Season 1 - 16 episodes (2016-17)
Season 2 - 12 episodes (2018)
Rent Timeless on Amazon Video (paid link)
Created by: Eric Kripke, Shawn Ryan
Starring: Abigail Spencer, Matt Lanter, Malcolm Barrett, Paterson Joseph, Sakina Jaffrey, Claudia Doumit, Goran Višnjić
Rated: TV-14
Watch the trailer
Plot
A team chases a rogue time traveler across history to stop him altering key events, uncovering hidden agendas, and personal ties to the conspiracy.
Verdict
It's a throwback adventure show that balances episodic adventures in history with an overarching story about a clandestine group seeking control by altering the timeline. Each episode explores popular history, though certain aspects aren't always extremely realistic, altered to benefit the story. I wish it was deeper as this group just wants to control the world and for the most part they're faceless. They exist to give the main characters something to do. Despite how much both groups meddle in events, it surprisingly doesn't seem to affect much. It does offer the main characters a chance to wrestle over whether they should try to change things for their own benefit.
It depends.
Review
NBC canceled the series after the first season, but negotiations led to a second season which was canceled again with the possibility of a movie to conclude the series. That led to the two-part finale.
It's a light hearted adventure through time, though I wasn't sure initially what this would be as Shawn Ryan worked on The Shield (2002) and Eric Kripke worked on Supernatural (2005) and later The Boys (2019). It's in the vein of Quantum Leap (1989) where the characters have to orient themselves in a new time period with each episode also being a history lesson.
Season 1
Garcia Flynn (Goran Višnjić) steals a time travel device from Mason Industries and goes back to the Hindenburg in 1937. The founder Connor Mason (Paterson Joseph) in turn hires historian Lucy (Abigail Spencer) and soldier Wyatt (Matt Lanter) to accompany his employee the pilot, Rufus (Malcolm Barrett). They luckily have a second device so they can pursue Flynn. He wants to use the Hindenburg to attack the fledgling U.S. Lucy manages to confront him, and he tells her Mason Industries knows more than they're telling her. When Lucy returns to the present, she discovers she's changed the course of time. Her mother is no longer bedridden and her sister doesn't exist.
 |
| S1E3: Abigail Spencer, Matt Lanter, Malcolm Barrett play Wyatt, Lucy, Rufus |
Lucy helps them fit into the time period while Mason foots the bill for whatever they need. With each episode Lucy, Wyatt, and Rufus are tempted to influence history. They encounter Abe Lincoln and John F. Kennedy. They try to stop Flynn to no avail, while he claims he's saving America.
They keep changing history, and I wondered if that would add up at some point. In just the first episode Lucy erased her sister, but none of the changes after that are anywhere near as drastic.
 |
| S1E14: Goran Višnjić plays Garcia Flynn |
The name Rittenhouse keeps appearing. Rufus claimed he was unfamiliar, but he does know that name. It seems that's what Flynn opposes. The show keeps Flynn ambiguous to lead us on. He's not the terrorist as portrayed. In episode nine Flynn steals a key from Bonnie and Clyde that they stole from Henry Ford. It opens a box with a wax sealed letter that leads Flynn to Benedict Arnold. In the next episode Lucy, Wyatt, and Rufus agree to help Flynn to catch Arnold. Rittenhouse was a person that has spawned a group that wants to rule the world by manipulating history.
A new NSA agent joins Mason Industries, and they plan to eliminate Flynn before he's born. It certainly seems like a Rittenhouse plant. By the end of the season Lucy agrees to help Flynn stop Rittenhouse when she realizes the group has been manipulating her.
Season 2
This season takes a crazy leap. Flynn is captured, Rittenhouse abducts Keynes from the past who happens to be Lucy's great-grandfather. They think he's their key. Lucy is embedded in Rittenhouse and playing along. The group has also placed sleeper agents throughout history. Several episodes this season have the team fighting the agents to preserve history
If you were shipping Lucy and Wyatt, and the show made it clear that's where this was headed, they get their moment in episode three. That becomes complicated when history is altered to save Wyatt's wife.
 |
| S1E1: Abigail Spencer plays Lucy |
The second season explores more obscure historical references which I appreciate. Who knew blues music would be influential and the key to the future? Flynn begins working with the team to stop Rittenhouse. The team now has to chase down Rittenhouse agents.
In the final episode the team tries to save Rufus, aided by help from future Wyatt and Lucy. The problem is the the show told us you should never be in the presence of yourself from another time. While it makes for a big moment, it does undermine the series.
In the additional two episode finale, future Lucy gives her current self a journal. It's the journal Flynn used throughout the series that he claimed Lucy gave him. Saving the future relies on saving Rufus, and Wyatt has to make a sacrifice to ensure that. The team finally manages to defeat Rittenhouse and then live normal lives. The last thing Lucy does is travel to the past and give Flynn the journal that started this entire adventure.
I like the sci-fi history adventure, but the story can get too cute to set up reveals and twists. This never explores the underlying question of whether you can alter history. The first episode makes a big change to the present, but after that the team ensures history remains unchanged despite making many changes. That doesn't even factor in how many people Rittenhouse has added into the timeline. I like that the second season explores more obscure lessons in history, but at the same time with how much meddling happens in the past, that would severely alter the present. How much is changed corresponds directly to how necessary it is to that episode's plot. This doesn't really develop the characters, instead making the plot more complicated.
No comments :
Post a Comment