Review Travelers, 2016 [Netflix & Showcase]

McQualude

Member: Rank 3
Yet another time travel show in the vein of Continuum & 12 Monkeys, where people (travelers) are sent back in time to prevent apocalyptic events that make future Earth nearly uninhabitable. The twist with Travelers is an advanced AI (is there any other kind) called, The Director, sends the consciousness of volunteers back in time to overwrite the minds of people who are about to die. For example, someone who is about to commit suicide might get their personality overwritten by someone from the future. The 'new' person, or traveler, then becomes part of a cell of operatives that work toward preventing a singular epic disaster. Of course, the traveler 'inherits' the life of the person who is overwritten and all their entanglements like parents, spouses, and children; and in some cases the job if it benefits The Mission.

Travelers are highly trained operatives and their 5 person teams are a combination of Special Forces A-Team and terrorist cell. Roles can include: Doctor (they call them medics), Historian - a special type of person who is trained from birth to be a living databank, Tactician, Engineer, & Leader. Also from time to time the Director will send back a "specialist", like a quantum programmer or medical specialist. Teams work independently unless specifically ordered otherwise. They live by a set of "Protocols":
  1. The mission comes first.
  2. Never jeopardize your cover.
  3. Don’t take a life; don’t save a life, unless otherwise directed.
  4. Do not reproduce.
  5. In the absence of direction, maintain your host’s life.
  6. No inter-team/deep web communication except in extreme emergencies.
Interfering with the mission or breaking protocol may result in being overwritten by a new Traveler, effectively death. Changes to the timeline are immediately known by the Director in the future who is immune from the changes because he exists in a quantum framework (sci-fi technobabble).

Overall the show is well acted, directed, written, and I enjoy it quite a bit. I don't think it's up to S1 of 12 Monkeys in quality but it's good. All the main characters have their own distinct story arcs and many of the minor characters are at least multi-dimensional (hardee-har) and interesting.

 
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