Johnny Smith had the perfect small-town life. He loved his job as a high school science teacher almost as much as he loved his widowed mother Vera and his fiancée Sarah. But his life was put on hold for six years after a nearly fatal car crash. The crash caused him to slip into a coma and when he finally awakens from it, he finds that everything in his life has changed. He also discovers that he has developed a psychic ability to see into the lives of others. Johnny must learn to adapt to his drastically changed life after being asleep for six years, while also learning to use his new psychic abilities.
After last episode's horrifying vision of nurse Allison being buried, Johnny asks Bruce for help in trying to stop her murder. Johnny makes an odd report at the sheriff's office, explaining what he saw in his vision. He gets some help from Sarah's husband Walt, although Walt doesn't think too fondly of Johnny and is skeptical of his abilities. Johnny has another vision of the killer while touching a piece of evidence, but when Allison turns up alive and well, Johnny must find out what his visions really meant.
Johnny goes back to the school he used to teach at, but must settle with being a substitute teacher and physical education teacher. He has a vision of Todd, a star hockey player, and fears that Todd's health might be in danger. Johnny takes measures to keep Todd safe, but his actions are frowned upon by Todd's family and the school when signs point towards a clean bill of health for Todd. Now Johnny must decide if he should trust his visions and further protect Todd, or if he should just let Todd be.
Johnny gets a new exercise partner for his therapy, an elderly man named Arthur Allen. Arthur tells Johnny that he thinks he saw the love of his life, who he hasn't seen for over 50 years, while getting into a taxi recently. Johnny has a vision of Arthur's experience, and sets off on a quest to find Arthur's lost love, going to great lengths to find her and reunite her with Arthur.
Johnny is summoned to jury duty on a murder trial that involves a street ganger who murdered a store owner. Johnny starts to get visions which lead him to believe the accused is innocent. He is the only not-guilty vote initially and manages to convince the jury over as he looks for evidence that supports his visions. Finding the necessary evidence and using his psychic insights of the past lives of some of the jurors, he eventually manages to sway them over to his side.
Johnny moves into his new house and starts having visions of a tub filled with blood. He also sees visions of his dead mother, and comes to believe that Rev. Purdy killed his mother. The facts seem to suggest that Purdy did indeed engage in a cover-up concerning the death of Johnny's mother. In a final confrontation Johnny touches Purdy and gains a vision of Purdy finding Johnny's mother dead by suicide. Realizing what the death of a child can drive a parent to do, he goes to the aid of a local neighbor girl whose brother died on a military mission and whose mother is preparing to kill herself.
While helping to track down a runaway, Jill, who is involved with drugs, Johnny is exposed to a drug that causes him to start getting weird (weirder than usual) visions. He insists on trying to find Jill, despite the concerns of Bruce and Sarah. Confusing matters further is that Jill's boyfriend is in trouble with his supplier. The boyfriend gets killed and Jill and Johnny go on the run. In the final showdown, Johnny manages to fight past his hallucinations and knock the drug dealer off a high ledge, while Jill is reunited with her mother.
The line between fantasy and reality blurs for Johnny when he awakens to find himself married to Sarah and is the father of her two children. It's as if the accident that drove him into a coma never occurred, and only he remembers it. As he proceeds through his new life, Johnny starts to see a series of disturbing images of people, starting at a mall during an art festival, hideously burned and images of fire trucks and fires. Then during his now-living mother's party he paases out with a brief vision of being back in a coma. He wakes up in a mall with Bruce back in his normal life, having passed out. He realizes the art festival is about to have a major bomb explosion as he keeps fuguring between his different "lives". In his "dream life" he tries to convince everyone to search the mall for a bomb but he sees the mall go up in flames because of an arc-welding accident...and wakes up again back in his "real life" and sees the same accident about to happen. He stops it just in time...leaving him to wonder about the life that might have been.
Conrad Hurley, a disgruntled electrician fired by the town council, goes into the bank with a shotgun and a revolver, tries to rob it, and takes everyone present (including Sara) hostage. Waiting outside for Sara, Johnny gets a vision of a future massacre and goes in to try to alter the future he perceives. Guided by his visions and scrambling wildly to adapt to the altering futures he keeps seeing in which he dies, Sara dies, Conrad dies, and/or everyone dies each time he changes something, Johnny soon becomes Conrad's unlikely ally. Finally Johnny manages to earn Conrad's trust and manage to talk him into releasing the hostages and giving himself up.
