Travelers Season 3: The Reinvention

The third season of Travelers would have been excellent anyway.  MacLaren struggling against his own erased memory, the team dealing with a traveler who got into the body of a serial killer, the deadly chess match with the Faction, the unreliability of the Director, members of the team grappling with all kinds of personal lethal crises, all of that with the customary repartee about our culture as seen from the distant future, and true-to-life dialog like "You only ever wear a third of your wardrobe, anyway" (MacLaren's wife Kathryn to MacLaren; for me it's more like a tenth) made for a series of episodes as good as those in the first two seasons. But the ending of Season 3 made for something very different, and lifted the series to a whole new level.

I can't remember the last time I saw a whole series upended, rebooted, as early as the end of the third season.  Usually that happens years after an original series has concluded, and it's brought back for a new shot.  Actually, I do recall one time:  right after the Superbowl in 2003, when Alias reinvented itself by pulling the rug out from under the central premise of the series, in an episode that was in the middle of the second season (I won't say more, in case you haven't seen the series - see my essay in Alias Assumed if you're interested).  But although that happened in Alias a lot earlier than the end of the third season, and was brilliant and shocking indeed, it was not as literally and stunningly a reboot as we saw at the very end of Travelers 3.10.

At that point, one of our team, Marcy, is dead (David is, too).   Trevor's only partially cured of his aphasia, Philip has visions of multiple realities, and MacLaren's wife is now 100% sure that he's not the person she married.   I suppose the series could have continued within that framework - major characters have died with regularity on other series - but at that point, the team and its aspirations were in such tatters, Marcy and David's deaths so heartbreaking, not to mention our world in a nuclear war, that it was almost a relief to see "Fail" as the assessment for this three-year mission.  And what came after, the indication of a whole new mission "Begin"ning - a different way to save the future - couldn't have been more thrilling and effective.   The Director hadn't forsaken our team - it had just pushed them over a cliff, in the hope/expectation that enough of them would land on their feet, and pick up the battle in a new terrain.

It's not clear at this point - and that's part of the fun - who on the team will remember what in the next season (which I'm assuming there will be, for this now especially masterful time-travel series).  MacLaren back in 2001 clearly is the same traveler we saw in the first three seasons.  But Marcy and David are different.   David, of course, was not a traveler, so what we saw was just him in 2001.  Presumably Marcy was the way she was in 2001, before the traveler arrived in her head in the first season.   And the others?  It's not impossible that there will be a whole new team of travelers - I've seen that suggested in various reviews - but I think it would be much more satisfying to see how the team we know fares in this new reality.  We have a lot invested in them.

From its outset, Travelers has had a brashness, a directness in working with the paradoxes, that you don't usually find in time-travel series.  Now it has done this on the meta-level, smashing and reconfiguring the very ground of the series itself.  I'm very much looking forward to seeing how it all turns out.

See also: Travelers (review of Season 1): 12 Monkeys Meets Quantum Leap with a Story All of its Own ... Travelers 2: Chess Match of the Centuries

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Travelers 2: Chess Match of the Centuries

I had high praise for the first season Travelers (on Netflix) a year ago.  I have even higher praise for the second season (of 12 episodes, like the first).  I'll try to talk about it with a minimum of spoilers.

First, my favorite episode was almost a standalone - though each episode follows closely from the previous one - and amounts to one of the best takes I've ever seen on the genre of do-over time traveling, probably most known in the Groundhog Day movie.   In Travelers, the hour begins with a massacre of our team.  The rest of the episode details the Director's (AI from the distant future usually in control of most things) painstaking attempts to reverse that massacre.  It's played out beautifully, like a chess match in which the superior opponent has the opportunity of redoing each of her/his movies until a win is obtained.

Chess match is a good metaphor for the most significant parts of this season, and indeed most of the season in general.  Although there's plenty of action, the peak moves involve MacLaren and his team matching wits with the Faction (the group from the future who oppose the Director), and a new villain, Vincent.

