Travelers (Netflix)TV 

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Famine

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Or "Continuum, if it was Stargate Universe".

The basic premise is that people from the future take over the minds of people in the 21st Century moments before their death, with the pain of the over-write of their mind in the 10 seconds before they fully take over preventing them from taking the actions that caused their death - so no medical deaths here.

These people - Travelers - then assume the lives of their hosts, from information gleaned from historical record (including social media) while simultaneously working to prevent an event that has lead to the dystopian future they come from.

The Travelers seem to arrive as a unit of five: a leader; a medic; an engineer; a specialist; and an historian. The historian's job is to provide the team with funds and a base of operations through gambling (they have memorised sports results) and with knowledge of the Time, Elevation, Latitude and Longitude (TELL) of a host candidates death, make the team aware of further incoming Travelers.

The "hero" Traveler unit of the series is made up of: married FBI agent Grant MacLaren (leader); developmentally disabled woman Marcy Warton (medic) who, unfortunately, nobody knew was disabled as her social media profile was a fictional character building exercise; high-schooler Trevor Holden (engineer) who is actually an extremely old Traveler; Carly Shannon (specialist), a single-mother whose baby's father is an abusive cop and whose Traveler is romantically linked to MacLaren's Traveler; and Philip Pearson (historian), a heroin-addicted college dropout that historical record said ODed on his first time because his parents were in denial about his habit.

They have a number of protocols, which seem to be:
1. The mission comes first.
2. Never jeopardise your cover, the past stays in the past (by which they mean their past lives in the future... whatever)
3. Never save a life, never take a life.
4. (haven't encountered it yet)
5. Resume your host's life
6. Traveler teams must remain separated

Unless otherwise instructed by a mysterious character in the future known as The Director. Occasionally they receive instructions from the Director through children with robot voices, which isn't creepy at all, because only prepubescent brains can handle the temporary borrowing. Sometimes adults due to die carry these messages, because they're about to die so killing them doesn't matter.


There's a lot of Stargate connections in the show, and if you've seen Stargate (particularly Universe), Continuum or Supernatural, you'll have seen many of the actors (particularly minor and incidental characters) and locations.

The series is written by Brad Wright, co-creator of Stargate SG-1, with long-time Stargate episode directors Will Waring, Andy Mikita and Martin Wood all directing episodes.

Reilly Dolman (Philip) had a role in Universe, Louis Ferreira (lead character in Universe) shows up as a Traveler, Teryl Rothery (Janet Fraser, Heimdall in SG-1) is Trevor's mum, Marcy's social worker David is played by Patrick Gilmore (Dr. Volker, Universe), Ian Tracey (Jason Sadler, Continuum) is Philip's lawyer and fixer, Jennifer Spence (Betty, Continuum; Dr. Park, Universe) is Trevor's school counsellor Grace, Garry Chalk (Colonel Chekov, SG-1) is in it briefly and I'm told Stephen Lobo (Kellog, Continuum), Enrico Colantoni (Burke, SG-1; although you may know him better as Elias in Person of Interest, or Mathesar in Galaxy Quest), Tom McBeath (Harry Maybourne!) and Amanda Tapping (Carter, duh) all show up too.

There's a very Universe-y vibe to it, particularly the music, and it's rather pleasantly off-kilter - particularly with regards to Protocol 5, that the team all seems to have trouble with...
 
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Been awhile since I watched the First Season. Good entertainment. I'd say Trevor was my favorite character.
(Not a spoiler)Don't know how I feel about what happened to the doctor.

Cool episode when the team are by the lake or river.
 
"You killed my husband!" *slap*

Season 2 has zero chill - but did answer a question that was bothering me about Trevor's very low Traveler ID. To say Colantoni and Tapping also appear seems to have been an understatement.

Season 3 starts December 14th. You've just got time to get into it if you haven't already, and be warned, each episode is progressively more of a mind**** than the last.

Surely 001 planned for 5692, and will his device radically change the future? Hnngh.
 
Season 3 starts December 14th. You've just got time to get into it if you haven't already, and be warned, each episode is progressively more of a mind**** than the last.
Season 3 review:

What? I... what? But... the... what?

Mind**** is underplaying it.
 
Aaaand Netflix has cancelled it.

I guess at least it got an appropriate ending (with potential to be brought back too), but still a bummer. Actually announced as cancelled on February 1st, but I missed it at the time.
 
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