Johnny and Bruce drive into the small town of Hobb's Landing where Johnny gets a vision of himself being burned at the stake. He goes to the police and has a vision of the murder of a local girl. The police hold him on charges of witchcraft on which he sent to trial. Bruce calls Dana who comes to help out. While testifying to his abilities Johnny gains a vision of the girl still alive and on a boat. Johnny is cleared of the charges but the townspeople form a mob to burn him. Dana and the town sheriff find the girl, who killed her crazy mother when she was doing some kind of satanic ritual and whose father hid her away. Johnny is rescued just in time.
Johnny agrees to a date and dinner with Dana Bright in return for her doing an interview. His powers kick into overdrive, as he keeps getting visions of everyone he knows giving him dating advice. The date goes well despite even more visions of Dana with various men in her life, including Max Cassidy, a photographer and jealous lover. Johnny is also plagued by a vision of bright lights. Eventually they end up in bed where Johnny has even more visions of his friends and mother and Rev. Purdy...which make it a bit difficult to *ahem* perform. Afterwards they part on somewhat melancholy terms, but Johnny puts together the visions and realizes the bright lights are the car headlights of Cassidy, who has been drinking and plans to kill Dana in a jealous rage. Johnny calls the police who show up to stop Cassidy just in time.
While travelling out in the wilderness with Bruce, Johnny is plagued by visions of a meteor hitting a mountain and people vanishing. He's unable to direct an astronomer to find the meteorite so he goes out into the wilderness and injures his leg. Taking refuge in a cave, Johnny picks up an antler fragment and has a vision of an injured Indian shaman in the past...who can see Johnny as well! They soon establish a rough communication - the shaman also suffered a head injury that gave him a "dead zone". Johnny realizes the shaman will die during a meteorite strike and the people he saw vanishing are the man's descendents - Johnny manages to warn him to get him and his community clear of the blast radius in the past, and helps Johnny hold out long enough for Walt's rescue party to find him.
In the past Johnny Smith as a child and Greg Stilson, the son of a Bible salesman, briefly meet and Johnny has a future vision of danger. In the present Johnny has a vision of a restaurant graduation party tragedy and warns his employer, the father of a student. Stilson, now a Senatorial candidate being backed by Rev. Purdy, comes to town after the tragedy and Johnny gets visions of catastrophe in Stilson's wake. Johnny and Sara get together while in flashback we see how Stilson has been a total bastard all of his life, and that Johnny came out of his coma just as Stilson was sworn in as state representative. When they meet at a rally Johnny shakes Stilson's hand and sees him as the source of catastrophe - Washington D.C. devastated by a nuclear holocaust.
Johnny is still shaken by his Armageddon visions and growing increasingly obsessed with Stillson, whom he's secretly investigating. But another mystery draws him back into the public eye: a test of Johnny's powers by an adversary who is as obsessed with him as Johnny is with Stillson.
Johnny struggles to rescue four teens trapped in a collapsing mine, all while reliving - and in some way trying to redeem - sins from his family's past. Part One of Two.
An unexpected incident leads Johnny to a profound new understanding of Walt. Part Two of Two.
Johnny challenges a pharmaceutical company when his visions reveal the dangers of a new drug.
When Johnny is injured and infused with a blood product stemming from six different people, he begins having visions through the donors' eyes and learns one of them will die unless he intervenes.
Johnny's decision to join the reelection campaign of Stillson's chief opponent, Harrison Fisher, has unintended consequences.
Johnny is kidnapped by three young women who demand his help in solving a murder mystery from the past.
On a flight to Washington with Purdy, Johnny is hit with a vision of their plane crashing.
A terrifying vision leads to Johnny's involvement with a man who suddenly disappears.
The vision of a hit on crime boss Cathan Donnegal leads to Johnny's involvement with the mob.
When Johnny is reunited with two close friends from high school, one of whom is awaiting a heart transplant, he is tormented by a vision of the other becoming the donor.
The death of Bruce's father, Pastor David Lewis leads Bruce on an amazing journey down the "road not taken."
When Johnny is caught in a deadly storm, he is forced to come to terms with his own destiny in order to save those he loves.
When J.J. falls prey to a deadly new virus sweeping across the Northeast, Johnny must use his powers to solve a medical mystery in time to save his son's life.
Johnny meets a beautiful woman in danger and is reminded again of the potentially dire consequences of even the smallest of choices.
A covert branch of U.S. intelligence recruits Johnny to track down the world's most wanted terrorist.
On a camping trip together, Johnny, Sarah, Walt, and J.J. are taken hostage by thieves after Johnny is struck by a vision of a lost plane crash.
Johnny goes public with his vision of a heavyweight contender dying in an upcoming bout, but instead of stopping the fight, his announcement turns it into the pay-per-view event of the year.
Johnny sets out to discover the secret of a mysterious man who appears to be stalking him, but who actually has a life-changing message for Johnny.
Johnny becomes the prime suspect in a case he's desperately trying to solve and is confronted by the victim's sister, who clamors for his arrest.