Vincent was the very first traveler.  He was supposed to die in the Towers on September 11 - a daring beginning - but defies the Director and survives, and thrives.  He's played by Enrico Colantoni, whom I first noticed in Flashpoint (an excellent Canadian swat team drama), and he projects a worthy bad guy in Travelers (which, by the way, is also a Canadian production).  The acting is top-notch throughout, with MacKenzie Porter (Hell on Wheels) even better than last year as Marcy.  In fact, everyone was stronger than last year, likely because the plot was more advanced.  Eric McCormack as MacLaren, Reilly Dolman as Philip, Nesta Cooper as Carly, and Jared Abrahamson as Trevor all put in memorable performances.   Even Patrick Gilmore as David was excellent.

I say "even," because you don't often see secondary characters who play such important roles in a fast-moving story like this.  But they're there, in and out, throughout the twelves episodes, especially McLaren and wife Cat, Marcy and David, and Philip with a Factor agent and then the beginning of something with Carly.  And the families and friends and relations really come into their own in the finale, which changes everything - though you never know, given the possibility of do-overs.

And that's all I say - other than, see this. If you enjoy a time-travel story with all the trimmings - intellect, action, humor, culture class - you'll love this.

See also: Travelers (review of Season 1): 12 Monkeys Meets Quantum Leap with a Story All of its Own

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Why Is Time Travel So Pleasurable?

time-travel stories about Orson Welles, John Lennon, David Bowie, more

Why is time travel so pleasurable?  I mean to read or watch on the screen or listen to in a radio play or an audio book - and, in my case, to write - because I am sure I've never actually time traveled (living into the future a moment at a time is not actually time travel, in my book, which would entrail traveling to the future faster or slower than in normal time or traveling to the past at all).  And I'm almost as sure which is to say very sure that no one else has ever time traveled, or will time travel, either.

And that's why time travel is my favorite kind of science fiction, which makes it my favorite kind of fiction, period - precisely because it’s almost certainly impossible. Not like travel to other planets, which makes great science fiction, but we're already beginning to do in reality. Or artificial intelligence and robots, which also makes for great science fiction, but we're also already beginning to do, a least little. But time travel is different because it's so likely impossible - as far we know, we're not doing any of it today, and have never done it. As far as we know, no one from the future has yet to pay us a visit. And because time travel is so likely impossible, seeing how time travel stories can work, can make sense, anyway, is a special kind of enjoyable.

Why is time travel impossible? Well, if you travel to the past to change whatever event, and you succeed, how would you have had knowledge about the event you went back to change in the first place? This is often called the grandfather paradox – if you go back in time and accidentally kill your grandfather, then you wouldn’t have been born, so how could you have gone back in time in the first place? But actually there’s no need to kill anyone in your ancestral family for this paradox to be upon you, the time traveler. Anything you do, when you travel back in time, that invalidates the reasons or necessary ingredients for the trip, would trigger the paradox.

There are lots of ways out of this, such as the multiple-worlds interpretation, which works like this: Time traveler 1 (TT1) from World 1 travels back in time, and accidentally prevents either set of grandparents (or parents) from meeting. So TT1 is never born. And in that world - call it World 2 - since TT1 doesn’t exist, there may never be any time travel. But that’s ok, because it was TT1 from W1 who went back in time, stopped the grandparents or parents from meeting, which resulted in W2 with no TT1 or TT2. So: no paradox at all with these multiple worlds.

But if our existence really consisted of an infinite number of multiple worlds or realities, with a new one triggered with every drop of the time traveler's figurative hat, that would make for an existence far more insane than just our normal world would be with time travel, right? I mean, a new world created with every drop of the time traveler's hat, or even if no hat is dropped, by the time traveler just catching someone's eye at just the right or wrong time, and distracting that person for some kind of crucial instant - well, hey, that's even crazier than time travel, right?

All right, but what about travel to the future? No grandparent paradoxes there, but we run into other serious problems. If I travel one day into the future, and I see you wearing a blue hat, what does that mean for you? That you have no choice but to wear a blue hat? Well I don’t know about you, but I think I have a choice about what color hat to wear tomorrow, or not wear any hat at all. We call that free will. Don’t you think you have that ability too, or do you think everything you do from now on is available to the scrutiny of anyone in your vicinity who travels into the future, which would result in your doing just that, and only that, whatever other ideas you might have between right now and tomorrow about what to wear on your head or otherwise do tomorrow?

