Brad Wright built a time-travel show that runs on logistics, not paradoxes. Travelers premiered on Showcase in Canada on October 17, 2016, and worldwide on Netflix on December 23, 2016. It ran three seasons.
Trailer, via Netflix.
Consciousness Sent Into a Dying Body
The premise is grim and precise. Hundreds of years from now, the last surviving humans figure out how to send consciousness back through time, directly into people living in the 21st century. The operatives are called travelers. They take over the body of a present-day person who is about to die, which limits the damage to the timeline.
The transfer needs the exact location of the target. Smartphones and GPS supply it: time, elevation, latitude and longitude, coordinates archived for use in the future. No transfer can be safely made to a time prior to one already performed.
Five Operatives and the Director
The travelers work in teams of five, carrying out missions set by the Director, an artificial intelligence quantum computer program watching the timeline from the future. The goal is to save the planet from a series of catastrophic events. Each traveler keeps the host’s old life running as cover, using social media and public records to learn who they are pretending to be.
The Director speaks through prepubescent children. Adults cannot be safely animated that way without risking death.
The cast carries the load:
- Eric McCormack as Grant MacLaren
- MacKenzie Porter as Marcy Warton
- Nesta Cooper as Carly Shannon
- Jared Abrahamson as Trevor Holden
- Reilly Dolman as Philip Pearson
- Patrick Gilmore as David Mailer
Netflix Takes Over the Mission
The first two seasons were co-produced by Netflix and Showcase. After season two, Netflix became the sole commissioning broadcaster and worldwide distributor. A second season followed in 2017, and the third arrived on December 14, 2018. In February 2019, the series was cancelled.
What the Show Gets Right
Travelers is a drama before it is science fiction. The rules are strict, and the show honors them. A traveler cannot jump to a moment already used. The Director cannot talk to an adult without killing them.
The performances are the other half of it. McCormack plays MacLaren as a man running two lives at once, and the team around him sells the quieter problem: people wearing bodies that belong to someone else.
Three seasons and 34 episodes is a short run for a premise this rich. The cancellation in 2019 ended it there. This is one of the better science fiction series of its decade, and it stopped early.
Key facts
- Premiere: October 17, 2016 (Canada), December 23, 2016 (worldwide)
- Finale: December 14, 2018
- Seasons: 3
- Episodes: 34
- Created by: Brad Wright
- Network: Showcase, Netflix
- Rotten Tomatoes: 100%
Score: 10 of 10 (Rotten Tomatoes)
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