The Netflix Sci-Fi Series Leaves Everyone Satisfied

In the first episode of Travelers, a series of unconnected individuals undergo a massive personality change after surviving a near-death experience. This is noticed by FBI Agent Grant Maclaren (Will & Grace star Eric McCormack), who starts hunting down the group, and finally is able to confront them over what’s going on. That’s when the group reveals they are time travelers who take over people moments before they die, including Maclaren, who then is replaced by the team’s leader.

The team of Travelers from the future has to continue living the lives of the bodies they took over while also fulfilling mission objectives sent by The Director, an AI in the future that oversees the Traveler program. This includes the team’s medic in the body of a woman with psychological issues (Mackenzie Porter), the oldest human alive now stuck as a teenager (Jared Abrahamson), a stay-at-home mom now the team’s tactical officer (Nesta Cooper), and the historian, a heroin-addicted college student (Reily Dolman).

The strange team of Travelers has to fulfill missions, which start in the “case of the week” format, before escalating in scope while obeying a set of six protocols. Above all, is that “the mission comes first,” followed by “the future stays in the past,” and “do not interfere” is third, which also means to kill no one and save no one. As with Star Trek’s Prime Directive, it feels like the protocols were made to be broken.

What critics grew to appreciate about Travelers is that the series was not afraid to play around with typical time-travel tropes. Instead of making sure nothing is changed, it’s the team’s mission to radically alter the timeline. Throughout the series, the audience is told of dramatic changes that have taken place in the future that are never shown, as the focus remains firmly on the past, a creative choice that enhances the moral choices of each season.

It’s a miracle that in this timeline, Travelers is as well-regarded as it is, given the relatively small budget and unique production. The series was a joint production between Showcase, a Canadian network, and Netflix before switching over between the second and third seasons to become a Netflix exclusive. As with fellow Canadian shows Sanctuary, Lost Girl, and Flashpoint, the limitations seemingly helped enhance the creativity of each season.

Don’t worry about hearing “sci-fi” and “Netflix Original,” as Travelers manages to tell a complete story with an absolutely wild ending you will not see coming. Recent time travel projects, like The Adam Project and Loki, are too safe with the timeline, a problem that this series doesn’t have. Once you finish the third season, you’ll want more wonky Canadian sci-fi, which is why it’s a tragedy that Continuum isn’t available to stream.