Let's do the Time Warp again.
Timeless, from Supernatural creator Eric Kripke and The Shield creator Shawn Ryan, is a big, broad adventure series that, unfortunately, feels more or less designed to play it safe. Time travel is all over the TV right now -- from CW's Legends of Tomorrow and Syfy's 12 Monkeys to Hulu's recent 11.22.63 miniseries to ABC's upcoming Time After Time (and, in a way, the CW's upcoming Frequency) -- so it's evident that it can hold an audience and be a viable gimmick for serialized TV, but you're not going to see anything new here. Not based on this first episode.
Timeless isn't going to break the mold. It has its specific time travel rules in place (you can't ever travel back to any time or place you once existed, which prevents our heroes from simply going back to take another try at the weekly mission if they botch it) and the ramifications for failure are what you might expect. The past changing causes the present to change. It's all very rudimentary from a sci-fi perspective.
The silver lining here is that the show is designed for an audience that might not be able to handle anything more complex. It's goofy, glossy and it gets right into the time travel elements immediately. There's a time machine. It exists. And our three heroes -- played by Abigail Spencer (Rectify), Malcolm Barrett (Better Off Ted), and Matt Lanter (Star Wars: The Clone Wars) -- need to go back in time and stop a villain (Goran Visnjic) from changing the course of history. Boom. And off we go.
Timeless pretty much is able to exist on a simple baseline level because of all the time travel stories that have come before it and woven themselves into our pop-culture absorbing brains. It can get right into the craziness of the premise without too much exposition. Here, in the series premiere, our mismatched trio of Spencer's historian, Barrett's tech, and Lanter's soldier zoom back to 1937 New Jersey in order to prevent bad things from happening to... an already bad thing that happened. The Hindenburg disaster. The mystery here, which is sort of fun, is what could the villain be after at a notable event that's already filled with death and fire?
All the while, our heroes also have to get to know one another and rely on each other as a team. The most interesting element here is the fact that Rufus is black and readily knows that "there is literally no place in American history that will be awesome for me." It's actually an intriguing premise, but one I'm not sure won't get tiresome after a few episodes. Here though, initially, it plays well. How can one member of the team even contribute when he has to act in a certain way and/or isn't welcome most places? This premise could actually give rise to some pretty deeps stories. Deeper than Timeless is probably willing to go though.
Yes, the series seems to be made for the case-of-the-week crowd, but there are seeds planted here for an ongoing arc. What we'll get, ultimately, is one of those types of shows that gives you tiny nuggets at the top, or end, of each episode throughout the year while the bulk of the story is still about the craziness and chaos of going back to Lincoln's assassination, the Alamo, or what have you.
The Verdict
Timeless is fun, but also fairly skin and bones. Given how labyrinthine and complex some time travel odysseys can be, this is a chewable vitamin. It's not bad, it's just not challenging - and that more than anything else seems to be the hallmark of a "network" series, unfortunately. Escapism, but without too much depth. Still, that's not to say the show can't grow and become more than just one-off jaunts through American history.
Timeless premieres Monday, October 3rd on NBC.
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