Time travel is such a pleasurable exercise for the mind that I get a kick just thinking about it, making the impossible seem possible, and writing stories and novels with those paradoxes and loops. But reading a great novel like Isaac Asimov’s The End of Eternity or Robert Heinlein's The Door Into Summer, or seeing a movie like Back to the Future (any of the three) or 12 Monkeys or Primer, or a new television series like Travelers (back next week for its second season) or Dark or Erased (all on Netflix) – well, that’s always a big treat indeed. If you’ve read this far, I’d bet that at least some part of your brain agrees … at least, in this timeline.

 
It started in the hot summer of 1960, when Marilyn Monroe walked off the 
set of The Misfits and began to hear a haunting song in her head, 
"Goodbye Norma Jean" ...

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Omni's Back! And My Reviews of Time Travel TV Are In It

I'm delighted to announce that Omni magazine - last seen in print in 1995, a year after it published my article, "There Are Just Some Things You Can't Do in Cyberspace" (see here for a longer piece based in part on this article) - is back on news stands, in Barnes & Noble, i. e., back in print!  And, it has my reviews of six time-travel shows on some current kind of TV screen:  Dr. Who, 12 Monkeys, Travelers, Somewhere Between, Outlander, and Timeless.   (Click on the tags below for episode-by-episode reviews of all except Dr. Who.)

And pick up your copy of Omni - you'll love it!

My List of the Top 10 Television Series of 2016

Continuing the tradition - just started last year - here is my Top 10 list for 2016,  from who knows how many series I've seen this past year on network television, cable, and streaming (Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Acorn):

Honorable mention (narrowly not making the list, for a variety of reasons):  On the list last year: Rectify concluded its run this Fall, and although it was still excellent and unique in many ways, some of the episodes lacked the intensity of the earlier seasons.  The Affair has just begun a new season on Showtime, and so far it's too soon to know if this will be another Top 10 season.   Returning in honorable mention: Chicago Fire is still superb, but still suffers from the limitations of network television.  Nordic noir:  Case, The Department Q Trilogy, Dicte - all outstanding, subtitled Scandinavian police drama that almost made the list.  Apples and oranges: Veep is hilarious, but it's impossible to rank a comedy with dramas, so I put it here in honorable mentions. Closest runner-up: The Fall's third season (BBC, streamed on Neflix) was its best yet for this sociopathic crime drama, with an Emmy-worthy performance by Gillian Anderson.

And now the Top 10:

10. Designated Survivor (ABC TV):  The only network series on my Top 10, which says how far cable and streaming have surpassed traditional network TV in the U.S.  But Designated Survivor is a worthy exception, in effect a blend of 24 and House of Cards - or Jack Bauer in the White House. Fast-paced, dangerous, and unafraid to address current controversial political issues.

9. Vikings (History Channel):  Moving up from honorable mention last year to #9 on my list this year, Vikings is superbly rendered historical drama.   What and how the Vikings managed to conquer is fascinating just as straight history, but this series brings these stories alive with unforgettable characters and breathtaking battle scenes.

8. Colony (USA Network):  Near-future Los Angeles under totalitarian alien control - aliens from outer space not other countries - debuted in 2016.  A taut, excellent mix of action and intelligent political philosophy.

7. House of Cards (Season 4) (Netflix): Back on the list, down one notch, but that's because of the tougher competition, not because of any loss of quality.  Frank and Claire Underwood remain brilliant templates of American Presidential politics and governance, becoming less hyperbolic and more in tune with our reality with every passing year, and not because House of Cards is changing.

6. Narcos (Season 2) (Netflix): We streamed seasons 1 (2015) and 2 (2016) in 2016, and loved them both.  Irresistible, brutal (how's that for a combination) docu-drama about Colombian drug-lord Pablo Escobar.

5. 19-2 (Acorn).  This is among the best beat-cop shows ever on television.  All three seasons are streaming on Acorn, with Season 3 first airing in the summer of 2016.  Originally a French-Canadian series, my wife and I enjoyed the English version so much we'll probably see the French sooner or later too. Indelible characters.

