Why is everyone forgetting the best new time travel show of the year, Netflix's Travelers? It's been renewed for a second season. And there's also Syfy's 12 Monkeys.
Spoilers Timeless: Season 1 on NBC
- Thread starter Aragorn
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A disreputable human being can flim flam one 2 week free trial per credit card they might happen to have.
Some of us don't have Netflix.
Well, I don't have HBO, but I still know Game of Thrones is a thing. And plenty of Netflix shows get a ton of media attention, like the Marvel shows and Sense8. But for some reason Travelers hasn't gotten noticed as much.
Travellers was made by Showcase for Showcase, in Canada. Regular TV with the regular TV rules, unlike what a cable series can get away with. Netflix was the junior partner.
It's definitely flown beneath my radar and I suspect I'm not alone there. I've never seen GAME OF THRONES either, but that's a lot more high-profile--to say the least!
Is SyFy's 12 Monkeys any good? I bowed out of Timeless on the second or third episode, I thought it was so horrible.
I saw the first episode as one of these special preview things that my cable company does - offer a free look in hopes the customer will subscribe to the channel it's really on - and found it boring.
I don't have Showcase, and haven't bothered to check if it's available on Netflix.
Yay! There's one other person on the planet besides me who has never seen Game of Thrones!
Every so often my cable company offers the first season free on one of their preview channels. I've never taken them up on it because I can't afford to subscribe to the channel it's on.
Some channels are only available as a bundle (which is why I'm not watching Doctor Who anymore), some of the single channels are really pricey. Right now the only extra one I've subscribed to is Bravo, so I can watch The Handmaid's Tale.
So a show either has to be on Netflix or basic cable for me to watch it.
I don't use Netflix streaming. And don't you mean "your favorite" time travel show and not "the best"?
I'm going to miss "Timeless" very much. I hope that NBC doesn't cheat us out of a DVD release.
I wasn't addressing any single person; I was speaking in the aggregate, about the larger conversation I'm seeing online about how many time-travel shows have been cancelled. A lot of articles and comments are ignoring Travelers and 12 Monkeys when talking about the time-travel shows currently on the air. I guess the habit of focusing more on the commercial broadcast networks than cable and other outlets persists, but it's still an oversight.
Besides, it was a rhetorical question. Asking "Why aren't more people talking about X?" is a way to convey the idea that X is worth talking about.
Isn't that implicitly understood in any use of that phrase? Although the general criticial consensus I've seen toward Travelers has been positive.
Don't come back here until you've seen every episode!
Unfortunately, I'm sure the networks will get the wrong message from all the failed time travel shows. It's not the concept that is a failure, the concept is just fine. It's that all of these were kinda crappy, and the writers were lazy at best. When you go down this path, you need to have some ideas laid out, and maybe even think through how it is going to work (in-universe at least) and stick with it.
For the most part, these things have just been history porn, and there wasn't a lot of forethought other than dressing the characters up from week to week and name dropping historical events. Time travel is the device you're using to tell the story, but you STILL NEED TO HAVE A STORY TO TELL. Couldn't really tell what the point was supposed to be with this one, and dressing it up with the Overused Shadow Cabal just makes it worse. especially one that doesn't ever get affected by constant changes to the timeline...
For the most part, these things have just been history porn, and there wasn't a lot of forethought other than dressing the characters up from week to week and name dropping historical events. Time travel is the device you're using to tell the story, but you STILL NEED TO HAVE A STORY TO TELL. Couldn't really tell what the point was supposed to be with this one, and dressing it up with the Overused Shadow Cabal just makes it worse. especially one that doesn't ever get affected by constant changes to the timeline...
I have to admit I'm rather meh on the cancellation news. I enjoyed it and would gladly have continued watching it, but I'm not that disappointed it isn't coming back and I'm not going to miss. There were some good ideas and the characters were pretty good, but the overall arc was kind of a mess.
I think of all of the time travel shows I watched the last couple seasons it would go towards the bottom.
I'd rank them:
12 Monkeys
Legends of Tommorow
Making History
Timeless
I think of all of the time travel shows I watched the last couple seasons it would go towards the bottom.
I'd rank them:
12 Monkeys
Legends of Tommorow
Making History
Timeless
I'd categorize Timeless as one of those shows that has an idea to run with but is really short on execution, just like Making History or Powerless. Also, Rittenhouse was the least interesting and most convoluted part of the show, so naturally that's what they spend the most time on.
I wish Timeless had been better. Some episodes were visually gorgeous representations of the past. I liked the characters. But, it was short on a story that made sense and I agree with the consensus that Rittenhouse was lame. It seems like they wanted to showcase historical events but not put the thought into the time travel aspects that they needed to develop.
I don't know about that. It's not that the sole network survivor, Legends of Tomorrow, is any more coherent or intelligent than, say, Timeless or Frequency. It could be simply that there were too many time-travel shows at once and they spread the audience too thin.
Or maybe it's not even about that. Success is not guaranteed. A certain number of new shows in any TV season are going to get cancelled. So whenever there's a cluster of new shows reflecting a certain trend, it's statistically likely that a fair number of the shows that get cancelled that year will be reflective of that trend (say, that year when Threshold, Surface, and Invasion all came along at the same time and got cancelled after a season or less). There's no cause and effect there beyond simple statistics. If a certain percentage of shows in a given year get cancelled, and if a large number of the shows in a given year are about the same subject, it's therefore likely that a large number of the cancelled shows will be about that subject.
Of course, one reason SF/fantasy shows have historically been more susceptible to cancellation is because their unusual production requirements (exotic settings, elaborate special effects and makeup) make them more expensive. Time-travel shows need to create historical settings on a regular basis, which could get costly.
I would add that Legends benefits from having a loyal niche audience and some cross viewing with the other CW hero shows which are popular. I am sure that helps a lot.
Amen to that!
