Lazarus Project: Brit Series Time-Travel Show

Books, comics, TV, music
1

So I watched the first 4 episodes of Season 1 of The Lazarus Project, a British sci-fi show filmed by SKY in the UK. I understand it is available in the USA on TNT. There are two seasons in total which have been released to date (the series is still ongoing AFAIK).

I was recommended the show by a friend, but I wasn’t sure what to expect. Turns out? It’s really quite good so far.

The reason is the plot and writing: it is clever. The premise is that the Lazarus Project is a significantly funded NATOesque operation where the people involved in it had their DNA specifically altered so that they can remember successive repeats of 6 month periods on Earth - during which time has been reset and events all play out again, more or less without change, except as might be altered by the Project’s agents. The TLP Agents can remember each 6 month period of time; what they did last time, what worked and what didn’t to avert disaster (which evidently happens a lot), although nobody else on Earth can remember what happened.

The Project are secret agents, focused only on the biggest of the big threats. According to the show, there are MANY INSTANCES of events where human civilization was destroyed in a nuclear fire or other pandemic. The Lazarus Project worked away at fixing all of them, over a succession of what seems like a hundred x 6 month instances, repeatedly, until the Project staff finds the correct solution to prevent the catastrophe so that time moves on past the “check point”.

Collateral damage is a significant moral quandary on the show, and it doesn’t ignore the problem - it embraces it. It’s the details of that struggle which provide the show’s focus.

There are at least two individuals of the cast who are ultra-rare mutant humans who are not the product of deliberate genetic therapy, but bona fide come by their ability to remember the time / skips & repeats naturally. (The protagonist in the show is one of the natural mutants.)

The best thing about the show is the writing. The series writers embrace the concept and dig in. Accept the premise, all else follows. And dig in is what they do.

Turns out, the most interesting thing that such a premise offers up is not stopping the next “villain of the week”. That happens, sure, but it’s not even a significant thrust of the show; all of that happens in the background. Because the most interesting conflicts in a time travel show that resets the world for all of humanity in repeated six month clips is how big does the problem have to be in order to trigger a reset? Who decides that? Following closely on the heels of that big question: Is the Lazarus Project the Good Guys – or are they the Baddies who are just in denial?

There is, as you might expect, a significant shade of gray running throughout the premise and operational doctrine in the show. It’s a doctrine the main characters run up against and challenge, almost from the outset.

It’s refreshing to see a show like this ask the right questions after wholly embracing the premise in a way that very few sci-fi shows do. Yes the questions are big, and No, there may not be obvious answers. That doesn’t stop the writers from asking them.

So far, I found the show to be entirely worth my time, with good production values and a fine cast.

2

Did you watch Travelers? Sounds quite similar, and that was also well written and acted.

3

Also sounds like some of the later chapters in Recursion by Blake Crouch. I didn’t really like that book, but I’ll certainly give this show a shot!

4

I did watch Travellers. I’m in Canada and watched them as they were released here on cable, before they ultimately made their way to Netflix and beyond. I enjoyed Travellers a lot.

With Travellers, the over-arching premise of the Agents hunting down the BBEG in the past was the metaplot of the series. Travellers had a premise to it where people in the far future came back to now to hunt down the rogue.

This is different, as TLP’s agents are one of us, native to this timeline. They aren’t time-travelling super agents in their past – originating from a vague and uncertain future. TLP agents have, at best, 6 months’ knowledge of what happens in the immediate near future. They can see the immediate event horizon but not beyond it. And they don’t WANT to hit the clock and reset to the last checkpoint; they only do it when they have to…

Or do they? That’s the question Season 1 asks.

5

This show sounds great. It is apparently only streaming directly via TNT (rather than something like Hulu), which is odd but at least it’s available.

6

Good to know. I found it elsewhere.

One last point on the show: because it is filmed in the UK – and apparently, in part at least, elsewhere in Europe – it has a convincing “European on-location element” which as a production value contributes to the overall feel of the show and boosts the legitimacy of its “Jason Bourne” spy thriller moments.

It looks good and feels legit, contributing to the production values in a way that Travellers, shot in Vancouver never had.

7

Trying to watch this on TNT, but good lord at the commercials. I’m only 22 minutes in and have had over 8 minutes of unskippable commercials.

8

FWIW, in Canada, it can be watched/streamed through Global TV.

9

There was a reason that torrents did well – and Netflix (initially) did, too.

They seem to be forgetting that their biggest competitor is piracy. Once you raise the price to a level people balk at – or worse, inundate us with ads, the alternative starts looking better and better. sigh

10

We have youtubeTV and can stream the 8 episodes available. The commercials are bad for sure. But last night we jumped back into ep 2 that we had watched 3/4 of the previous night. Eventually the episode started up right where we left off…after 12 minutes of commercials that were presumably in that first 3/4 of the show we’d already watched. It was so so bad.

11

Yeah, I paused it halfway through the first episode and came back two hours later and it immediately started up with 3 more minutes of commercials. I noped out.

I definitely liked what I saw, and will wait for this to pop up on some other streaming service.

12

Just an update. I finished Season 1 and moved on to the start of Season 2.

The twist the show takes at the end of Season 1 is quite remarkable, and once again, the writers embrace the premise and don’t hold back.

This is a bloody GREAT show. Truly, there should be WAY MORE NOISE about this show. Find a way to watch this. It’s really worth it.

13

I’m a few episodes in now and while I agree they embrace the concept and that’s great there is an awful lot of handwavy writing moment to moment. You need a lot of suspension of disbelief (beyond the basic premise that the world would invevitably be a nuclear apocalpyse in a matter of months without these time travellers - though I’m hoping this becomes part of the plot in time). And dear lord these people have the worst operational security. You’d think, considering they’ve got the most powerful thing the world has ever known, that literally every government and bad actor in the world would do anything to get their hands on if they knew about it, they’d be a bit more careful.

14

We’ve given up due to TNTs streaming via YouTube.tv adding at least five 2-4 minute commercial breaks. I’ve got it set to record so if they ever run a marathon I’ll have them and can skip thru commercials like normal.

15

Keep watching :P

16

Yeah, very sorry to hear that. nods I get it though.

Season 1 is on Amazon Prime, but it isn’t free (at least in Canada).

17

British time travel show? It’ll never catch on.

18

Who woulda thunk it?

19

Watched the first episode and it seems quite good, but my big question is why resetting the clock is the last resort. Do they explain that at some point?

Also, I assume one of the plot points will be that the villain, who is one of them, has a bigger plan in mind knowing that they will reset when he detonates.

PS - unless I missed something, the reset is a full year, not 6 months. It’s July 1st, every year.

EDIT: Thinking about the premise, while this is a good foundation, I think it might have been even more interesting if George and others with his unique mutation were the only ones who remembered things when time reset. Everyone else would just wake up on July 1st, assume something bad happened, and have to piece together what went down before it happened again.

20

The next few episodes will very clearly explain why you don’t want to be resetting all the time, at least if you’re one of the people who remember.

They are?