Following his arrest for the murder of a young volunteer for the Stillson campaign, Johnny persuades the victim's sister to help him find the real killer.
Rebecca helps Johnny endure agonizing visions of his terrible car accident years earlier, which are triggered by his efforts to rescue a missing girl.
Jack Jericho is an obnoxious radio personality who loves to harrass Johnny Smith on the air. But Johnny must become the guy's new best friend when he sees that the DJ has a death wish prompted by the guilt over his son's accidental death.
Johnny and a rebellious young woman with a strange gift for numbers team up to expose the use of a total information awareness system for domestic surveillance.
Walt reluctantly accepts Johnny’s help when a crime from the past comes back to haunt him.
Johnny fights to prevent identical twin law students from using him and his visions to commit the perfect murder.
Johnny has a vision of himself interrupting a wedding, and becomes involved to determine why the marriage should or shouldn't be stopped, while dealing with the repercussions of Sarah's decision to abandon him and marry Walt.
When Johnny has visions of a school shooting, the principal focuses on a particularly outspoken student as the likeliest culprit as Johnny struggles to confirm the identity of the shooter.
A series of wild and domestic animal attacks lay at the heart of a mystery that Johnny must solve before the entire town is destroyed.
Johnny must unravel a series of future visions of himself killing a man in revenge for the death of someone close to him.
The continuing strain of visions takes its toll on Johnny while he and Rebecca try to bring Stillson to justice for Rachel's murder, and Reverend Purdy confesses his sins.
Johnny is forced to try and save Greg Stillson...by stopping Rachel Caldwell from making a fatal mistake, even though it may cause nuclear armageddon.
When a friend of Sara's goes missing, Johnny becomes involved trying to find her twisted abductor...before he kills the missing woman.
Johnny meets a young woman who claims to have her own type of psychic abilities, which puts his ability to alter fate to the test.
Johnny finds a mysterious painting on his doorstep one day with a note attached to it asking for his help. Bruce encourages Johnny to embark on a quest to discover the secrets of the reclusive artist to whom the mysterious painting belongs. Bruce's interest in the artist, along with a disturbing vision Johnny got when he touched the painting, convince Johnny to look into the reclusive life of the once-famous artist.
Johnny answers his doorbell to find an autistic boy waiting outside, looking for Johnny's help in saving his father who is awaiting execution. Johnny has a tough time helping the boy and has a lot of trouble getting through to him. The visions Johnny gets from the boy are a start, but he needs Bruce and Walt's help in order to find the boy's father and even more help to clear the boy's father's name before he is executed.
Johnny and Sarah head off to New York City in search of the long-dead rock and roll legend Roy Foldes after Johnny gets a vision that convinces him that he's still alive. Their trail leads Johnny down a path where he has visions of himself embodying Foldes and reliving the final days leading up to his mysterious disappearance.
Johnny and Bruce rescue an infant from a van in a flooded stream, but are unable to rescue his mother. Johnny has troubling visions of the infant's travels between foster parents and his untimely death, making him determined to prevent the visions from coming true. Johnny convinces Walt to temporarily not mention the baby to the police, finding himself in a race against time to find the baby's father so the child's future can be changed for the better.
When Johnny touches a former science student and sees Armageddon, he sets out to find how this student - now a gifted researcher for a biomedical company - could be working on something that's connected to a weapon. The truth puts Johnny and his prized protégé in the crossfire between Greg Stillson and destiny.
Johnny visits a noted local psychiatrist to seek treatment for his persistent nightmares. After his first session on the couch triggers a cryptic vision of an impending homicide, he is thrust into an investigation that will not only reveal the murderer's identity, but will ultimately uncover a family secret buried in the deepest, darkest regions of his subconscious.
Johnny tags along with Sarah on a visit to a Cleaves Mills retirement community where Sarah's father has recently moved to. While at the retirement community, Johnny has a disturbing vision which makes him suspect something strange is going on there. He finds that the residents are dying at an unusually high rate, and that there are whispers among the old folks about a Shadow Man who has been creeping around the hallways in the middle of the night and snatching people's souls. Johnny must find out what this Shadow Man truly is before it can claim any more victims, including Sarah's father's. Also, Sarah worries that her father will die before they can settle their differences, and JJ connects with his grandpa in a profound way.
Johnny has a vision of Stillson begging him for help with finding his girlfriend, and when his vision comes true, he must decide whether it's really worth it or not to help out his enemy. Johnny's decision is further complicated by another vision in which he sees a better future which may be the result of him refusing to help Stillson.
Female psychic Alex Sinclair visits Johnny during Christmas and the two team up to solve the mystery behind a lost Santa. However, Alex and Johnny have different visions of the Santa's life, making them wonder who this man really is. As their search progresses, they become involved with three street kids who come to Johnny's for the best Christmas in a long time.
