Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Timeless’

Time travel is a tricky premise, but that hasn’t stopped television from attempting to tackle it pretty much every pilot season. NBC’s latest entry to the genre is Timeless, a sci-fi drama created by Eric Kripke and Shawn Ryan. The long-buzzed about series soars through time and space on a mission to protect our future, and we’re here to let you know if the show if worth your time. 

A Guide to Our Rating System

Opening Shot: The opening of a pilot can set a mood for the entire show (think Six Feet Under); thus, we examine the first shot of each pilot.
The Gist: The “who, what, where, when, why?” of the pilot.
Our Take: What did we think? Are we desperate for more or desperate to get that hour back?
Sex and Skin: That’s all you care about anyway, right? We let you know how quickly the show gets down and dirty.
Parting Shot: Where does the pilot leave us? Hanging off a cliff, or running for the hills?
Sleeper Star: Basically, someone in the cast who is not the top-billed star who shows great promise.
Most Pilot-y Line: Pilots have a lot of work to do: world building, character establishing, and stakes raising. Sometimes that results in some pretty clunky dialogue.
Our Call: We’ll let you know if you should, ahem, Stream It or Skip It.

TIMELESS

Opening Shot: People watch excitedly as passenger airships take flight and run across a field to get a better look, and we are soon shown that the date is May 6, 1937 – we are front row for the Hindenburg disaster.

The Gist: After an experimental time machine is stolen by criminal mastermind Garcia Flynn (Goran Visnjic) who wishes to change the course of American history, historian Lucy Preston (Abigail Spencer) is recruited to travel back in time to stop him from altering the future forever. Aided by Master Sergeant Wyatt Logan (Matt Lanter) and coder Rufus (Malcolm Barrett), the pilot follows Lucy and her team as they chase Flynn back to the Hindenburg disaster.

Our Take: While the premise of the show is certainly interesting and sustainable, the execution of said premise falls short in many parts of the pilot. The dialogue is largely where the show fails, which is especially disappointing due to the excellent effects at play throughout the episode and the strong actors at its center. The constant mentions of how badly Lucy wants to follow in her mother’s footsteps is exhausting – we get it, she wants to be like Mom. Spencer’s performance saves most of these moments of cheesiness, however, and makes a lot of the choppy scenes watchable.

The pilot actually gains momentum and footing as it progresses (the last 20 minutes are by far its strongest), but the beginning is rocky – and borders on hokey, especially with the exhausting exposition at play. Despite all of these issues, however, the show is fun. Viewers may be initially let down by its corniness due to the fact that it has been marketed as such an intense drama, but experiencing the pilot without a lot of expectations makes it more enjoyable. It’s hokey, it’s high-stakes, and it’s hard to call good – but it is a good time.

Sex and Skin: This pilot doesn’t seem to care much about sex and skin right out of the gate, though there is certainly sexual tension between our two leads that may lead to something more down the line.

Parting Shot: After failing to get Flynn and being dismissed, Lucy returns home to find her mother (previously dying of cancer) healthy and happy, chopping vegetables in the kitchen, and discovers that her sister Amy has now never existed. As a devastated Lucy processes this, she receives a call to come back and join the team again – Flynn’s at it again with the time machine.

Sleeper Star: Malcolm Barrett’s tense, funny coder Rufus offers some of the strongest acting moments in the pilot. Rufus always seems to be thrown into situations he knows he’d be better off avoiding (he handles the discomfort of being a black man in the 1930s with a simultaneous sense of bravery and humor) and Barrett’s neurotic, fiery performance gives every one of his scenes a unique energy. We look forward to seeing what else he’s given to do over the course of the series.

Most Pilot-y Line: “Stop worrying about disappointing Mom. Make your own future.” This is one of many clunky lines of dialogue that take place towards the beginning of the episode as we learn about who Lucy is and her endless quest to live up to her mother’s legacy. The dialogue as a whole is actually pretty rough and mostly cheesy – while there is a lot of information to present, there are definitely other shows that have delivered this much exposition with a lot more nuance.

Our Call: Stream it, but without high expectations. This overhyped, flashy pilot doesn’t hook viewers the way it should, which is a shame, because there are really interesting and exciting elements to the show, and the premise is certainly sustainable. It may prove to grow stronger over time, but based on the inconsistent nature of the first episode alone, we’d recommend going in without your hopes up too high.

[Stream the pilot for Timeless on Hulu or on NBC.com]

Jade Budowski is an indecisive sometimes-writer with a knack for ruining punchlines and harboring dad-aged celebrity crushes. Follow her on Twitter: @jadebudowski.