4. Travelers (Netflix).  Ok, I love science fiction, but I especially love time travel.  I said in my review of this Canadian series, now streaming on Netflix, that it was in some ways as good as 12 Monkeys.  Now that it's settled in, I think it's even better.  The thing is, Travelers starts out very slowly, so much so that I wouldn't have kept watching if I didn't have an insatiable interest in time travel stories.  But Travelers gets better very quickly, and the last four episodes are pure, incandescent genius.

3. The Girlfriend Experience (Starz): Both a lawyer and a call-girl show, and a gem of a drama.  The "girlfriend experience" gives the customer not just sex but a girlfriend for the rented time, and the situations this engenders make for an outstanding portrayal of life in the fast lane.

2.  Westworld (HBO): There's going to be more science fiction this year than last year.  I am indeed a science fiction fan (as well as author), but these series were extraordinary, and should be very appealing to everyone who doesn't dislike science fiction.  In the case of Westworld, it was a very close second to The Man in the High Castle, offering the best depiction of the profound issues in human-like artificial intelligence I've ever seen on television or in the movies.  (Humans was #9 on my list last year - its new season will be on in 2017.  I found Westworld better than Humans, as good as it was.)

1. The Man in the High Castle (Season 2) (Amazon):  This was #1 on my list last year, and this year's episodes were even better.  Goes well beyond Philip K. Dick's masterful novel in intelligent, relevant, vivid, and riveting ways.   And speaking of relevant, never more so, given the support President-elect Trump received from white supremacists in the recent election.

See also My List of the Top Ten Television Series of 2015

Travelers: 12 Monkeys meets Quantum Leap meets Air Raid, with a Story All Its Own

The premise of Travelers - people from the future coming back to save our world from devastation, by changing the past, and traveling via insertion of their minds into 2016 bodies, of people who are on the verge of dying - is something we've seen before in time travel, notably in 12 Monkeys (save the world), Quantum Leap (mind from the future into present bodies), and Air Raid/Millennium (bodies on the verge of death).  Travelers even feels a little like Trancers (1984) - which is to say, very welcome, since Trancers is one of my all-time favorite low-budget time travel series of movies - but the actual story and stories of the new Canadian series, streaming since a few days ago on Netflix, has twists and turns and an appeal all its own. And, in the end, it's altogether outstanding.

Indeed, the episodes get better and better, with the last few being brilliant pieces of time travel narrative, culminating in a puzzle as profound and vexing as ever we've seen on television, and left almost in mid-air and crying out for continuation in a second season.  This first season is a classic case of a story that goes from interesting to engaging to absolutely riveting.

Time travel, of course, can never work exactly as planned.  Imperfection is the demon of the most carefully designed time travel strategy, and it makes for an intriguing story.   The present bodies that our future travelers shunt into are supposed to be in good physical and mental health, about to die by accident or some external assault, but sometimes the future's reconnaissance on the would-be hosts is not up to snuff.  One of the most interesting characters ends up in the body of someone who was supposed to die of his first drug dose, but the hosts turns out to be an addict.   Another appears in the body of young woman who was to be killed by some thugs, but her brain is already suffering from a congenital problem that the new possessor has to deal with.   Romantic relationships from the future and past also complicate and animate the doings of our time-travelers, and become mainsprings of the stories.

There are a couple of weaknesses in the plot - the main one being that new travelers from the future appear a bit too often as solutions and dangers.   But the fundamental tale is strong and provocative, the acting excellent -  especially good to see Eric McCormack (of Will and Grace) and MacKenzie Porter (of Hell on Wheels) on the screen - and we're treated to not only superior time-travel reckoning but sophisticated AI dilemmas as well in Travelers.

The big time travel questions are handled well, including the chestnut of how will the future unexpectedly change due to the changes deliberate and accidental in the past, especially with unforeseen consequences for the primary mission from the future? The details are done with savvy, including the travelers can't go further back in history than the digital age, since our computers are needed to precisely track times of death for the hosts and arrival for the travelers. So how would I rate Travelers in comparison to other time travel television series now or recently on the screen?   Better than Timeless and Frequency, and in the end as good as 12 Monkeys, which is high praise indeed.   Great work by Stargate creator Brad Wright.

 
 travel a little further back in time