Not a TIMELESS Classic

Article first published as TIMELESS Review on Seat42F.

NBC, which does sometimes do some light sci-fi drama, has a new genre series this fall called TIMELESS. A gang of armed men break into a laboratory and steal a fully functioning time machine, intent to travel into our past and screw things up. Luckily, the facility still has their more basic prototype and assembles a small team to go after them and save history. Will they succeed, or is everything we know about to be changed?

Abigail Spencer (Rectify) stars as Lucy Preston, a history professor caring for an ailing mother who has just been denied tenure. She, along with an elite soldier, Wyatt Logan (Matt Lanter, 90210), are recruited by Agent Denise Christopher (Sakina Jaffrey, House of Cards) to chase the villain, Garcia Flynn (Goran Visnjic, ER), across the ages. Scientist Rufus Carlin (Malcolm Barrett, Better Off Ted) is sent along with them because he knows how to use the equipment, even though there are some justifiable concerns that his darker skin color may be a hindrance before civil rights kicked in.

I really want to like TIMELESS. It’s not like any other show currently airing, especially not on a broadcast network. (It is admittedly sort of like DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, but since that is about superheroes, I think they’re different enough.) It has a cool concept and a decent cast. It definitely has mythology, backstory, and a serial arc, meaning it won’t just be a case-of-the-week series. For these reasons, it deserves a little consideration.

The make-up of the group makes sense, the scientist, the historian, and the soldier. The motivation of the bad guy is still hazy, but what has been said about it is interesting and begs further exploration. The rules for time travel as followed in TIMELESS also seem to be well thought out. I didn’t find any huge, obvious plot holes.

But there’s a general sense of shallowness to the whole program. The characters do have families and personal lives that play into their actions, but in a very superficial way. We’re told something about that character, and that immediately influences the plot in a very straight-forward way. There isn’t a lot of wondering who we can trust, or if there’s something someone isn’t talking about that might get in the way down the road. It’s kind of what you see is what you get.

There is also definitely the impression that while there be an ongoing story, a large portion of each hour will be devoted to action adventure and fist fights. Not bloody stuff, mind you; this series seems to take a family-friendly, tame approach. For example, when one character briefly wields a knife, I didn’t feel for a second she’d be able to swipe and draw blood with it, and indeed, she does not. So there’s a sanitized type of violence that feels more at home on television in the previous century than today.

Even the twists later in the hour, while interesting, seem easy to screw up. There is one very obvious one and one less so, but given the lack of depth present at the start, and the direct way the story unfolds, I don’t have confidence that these things are going to pan out in a cool way. I know I’m being vague, and part of that is to protect readers from plot spoilers, but part of it is because this complaint is more about an overall feeling I get while watching, rather than details I can point to to back up my judgement.

Overall, I like TIMELESS, but I don’t love it. My sense is that it will be like Revolution, with a cool premise that doesn’t live up to what viewers want from it.

TIMELESS premieres Monday, October 3^rd at 10/9c on NBC.

STAR-CROSSED Not Worth Crossing Over To

Article first published as STAR-CROSSED Review on Seat42F.

The CW’s STAR-CROSSED is designed as a modern day Romeo & Juliet, especially evident by the tragedy at the end of the first hour, as well as the lead couple. Aliens known as Atrians crash land on Earth. Although the Atrians are peaceful, mankind doesn’t give them a chance and immediately slaughters or captures the survivors. One young Atrian boy escapes and hides in a shed where he meets a human girl. Ten years later, the two encounter each other once more when the Artian is integrated into the girl’s high school.

Poor Aimee Teegarden. After graduating high school after five seasons on Friday Night Lights, she’s now sent back at age twenty-five to repeat it, playing Emery Whitehill, the human lead in STAR-CROSSED. She passes for a teenager, I guess, but were there no talented fifteen-year olds around to handle the part? And why cast the adorable Maggie Elizabeth Jones (Ben and Kate, We Bought a Zoo) as Emery if they were just going to age the character early in the “Pilot,” ditching her red hair in the process?

Believe it or not, that’s just the least of STAR-CROSSED’s problems. The show gets the high school setting completely wrong. Most public institutions will be lucky to have today’s best technology in ten years’ time, let alone automated cafeterias, fully electronic lockers, and holo-projectors. Not to mention, the cell phones the kids use are thick and don’t roll or fold up at all. I suppose some of this could be explained in that there’s an alien ship in town, and so maybe this particular town has benefited in advancements from off world, but there’s certainly no indication in this pilot that that is the case.

The premise of the society portrayed also is beyond weak. We’re supposed to believe the aliens rolled over when humans slaughtered them, then gleefully learned English and our pop culture in only a decade? While, meanwhile, Americans brought back every bit of their racism in the way they treat the new residents of Earth? It’s District 9 on steroids, but without a full thinking through of the set up or players.

Worse still, when Roman (Matt Lanter, 90210), the lead alien, and his friends are brought to school, in a clear parallel to our history in the American south, armed guards are allowed to patrol the hallways, but don’t actually keep an eye on the extraterrestrial attendees. Setting aside the big guns that should not be in a place of education, humans are permitted to bully the aliens without repercussion, and the authorities offer no assistance when the aliens are harassed?

Basically, so much about the structure and execution of this world just plain sucks.

The question is, will the target audience of the CW be able to look past all of that and just enjoy the teen drama? Because in that, STAR-CROSSED delivers a pretty typical batch of characters with standard screen tropes. The popular girls are represented, and there’s the jock, Grayson (Grey Damon, also from Friday Night Lights), who is interested in Emery before she chooses Roman over him. There’s even a Twilight-vibe going on as Emery, who is an outsider that the cool kids are accepting of at first, meets Roman and his friends, who are the stranger loners segregated from everyone else. So there may be appeal here for a certain audience segment.

Plus, there are the “mysteries” designed to hook the viewer. One involves Emery’s terminally ill friend Julia (Malese Jow, The Vampire Diaries). I won’t spoil what happens for those who do want to check out this pilot, but suffice it to say, while the occurrence late in the hour does draw intrigue, it doesn’t make sense that it’s been kept a hidden secret so long, especially by those who want peace between the species.

The CW certainly knows its target audience, and STAR-CROSSED seems designed to grab both segments of the network’s viewers. Most of their series are either centered on angsty young people more concerned with romance than real problems, and a lot of the others are science fiction and super natural leaning, often with younger protagonists. STAR-CROSSED is combining both of those types of shows in what they surely hope is a perfect storm.

The thing is, even though I’m a thirty-year old man, I still like a lot of the CW’s stuff, from Arrow to The Vampire Diaries, and mourn the loss of Gossip Girl. However, STAR-CROSSED just has too many logistics issues to get past for it to join my season pass list. I’ll watch at least one more hour to see if it improves, but so much of the story is so unrealistic that it’s hard to be drawn in. Maybe next time they can do better.

STAR-CROSSED airs Monday at 8 p.m. ET on the CW.