Timeless Review: Pilot (Season 1 Episode 1)

What better way to kick off a brand new series than with a (literal) bang?!

Undoubtedly, that was the logic behind the explosive (ha) Pilot for NBC’s Timeless.

Here’s the thing with this show: it’s exactly what you expect it to be.

It’s not pretending that it isn’t a big ol’ Sci-Fi adventure. It’s not trying to be a hard-hitting drama. Timeless is here to have a good time, and, by golly, so are we!

The Pilot of this show is fun. Lucy is the perfect adventure heroin, really — reminiscent of Evie from The Mummy, actually (which can only be taken as the highest of praise). She’s smart, quirky, and curious. She’s ridiculously easy to love.

In fact, despite knowing very little about these characters yet (one of the main issues with the Pilot is that it gives away very little in terms of character motivations and details), they’re all insanely likeable in their own unique ways.

They are the quintessential action/adventure trio, really.

And despite how little we know about them, we are still intrigued to learn more because of how likeable they are — a factor that is very important when creating a brand new show with a brand new cast of characters. It’s impossible to tell your audience everything that makes your characters human and relatable in one episode (plus, it would be awful to give it all up that easily), so, it’s vital that writers make them intriguing without shoving a whole lot of character backstory down our throats in a short amount of time.

So, kudos for that. We are given very little, but we’re interested enough to want to find out more.

The Pilot sets the show up to seem like it’s going to become one of the ultimate escapist fantasies. Each week, we get to go somewhere new, experience something  that will make (or break?) history.

In a television season where we are being bombarded with new time travel shows from all angles, Timeless is setting itself apart by establishing a different format from the others.

This show is not about one character’s journey to one point in time and how they experience that time period: it’s about specific, different points in time each week — what significant, historical event happened on what particular day, and how our heroes are going prevent that profound moment from being tarnished and, therefore, prevent such tampering from altering the future in unthinkable ways.

There’s always going to be something new and interesting when you have a show that is constantly taking you to different places every week.

This is a format that brought Eric Kripke fantastic success in the first few seasons of Supernatural, as well. Having a new story, a new adventure, every week keeps us on our toes and keeps us coming back for more. If we didn’t enjoy one particular location or event, we get a brand new start next week.

And I can’t wait to see where Timeless takes us in the weeks to come.

What did you think of Timeless’ debut? Let me know in the comments below!

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Timeless airs Mondays 10/9c on NBC.