The Lazarus Project

Now, firstly if this doesn't get a second series I am going to find the person who decided to leave it on a cliffhanger and words of a deeply personal nature will be shared.

Secondly and more importantly it's fabulous. Starts off as a serialised version of Timecop and by episode three you realise it's a very different kettle of fish.

What would you do if everything that's happened since the 1st of July was erased? Everyone born or conceived winks out of existence, everyone who died comes back. How many going in which direction would make you want to press the button that does it?

Think you have answers? You don't, you REALLY don't and what makes this show so great is that it doesn't either.

That's not to say there are arbitrary decisions but you get to feel your way through intensely muddy waters with each of the well rounded characters. The writing is superb, the internal logic holds together and it could very easily go off the rails but some bright mind sat there and built a set of rules and stuck to them.

With this level of writing it would be a shame if the acting was mediocre which has been known to happen when studios get their acting talent based on the number of Instagram followers rather than ability. I don't imagine they blew the budget on their cast because although you'll recognise people they're not household names, they're just really good.

It's hard to go deeper into the story without launching into major spoilers but the paragraph above covers it nicely. You get to follow the newest person on a team having to deal with those concepts and navigate the absolute mind (synonym for sex) that comes with a Matrix level reality check.

I loved it, some people (idiots) won't get it, they'll complain that it's confusing or complicated while telling you Reservoir Dogs is their favourite film and despite it actually involving time travel it's not as hard to follow across 8 episodes as that film was in 80 minutes.

If you like intelligent, thought provoking dramas then you'll like this, if Made In Chelsea is your idea of culture then leave it alone.

The series is a bit "Tenet" and quite interesting. The Lazarus Project has some forgivable continuity flaws, but it's a good TV series that mixes old time travel ideas from The End of Eternity, Groundhog Day, and The Adjustment Bureau. Despite the lack of temporal logic: "mutants" can revive months side by side with normal agents (non-mutants who cannot revive months), although they can use a special drug to remember, which ends up causing a certain exponential unsustainability, because instead to go back in time, they would actually be creating multiverses. But time travel is just that, travel of the imagination.

'The Lazarus Project', a group of secret government agents tasked with stopping extinction-level events in the world, recruit their newest member - an app developer named George (Paapa Essiedu). Using a type of serum, average humans, such as the leader, Wes (Caroline Quentin), and fellow agent, Archie (Anjli Mohindra), can recall "Time Loops" - a cosmic event that resets the universe back to July 1st. Upon reset, those who have taken the serum, and certain mutants, like George, can remember everything prior to the reset.

Without giving too much away on an episode-by-episode basis, this show is quite entertaining to watch! The special effects, acting, writing, and flow are all very well done. There are some open plot holes that I hope will be addressed in the following season(s), but overall, a fresh idea on time travel!

Worth a watch!

Starts out as a fairly straightforward time-travel romp and slowly unpeels its characters to become an intense, brilliantly written and acted story of good people twisted and broken by the burden of a world saving power.

Being an SF fan for over 50 years, I found this to be up there with the best of them.

Yes, it's not perfect and has some flaws in some of the acting and storytelling about how people are recruited etc. But, for a well thought out, keep you guessing sci fi, particularly Season 2, do not miss this one.

The story line was meticulously planned to last over the first 2 series and although some of the first series was a little drawn out, it is for that exact reason that all else revolves around, from, to and branching from the initial story that gets you truly involved.

Unlike many other series that no matter how good, get cancelled and leave you frustrated, you find that even if it stops at the end of Series 2, there was a type of closure letting you sit in in a euphoric understanding of the story, that even if no more are made, you are left content but longing for more.

(PLEASE let there be more!) IMHO, take no heed from those that rubbish this fine production, particularly those that choose to call themselves "expert reviewers" I have usually found them to be so full of it that I take no notice of them.

Joe Kmetyk.