'Travelers' is the underrated sci-fi drama you have to binge now

Released around the same time as The QA and Stranger Things, Travelers is a wildly underrated sci-fi show available to stream on Netflix. Creator Brad Wright puts a spin on conventional genre tropes, adding an updated and grounded touch in presenting time travel alongside engaging characters. 

Travelers follows a team of time-travelling agents in a post-apocalyptic future who inhabit bodies close to death, using historical records, GPS and social media in their jumps across time to save the world from a harrowing fate. 

The story arcs blend the entertaining sci-fi tropes with a morally driven landscape concerning issues such as lying, deceit and the ethics around recruiting another person’s body. 

The series stars Eric McCormack as the team leader Grant, Mackenzie Porter, Jared Abrahamson, Nesta Cooper, Reilly Dolman, and Patrick Gilmore, with Eric McCormack serving as producer. 

When asked by Brief Take why she feels Travelers appeals to a broad audience, star Porter replied, “I think that even though it’s a sci-fi show, a lot of it is based in relationships and how people feel, even though they are going through a situation that is a little bit more far-fetched, like time travel.”

She adds: “But it is still showing human emotion through that, which is an overall concept that is immediately present through seasons ome, two and three.”

“So when I talk to people, I say ‘if you’re not a sci-fi fan, you’ll still be a fan of the show,” the actor continues. “Because there’s so much love in it, it’s almost like a drama / sci-fi.”

Unfortunately, Travelers was cancelled in February 2019 after three seasons and 34 episodes. “A lot of you have been asking about the possibility of a season four,” Wright tweeted. “But many of you have been saying, ‘look, if this is it, what a moving and surprising and profound ending it is.'”

He added: “Well, I’m afraid it is [the end].”

Travelers is available to stream on Netflix.