting him from a second group out to kill him. The staff would have been the staff of Moses. Stocking Man would have had plastic surgery to look like Digger presumably to give John a face he trusts when he completed his destiny. His Celtic scar would just be the result of a boating accident and the reason he knew everything was that he died, ascended into the plane of existence where everything is known before reviving back on Earth.
The run of episodes were very strong with John seeking answers to his past. The show was favourably received getting 72% on Rotten tomatoes. Critics like the performances, especially Dominic Purcell, enjoying the slick production and strong stories. So when Fox cancelled it due to “dwindling ratings” it was a loss. If ever there was an example of the stupidity of network bosses who are not really in touch with their audiences then John Doe was it.
The Time Warriors and Beyond 