Time Travel TV Series:
Time Travel is a concept that has enticed everyone since time immemorial. Time and Tide waits for none. But these TV shows tell us a completely different story. They have taken the Time Travel theory and given it a new, modern take. For science fiction fans, these shows are nothing short of a boon.
1. 11.22.63
Time Travel and Conspiracy theories go hand in hand. Many conspiracy theorists in the past have connected strange happenings throughout history to secret time travel technology. Take the Kennedy assassination for example. A popular and pretty infamous theory states that there was no way the Kennedy assassination could have been carried out without some pretty advanced technology. The difficulty of the assignation meant that the assassin needed to have some serious equipment to mask his presence and make the bullet find a path to the back of Kennedy’s head.
11.22.63 is certainly not about finding the truth about this rumor. But it does concern itself with one man’s mission to travel back in time and save John F Kennedy from being killed. In the way, he falls in love with an era leading to a chronological anomaly in the making.
2. Outlander
Outlander has developed a huge fan following over the years. It is about a British Army Nurse called Claire Randall. While enjoying her second honeymoon with her husband Frank in the British Country Side, Claire is mysteriously transported to 1743 England. There, she has to live on the streets of Victorian London, fending for herself and living from hand to mouth. She soon marries Jamie Fraser, a Scots Warrior with an amazing sense of humor. Frank, Claire’s first husband, soon follows suit.
Using his MI6 training, Frank tries to get back to Claire while Claire her-self gets embroiled in dark twists and turns of the era. Outlander is not for the faint-hearted. It is a very graphic show with very mature themes.
3. DC’s Legends of Tomorrow
There are shows that start out as the most spiteful of the lot but somehow age gracefully and become better with time, like fine wine. DC’s Legends of Tomorrow is once such show. A Time Master called Rip Hunter recruits several people with one specific characteristic – they had no significant contribution to their world and their absence will have the least effect on time. Essentially, these people were in simpler terms ‘pretty useless’.
Now as the Legends of Tomorrow, they travel across time and space to fight people that try to misalign the time stream and create paradoxes. DC’s Legends of Tomorrow is also a pretty funny and hilarious show with a lot of hidden details for comic book lovers.
4. Timeless
Any TV series starring Abigail Spencer is worth a watch. Timeless is about a group of people trying to stop a time thief from changing the course of history. Matt Center, Abigail Spencer, and Malcolm Barrett star in this time travel adventure drama. Abigail Spencer plays Professor Pucy Preston, who is tasked to stop the time thief Garcia Flynn who has stolen a time machine and intends to travel to the past to change American History and thus create an entirely new timeline.
Supporting her in her efforts is her bodyguard Wyatt Logan and the eccentric engineer Rufus Garlin. Timeless ran for only two seasons between the year of 2016 and 2018. It did not have enough ratings for the network to give it a third shot. Over the years, Timeless has gained a huge fan following and fans have been pressing the network to release the third season and spare the fans of the cliff-hangar of an ending that was at the end of the second season.
5. 12 Monkeys
In the future, humanity is on the verge of extinction. And it is not because of global warming or an alien invasion. Powerful virus humanity could not find a cure for has devastated mankind which is on its last vestiges and will soon become a myth of the past. Life as we know it has halted. In the year 2043, when Humanity has no hopes of ever making it out, a young Scavenger called James is chosen by a group of scientists who have found a way to travel back in time.
James is biologically augmented and he is given the objective of finding out more information about the 12 Monkeys, the terrorist organization that released the deadly plague all over the world and if possible eliminating them.
6. Future Man
Ever heard of the term – End of the World by Video Game? Neither did we until Future Man came into the scene. Josh Futturman is a lowly Janitor who bides his time playing a video game the rest of the world had given up on thinking that it was completely unbeatable. Josh manages to win the game to his own surprise.
But his astonishments do not end there. A group of travelers from the future soon arrive and threaten the entire world of destruction. Josh is now the only man who is capable of defeating this group. He hires a team of like-minded individuals who will help him stop these extra-terrestrial aggressors. Future Man is funny, has a good storyline, and truly explores the time travel element to its fullest.
7. The Ministry of Time
The only foreign language entry in our list, The Ministry of Time or The Department of Time (as is known in some global circles) is actually a Spanish fantasy TV show that goes by the name El Ministerio del Tiempo. For the first time, there existed a time travel show where the end of the world did not happen and was stopped within the confines of the United States of America.
Three law enforcement officers hailing from three different timelines are recruited to stop time intruders from changing Spanish history and the course of the world. It is a good show if you like to watch TV Shows with alternative perspectives on how time travel works.
8. Travelers
Travelers became an overnight success because of its fresh plot and an even fresher take on the concept of time traveling. In the far future, Humanity finally unravels the secret to time travel. Instead of sending someone through time, the secret is sending their consciousness through time that they possess the people of that timeline, effectively becoming sleeper cells from the future.
These sleeper cells are called “Travellers” and they use their knowledge of future events and digital technology to prevent humanity from encountering a catastrophic event. The Travellers discover that maintaining relationships is just as difficult as saving the world – which forms one of the core elements of the show.
9. Making History
Created for the Fox Broadcasting Company, Making history was a bold decision by a network that had only relied on proven and tested concepts till then. It is a time travel adventure comedy written and created by Julius Sharpe. It also has a pretty powerful ensemble like Leighton Meester, Adam Pally, and Yassir Lester.
Making History is about an ordinary facilities manager who travels back in time after discovering time travel technology. In the past, he alters historical events that end up creating time anomalies. The protagonist then hires the help of a professor and his own girlfriend to help him correct the time stream and return things to normal.
10. Terra Nova
One of the most ambitious TV projects to have been ever given a green signal, Terra Nova was canceled only after its first season. It was not because of the TV series getting low ratings or not being critically acclaimed (Terra Nova scored high ratings and was universally well-received by both fans and critics). Terra Nova was canceled because the concept was so high up there that the network was not able to keep up with production costs and the element of future scalability of the show with each consecutive season.
In the future, Humanity has exhausted the world of all its resources. In a last-ditch effort to save mankind, the Shannon family time travels millions of years in the past to start life anew with a new wave of human colonization. The series only got one season and it is a travesty that we could not see more of it. Regardless, it is one of the best time travel shows to ever exist.
