The Lazarus Project: All episodes

February 22, 2023 5:53 AM - Season 1 (Full Season)

George is the latest recruit to The Lazarus Project – a secret organization that has harnessed the ability to turn back time whenever the world is at the threat of extinction. George and his colleagues are the few people on Earth with the ability to remember the events that are undone when time goes back. But when a freak accident harms someone close to George, Lazarus won’t let him turn back time to undo it unless there is the threat of global extinction. Now George must choose to stay loyal or go rogue as he faces the question: if you had the power to re-write your past, what would you sacrifice to do it?

Aired in 2022 on Sky, coming soon on TNT in the US. I've seen it not inaccurately described as Groundhog Day Blackops, but it has some other tweaks to the formula too - what if your coworkers also experience the time loops, what implications and challenges does that create?

The first season wraps things up nicely and they set up enough for a second season which has already been renewed.

posted by Kyol (4 comments total)

I had a few niggles about things in the last episode - if George is a Secret Agent and Licensed To Kill, why is he so furiously doing the things he does at the start of the final loop? "uh hey boss, someone broke in to my apartment and attacked me and I shot them in the fight, can we get Victor le Nettoyeur to pop by? Cheers." This might just be a difference of perspective, I suppose, or he's trying to avoid any uncomfortable questions about why he was attacked, I guess, but it felt like it was maybe unexamined.

But otherwise it was pretty well done and brought some new concepts to the time looping groundhog day table.
posted by Kyol at 6:06 AM on February 22, 2023

Just binged this - I think it's the first series since Dark to really capture the existential horror of repeating time loops.
posted by Mogur at 4:34 AM on June 26, 2023

Anyway, longer post:

1. I think it's unintentionally hilarious that Lazarus' criterion for success is "Are we still breathing? Yes? Okay, cool. Let's go get drunk"

2. I do *not* believe that they have an actual time machine. For one thing, the first Checkpoint that gets mentioned was in 1963. It's way more credible that a mutant like George made the Checkpoint and another one is resetting it every time. Wes knows this but nobody else. It's why she has the policy of recruiting Naturals whenever she finds one - she's hoping to find the next Resetter. This is George's path to redemption in S2, I think.

3. The spectacularly bad decision-making that we sometimes see is the result of carbon monoxide poisoning from the Ops Room also being used as a parking garage.

4. Love the grungy depressing bathroom that they have in Ops. I'm guessing that the staff take turns cleaning it because they can't find a janitor with a high enough security clearance. So very institutional.

5. (spoiler!) Rebrov has known about breaking the Checkpoint Barrier ever since he asked Janet out on a date the very first time because he got that text message (btw, mad props to the actor who refuses eye contact as he's playing that scene to show that Rebrov is thinking as fast as he can while Janet remains oblivious)

6. The continual flashbacks annoyed me until I realized that of course you have to show a time-travel show out of chronological order because that's how Lazarus agents experience it.
posted by Mogur at 6:44 AM on June 26, 2023

On rewatch (as Season 2 is out now, and I discover that I've forgotten so much), I have changed my mind: I don't think Rebrov knew about breaking the checkpoint barrier during his first date with Janet. I think he thought it was a spam text, so he didn't make that connection until years later, when George showed him the blood-soaked note.

Also on rewatch, Shiv's arc is breaking my goddamn heart.
posted by Mogur at 5:31 AM on May 12, 2024