Travelers - Season 1 - Review: "The Future is Now"

Hello, all! As you may or may not know, our friends in Canada have the amazing fortune of beginning the second season of Travelers this evening. If you aren't living in Canada (or if you aren't a pirate), you'll be forced to wait until Netflix releases the entire season later this year or early next year. Regardless of when you will be watching this second outing, I've prepared a quick review, and have also brought up some of my favorite aspects of the show I'd love to talk about. If you've made the mistake of not watching this show yet, I really can't recommend it enough. Travelers is easily one of my favorite shows on TV right now. For those who have not yet seen it, my review is spoiler-free because I really want to make sure nothing is ruined for you before you start the show. But please, don't venture into the Spoiler Zone if you haven't watched the show yet!

Spoiler-free Section:

Due to the premise of the show, it is categorically impossible to truly explain what Travelers is about without completely ruining the pilot. If you have not yet experienced this wonderful piece of science fiction, the best I can tell you is this: a mentally delayed woman, a high school jock, a heroin addict, and an abused single mother all walk into a bar all survive past their recorded times of death fundamentally changed and come together as a group to protect the future, led by an FBI agent. If that doesn’t make sense, good; it shouldn’t yet. I believe that to get the full enjoyment of Travelers, you need to go through the first episode wondering what on earth is happening. The episode ends by explaining itself, so it could be quite boring if you’re already aware of what’s happening. Don’t even watch a trailer for it, because that will ruin it, too.

One of the best things about the show is that there is not an episode in which the entire story is divulged to us. Instead, we are given breadcrumbs throughout the series that allow us to build the full picture ourselves. Very few shows command my full attention these days, but Travelers has managed this feat by making me think rather than spoon feeding me every bit of information. I started every episode ready for each new piece of information I was going to learn about the future and the overall situation. By the end of the season, we still don’t have crystal clear idea of what our future looks like, and that’s all part of the fun.

I’m going to go ahead and call this show a must for Sci-fi fans. As a fan of Continuum, I found myself being reminded of it often, especially given that Ian Tracey is a recurring character on this show as well. So, if you have yet to give this show a chance as you scrolled past it on Netflix twenty or so times, do yourself a favor and scroll to it this time. Your homework is to watch the first season of Travelers so you can talk to me about it. Optional homework is catch all of Continuumif you haven’t done that yet.

Spoiler Zone:
WARNING: This section is meant solely for those who have already seen the show. If that’s not you, you really shouldn’t be here. You’re only hurting yourself. And also killing my soul a little bit, too. But mostly just hurting yourself. So, turn back now or forever be spoiled.

This won’t be so much of a discussion as it will be me telling you all these you need to talk to me about, in no particular order.

First of all, I was super excited to see Ian Tracey because I’ve loved every show I’ve ever seen him in. You want to prove to me you’re a good show? Have Ian Tracey stop by for a few episodes, because that test has not been proven wrong yet (feel free to discount that in the comments).

Secondly, I loved the slow and steady world-building we experienced throughout the season. I’d love to see an episode set solely in the future the travelers come from, just to see how my perceptions of their future hold up. I’d especially like to see the Shelter 41 incident as our main Travelers remember it. I have a feeling that something along these lines is an inevitability, or at least a flashback/forward episode showing who our Travelers really are.

I really enjoy their handling of all of our Travelers. It's been so interesting to watch their strong personalities take over these host bodies, and then slowly start developing different aspects of their hosts. Well, most of them were slowly. Phillip just kinda jumped right into that addiction due to his body's response. I enjoy the fact that Grant's wife actually carries an importance in the show as well. I was sure by the third or fourth episode they would just make Grant completely separate from his wife in favor of the past/future relationship between Grant and Carly. It's refreshing to see that the people from hosts's lives aren't just being pushed aside, and it's been fun to watch Grant care more and more about his wife as the season went on.

I’d also like to applaud the way the effectively killed off Marcy, but also still let us keep a version of Marcy. In some ways, it’s even more tragic than never seeing her again. I’m sure one day she’ll be almost identical to our original Marcy, but the Marcy we just spent a season loving is gone forever. We’ll be forced to remember this every time we see Marcy 2.0 do something to remind us of the original, delivering a hurt that keeps on hurting. Oh, and POOR DAVID!! Watching him have to deal with this whole situation killed me inside!

I'll be more than happy to discuss any other aspects of the show as I cannot talk about it enough, and I don't know another soul in my town who's seen the show, so I'm pretty bottled up. What were some of your favorite parts of the season? What are you looking forward to this season? Will David ever get the happiness he deserves? Sound off in the comments below, and check back later in the week for my season premiere review!