Travelers : season 1

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Hundreds of years into the future mankind struggles to survive a harsh, dystopian Earth, and has resorted to the use of a new technology that enables them to send people into the past in hopes to divert the circumstances that led to the current, bleak future of humanity. Travelers are a select group of people that live within this dark future that have committed to the 'Grand Plan', and have had their consciousness sent to the past and into the host body of a recently deceased. When a new team of five Travelers are sent to the past and begin working together to try to provide mankind with a better future divergent from the one they're familiar with, things go awry when host intel proves to have been inaccurate and problematic, among many other presented hurdles, in this amazing new Netflix original series.

There's not much more I can say about the overall plot in my never-ending pursuit to avoid spoiling stuff for you guys. I will start, however, with a personal bit before exploring more about the series itself. I really loved the cinematography in this series. As a visual artist, I often nerd out on great cinematography, and this series does some really awesome things with unconventional, off-center framing that I really swooned over. There's some really beautiful, picturesque stuff in here, and I loved it all. Even the usage of focus transitions within a shot are expertly realized, and build upon the gravity of the scene at hand.

What really sells this series, beyond the at-first-impression being a touch slow in terms of pacing at the start, is the characters. After the initial foundation-laying of the first episode, and requisite character intros, the dynamic of the team and their mission snowball very well, and it's engaging as hell. The cast is aces, and they have their work cut out for them as the characterization in this story is far from a one-dimensional presentation. This is elaborated via the conflict each Traveler experiences when their mission meets their host's active life, a tremendous burden in which they have to try and maintain the illusion that they are still the person they were. This is where a LOT of the friction and best elements of the story come to fruition, and it is such a great watch.

MacLaren is an FBI agent with more than a few skeletons in his closet, and one of my favorite characters. MacKenzie Porter's Marcy I fell in love with instantaneously, as a guy with a weak spot for characters with a handicap, and she was absolutely wonderful and has some of the best character development in the first season. Trevor is quite possibly my favorite character, though I cannot elaborate further as to why exactly (spoiler-free, remember?) but I will say he exemplifies a great use of juxtaposition that I have always appreciated. Philip, which I perceived as a slight nod to my favorite sci-fi author, Philip K Dick, is the historian of the group, tasked with remembering EVERYTHING about the past, also find himself with a host that wasn't what it was supposed to be, thus leading to some really great subversion within the main plot of this really, really great series.

I loved Travelers a lot. I am feverishly looking forward to another season, as the finale left me ravenous for more. I highly recommend it if you're like me and liked stuff like the 4400 and this kind of sci-fi. You will not be disappointed.

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