I'm a huge Sci-Fi fan! When I first discovered this series I was more than a little skeptical. I decided to give it a try and for the most part I was pleasantly surprised.
The basic plot revolves around time travelers from the future returning to the 21st century to save the world. Hundreds of years from now the planet is dying, an AI super computer is running the show and there are very few natural resources, and no wildlife. Humans are the last species to die off and they're surviving in underground bunkers and living on some kind of yeast paste for nutrition.
The series focuses on the here and now and they don't show much of the future outside of talking about how terrible it is.
For a twist on the typical time traveler story, the "travelers" inherit the bodies of people that were getting ready to die on earth. So if a person died at 3:45 AM in a car crash, the traveler would overwrite the persons consciousness at 3:44 AM, avoid the accident and assume their life.
The "traveler" also inherits any illness or drama the host body had before they arrived. This makes for some interesting plot twists and life situations for our protagonists from the future.
One of the things that attracted me to this series was the subject matter. I love stories about time-travel. I'm fascinated with concepts of neuroscience and uploading and downloading information into our brains. And who doesn't enjoy a good thriller about the way this century has completely decimated our planet and our environment. Combine these three topics into a time travel series and you've completely got my attention.
I think there were some good messages here too about the way we're treating our planet and what we're leaving behind for our future generations. I found it thought provoking and I enjoyed the way they presented the material without being a preachy propaganda piece on global warming.
I found the series entertaining. I binged watched it over a period of about a week. They were very good at ending each episode at a cliff hanger. This made for several late nights as I had to stay up and see what happened next.
If you're a huge time traveler nerd you may find a few holes in the time travel theories in the story. I personally didn't find it too bothersome. If you take this topic super seriously though, you'll probably find some inconsistencies.
I would have liked a little more backstory. They never really flashed to the future world, or showed us what it was like in their timeline. They do talk about it occasionally and you just get the impression that it's a terrible place to live. More backstory would have been nice with some flash forwards to paint the picture.
The series also raised the ethical question of how far would you go to save the future? If you could travel back in time and kill baby Hitler, would you? If we avoid one fate, what's to stop something else just as terrible from happening. I love shows that make you think and this one definitely did for me.
The ending was OK. I liked the ending. It gave closure to the series but seemed like they weren't sure if they wanted to continue the series or not after season 3. It did build up to a nice climax though, and the ending was sufficient IMHO to bring closure to the series.
If there is one thing I cant stand is a crappy ending or an ending without closure. I found the ending acceptable and halfway decent. All things considered, I think it made sense to end it the way they did. (don't want to give up spoilers here so I'm being vague intentionally)
The series ran from 2016 - 2018 for 3 seasons creating 34 episodes in total. It scored an IMDb rating of 8.1 out of 10 stars. I enjoyed this one, if you're into this type of subject matter I think it's worthy of a binge when you have some extra time on your hands.
