Each fall, most of the broadcast and cable networks debut a ton of new shows in the span of a few months, making it difficult to sort out which ones to make time for and which to skip. So we’re starting the WIRED Pilot Program, where we highlight what you should continue watching, and what you can just let sit on your DVR until it automatically deletes. Today's entry: Timeless
The Show: Timeless (Mondays, NBC)
The Premise: A nefarious thief has taken control of a time-traveling mothership—and only a ragtag crew can stop him. Lucy (Abigail Spencer), a wide-eyed anthropology professor, Rufus (Malcolm Barrett), a bashful scientist and time travel machine pilot, and Wyatt (Matt Lanter), a stoic soldier with a dark past travel back in time to stop Garcia Flynn (Goran Visnjic) and his time bandit cronies from altering human history, visiting historical moments along the way.
The Pilot Program Take: Timeless is one of three time-travel shows entering an already crowded field this fall, as Making History (Fox) and Time After Time (ABC) compete with the established 11.22.63 (Hulu), Outlander (Starz), and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow (CW). But, to its credit, Timeless takes a more educational spin: each episode promises a trip to a different historical situation. In the first episode, the heroes travel to New Jersey in 1937 to witness the explosion of the Hindenburg. Future episodes will take them to Lincoln’s assassination, Nazi Germany, the Alamo, Watergate, and the Space Race. And if the jaunty caps and pinball machines of the pilot are any indication, there will be gimmicky historical nods aplenty in every era.
But the real draw of Timeless lies in how it tries to reconcile 21st century outlooks with the prejudices of earlier eras. New Jersey in the 1930s—not to mention Nazi Germany, or 1860s Washington DC—aren’t too friendly towards women and people of color, and the show certainly takes advantage of a teachable moment. As Rufus tells a sneering policeman while locked up in a New Jersey jail, “I hope you live long enough to see Michael Jordan dunk, Michael Jackson dance, Mike Tyson punch—really, just any black guy named Michael.” And when the characters aren’t traveling through time, the show promises to get into the nitty-gritty of how small changes in the past affect big changes in the present, through the personal lives of the protagonists.
The Verdict: The show’s premise is goofy, and the dialogue can feel that way, too. (And not just the part with 2016 diction in a 1930s bar.) The historical antics are a good time, but in a crowded field of time-travel dramas, the most educational does not mean the best.
TL;DR: If you’re the kind of person who likes to pontificate on the “If you lived in a different era, when would you choose?” question—and likes to qualify it with what it would be like for anyone who’s not a white guy—then take a vicarious spin. Otherwise, give it a pass.
