Travelers (TV Series)... TV Show Review by Shoby
The world is on the verge of destruction and a team of five "Travelers" is sent from a future by a Director, which is supposed to be millions of years ahead of us, in order to save it from the possible crisis. Netflix and Showcase joined hands to co-produce the science-fiction TV series titled as "Travelers" starring Emmy Award-winning actor Eric McCormack in the lead role of FBI special agent Grant MacLaren. It also featured MacKenzie Porter, Nesta Cooper, Jared Abrahamson and Reilly Dolman as other members of the Travelers team in the roles of Marcy Warton, Carly Shannon, Trevor Holden & Philip Pearson respectively. Every traveler was assigned a unique ID as well.
The pilot episode of the season was an excellent appetiser, which introduced us with the complete primary team comprising of five travleres in a sterling manner. Marcy, Carly, Trevor, Philip and captain MacLaren are shown just about to die in their own places with "Estimated Time of Death" written on the screen but all of them get new lives and the timeline starts again from the beginning. It was also interesting to witness the change in the behaviour & overall personality traits of all these characters once they got new lives. For instance, Marcy was an intellectually disable person before getting the new life, however we see that once she embraced the new avatar, she was no more disable. Soon, we realise that the lives of these characters was not given back, in fact they were replaced by the travelers, imported from far ahead (assumed) future of ours.
In an episode, all of a sudden, four members of the team disappeared and the team's captain McClaren had to search for them. They were kidnapped by someone who questioned them individually like When are you from??? Now this was really chilling. Later on we came to know that the one who kidnaps them is also from the future but that entity is against the Director and his objectives.
After few introductory episodes, it was clarified that the real danger for the world was "Helios-685" which was going to alter the course of history in the planet Earth that would have went on to destroy the humanity along with the planet and our team of travelers become successful in saving the world.
Later on, they were not taken back to the future, so they were almost forced to live the lives of these persons, which caused some mental frustration within them at one point or another, but soon they get another mission. Meanwhile, MacLaren had to save Bishop at any cost from dying in the plane crash. He is provided with a device which has the power to save only two people in the plane but his decisions gets changed when he discovers that his wife Kathryn is also travelling through the same plane. In the attempt to save both of them, he himself gets injured badly but later on recovers quickly. On the other hands, one of the team member's conditions start getting worse and he/she had to die to go on with the mega mission, the actual purpose of their arrival. Seasons ends on a high note and I recommend one should the complete series to know what happens next especially who the member was, which had to die (reset the timeline of life, while forgetting almost everything about previous stint).
As stated earlier, Travelers is a science fiction show but we have not seen any significant unorthodox modern technologies being introduced. Story was quite simple but it was executed superbly. No points for guessing that Eric McCormack was pitch perfect in the portrayal of team's captain & agent. In fact, all of the actors from the core cast were phenomenal in their performances.
To me, Travelers is something like Fringe. However, initial season of Fringe was way above than this one. First series of Travelers was just above than average, however it has been successful in making nice premises for the script in upcoming seasons. I personally feel that something bigger is yet under covers and will be released in next couple of seasons. Therefore, I shall surely wait for hte next season.
