Timeless Brought Unprecedented Levels of Fun to the Procedural

In The Late Great, Primetimer staffers and contributors revisit shows that were cut short, but still cast a long shadow over the TV landscape.

The idea of time-travel isn’t new to entertainment — the concept’s been explored in different mediums, from books to movies and TV, since the late 19th century. And yet, despite how common the theme is and how many different variations of the same storyline exist, 2016’s Timeless still holds a special place in the annals of time-travel stories.

In the time since H.G. Wells first published The Time Machine, the concept of traveling through time has been thoroughly explored. Despite that, the stories that have made it to our TV screens follow more or less the same beats. Either time-travel is treated as a serious subject, with a great focus on the possible consequences, like in the underrated 12 Monkeys or the critically acclaimed Dark, or it’s merely used as a storytelling device in a show that doesn’t really explore time-travel as such, or concern itself with the consequences.

Heroes, Fringe, and even Lost are prime examples of shows that feature time-travel, but aren’t really about time-travel. Those shows, just like the ones that actually focus on the concept, have one thing in common: they’re all very much dramas. And outside of Fringe, which had procedural elements, they all adhere to a serialized TV format. That’s the general landscape 2016’s Timeless premiered in — time-travel storytelling was a thing, but it was much more serious and serialized than what Timeless had in store.

Not that the show’s premise was exactly lighthearted. Timeless’ logline, “when a group with nefarious intentions attempts to change the world as we know it by altering the past, Lucy (Abigail Spencer), a historian, Wyatt (Matt Lanter), a soldier, and Rufus (Malcolm Barrett), a scientist, unite to form an unlikely partnership, traveling through time to save history,” certainly positions it as a serious show. But Timeless, which clearly falls into the category of shows that treat time-travel as a serious subject, retains the procedural element in a way that allows it much more lightness than most other similar shows.

In this regard, the only comparable show is the BBC’s Doctor Who. And yet, tone and intention separate the two. A more whimsical and quirky show, Doctor Who is a family-oriented romp through time that skirts the lines of Timeless’ action-adventure procedural, but never really commits to it. 12 Monkeys, meanwhile, a show that also dabbles in the episodic every once in a while, is much more interested in the big picture than in the time-travel adventure of the day.

Timeless stays firmly in the episodic, operating like two shows at once — much like a regular procedural, but with a lot more purpose. There’s a larger storyline about the shadowy organization, Rittenhouse, trying to change history. But there are also the separate adventures, all set in crucial moments in history, that our heroes must embark on to stop the bad guys.

The show’s co-creator Eric Kripke, better known for Supernatural and The Boys, compared Timeless to the early days of The X-Files and Buffy: The Vampire Slayer in an interview with Vulture. Kripke explained that the intention with making Timeless work as a procedural was to stop it from becoming “an overcomplicated, down-the-rabbit-hole, bewildering thing that loses the casual viewer.”

It’s in that accessibility, in both delivery and storylines, that Timeless’ strengths really lie. The show begins with a very familiar premise, three people who have nothing in common coming together for a very special mission, and whether they can get along might just be the thing that makes or breaks history — literally, in this case.

But Timeless doesn’t rush any of the relationships between the main trio, not even the somewhat expected romantic tension between historian Lucy and soldier Wyatt. The latter dynamic is one the show introduces so that shippers can home in on it, but it spends almost the entire first season actively focusing everywhere else, paying special attention to Lucy’s friendship with Rufus and Wyatt’s journey of grief after the death of his wife, Jessica.

This, in turn, helps make Rufus, who could have easily been reduced to a third wheel, the emotional center of the show, the one both Lucy and Wyatt gravitate towards. It also gives greater agency to characters like Jiya (Claudia Doumit), who becomes more than Rufus’ absent love interest and Flynn (Goran Višnjić), who gets to be more than a one-dimensional villain.

The show’s preference for a serialized, lighter story than other shows in its genre is obvious in Season 1’s “Party at Castle Valar,” which sees Lucy, Rufus and Wyatt travel to 1944 Germany, where they come into contact with Wernher von Braun, and with some help from Ian Fleming himself, manage to secure his defection to the Allies. It’s a heavy subject, set in one of the most complicated times in history, and yet Timeless manages to treat Nazis like the villains they are without getting mired in seriousness. Instead, the characters make plenty of James Bond jokes as Lucy saves the day, thanks to her knowledge of history.

Perhaps the show’s clarity of purpose, especially as the time came to tie up loose ends, can be attributed to its bumpy road off screen. Canceled after the first season, Timeless was uncancelled a few days later and given a second season. The show was canceled again after the second season, then uncancelled once more and given a wrap-up movie. For a while there, it seemed like Timeless was the show that would not die, and plenty of fans rallied around the cause of saving the little time-travel show that could.

There are very clear reasons why the show appealed to so many different fans to the point they campaigned to bring it back. Time-travel is a fun theoretical idea to imagine, but sometimes audiences don’t want to have to stress every week — or think very hard about what the possibility might entail. Sometimes they just want an entertaining adventure, found family dynamics, a ship they can root for and a story that takes them to a different time and place every week.

It’s not groundbreaking, but it works. Timeless delivered on these things, and after it ended, there have been other shows that closely follow the “time-travel procedural” style it perfected in its brief run, including the new Quantum Leap reboot and even genre shows like La Brea and Loki.

Its influence on Loki, in particular, is worthy of examination. That Disney+ show clearly has a big picture in mind — one most fans are familiar with, considering the Marvel connections. And yet, Loki creator Michael Waldron and his team have decided it works best as a time-traveling adventure. An MCU show featuring a beloved character could have done anything; this one chose to follow in Timeless’ footsteps as a time-travel procedural with an overarching narrative.

From shows about cops to doctors to firefighters, procedurals remain as popular as ever. Eric Kripke and Shawn Ryan's NBC series didn’t exactly break the mold by focusing on time-travel, but it did expand the scope of what a procedural can be, with other shows following suit. Though forced to wrap its storyline in two short seasons and a movie, Timeless still has a pretty significant legacy.

Timeless Seasons 1 and 2 are streaming on Hulu.

Lissete E. Lanuza Sáenz is a lawyer, critic, and editor. She also hosts the I’m Not Yelling, I’m Latina podcast.