In the fifth season premiere, Johnny frantically tries to stop the wedding between Miranda and Greg Stillson, convinced that Miranda is making a huge mistake by marrying him and that she is in terrible danger. Meanwhile, powerful undercover forces cause a political crisis, which aid Stillson in becoming closer to his position in the White House.
Johnny and Bruce are on their way to a 4th of July outing along the coast when they get caught in a stretch of highway that has been shut down. Johnny meets an eccentric couple and finds out from a vision that the woman is about to have a baby. While Johnny races to save the woman's child, he also has recurring visions of a huge car accident and must figure out how the accident occurred so he can save dozens of innocent people.
While making little Johnny clean the attic, Johnny hears someone ringing his doorbell. He's surprised to see a young man at the door seeking his help, and through visions Johnny finds that the young man, Randy, is in the witness protection program and is on the run from killers who have just killed his father. Johnny gets some help from visions he has of his father as a young child, but will this be enough to save Randy from the killers while protecting little Johnny and saving his own life?
Johnny investigates an apparent hate crime, which leads to the voluntary "confession" and arrest of a former neo-Nazi's son. Soon after, Johnny has visions that convince him that the young man isn't responsible for the crime and sets out to find out who the real culprit is.
Johnny takes the place of a thief in a crew of robbers, hoping to save their lives after seeing a vision of a violent robbery gone wrong. Johnny is drawn deeper and deeper into the robbery and is forced to open a high-security vault while maintaining his false identity. Left with little choice, Johnny fears that the only way to keep innocent people safe may be to let the crew get away with their robbery.
Johnny happens to encounter a man named Boyd, which causes Boyd to play winning lotto numbers. A year later Boyd's life has been completely ruined and he's convinced that it's all Johnny's fault. Boyd pays Johnny a visit at his house and holds him at gunpoint, wanting Johnny to make everything better again. Johnny must now save his own life, along with saving Boyd's life too, as Johnny later on has visions of Boyd being killed.
When Johnny becomes plagued with various visions of an attacker, a victim and a rescuer, he struggles to decipher what they all mean.
After Johnny infiltrates a cult and barely manages to prevent a disaster, he's forced to go before an inquiry board led by his nemesis, Greg Stillson.
A woman claiming to be Purdy's lost-long daughter arrives in Cleaves Mills. Johnny has a vision of the woman causing harm to Purdy, who ignores Johnny's warning. While investigating the woman, Johnny learns of Purdy's secret past.
The Collector returns, seeking his revenge on Johnny. Now Johnny must race against time to save a newly pregnant Sara from his grasp.
Johnny tries to thwart the assassination of the Vice President and protect the man that Janus' secret conspiracy has set up to take the blame, but it soon becomes clear that Janus has his own plans to assure Stillson's ascension to the White House.
In the sixth season premiere, Johnny receives visions of his friends being in harm's way at a festival. It appears that he avoids the disaster, but two people are later killed by a fire, which alters Johnny's life and the fate of the rest of the world.
Johnny investigates a psychiatrist when he receives a vision of her being shot and meets several of her patients that want her dead. However, is it possible that Johnny sees a new police officer killing her?
Johnny works with Stillson to fix a space shuttle after he has a vision of trouble during a private space mission.
Johnny becomes immersed in a decade-old unsolved murder mystery at an "Alice in Wonderland" themed circus. There, Johnny realizes that J.J. may have inherited psychic abilities.
When Johnny has visions of a man buried alive, he must overcome his differences with Sheriff Turner to save the man’s life.
Johnny has a vision of a woman being thrown from his train. While trying to save her, he begins to fall for her despite clues that indicate she is a fraud.
Johnny slips into a coma after what should have been a simple procedure, prompting Sarah to take unexpected actions to save him.
With less than an hour to stop a bus-station bomb, Johnny tries to find the source of the explosion with the help of Sarah's puzzle-writing friend.
Faith and truth clash during a murder case involving a young woman.
A vision involving a racehorse being stolen troubles Johnny on a trip to visit Bruce. Meanwhile, Stillson gets closer to Sarah and J.J., leading Johnny to realize he may have missed his chance to reunite his family.
Johnny's disturbing vision of his psychic friend Alex sends him to a small town in an attempt to save her, but he needs rescuing himself after he is accused of murder. Meanwhile, Sarah decides to move out of Johnny's house and confides in Stillson, who has important information on the investigation into Walt.
Johnny steps up his probe into Walt's case in an effort to salvage his relationship with Sarah, and discovers a link to Turner.
In the sixth-season finale, visions of Walt lead Johnny to his father and a shocking revelation.