Television series

Timeless

Name: Timeless
Genre: Adventure, Science Fiction, Mystery
Released: 2016
Cast: Abigail Spencer, Matt Lanter, Malcolm Barrett, Sakina Jaffrey, Paterson Joseph

Timeless sends a scientist, a soldier, and a historian chasing a rogue time-traveler through American history — dodging Nazis, gatecrashing the Hindenburg, brushing up against Lincoln's assassination — while their own pasts quietly start to fray. It's breezy, earnest network mystery-box TV: history as playground, conspiracy as engine, chemistry as glue. Comfort food with a body count, made for people who want adventure with heart, not prestige.

TVMaze rating

3.7

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like time-travel plots where history's set pieces are the point, and enjoy a cheerful team of misfits puzzling out a conspiracy one episode at a time.

Skip it if you're irritated by time-travel logic that bends to suit the week's adventure, since the show asks you to overlook it often.

What it asks of you: An hour a week, across 28 episodes, with an eye on continuity and a willingness to jump between eras; it stays brisk rather than brooding.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Quantum Leap1989

The blueprint Timeless is quietly remaking: one person flung into history each week, forced to fix a small wrong before leaping again. Same warmth, same episodic time-tourism, decades earlier.

But Late-80s effects and pacing feel creaky now, and the moral lessons can land a little too neatly.

Doctor Who2005

Bigger, weirder, funnier — a team hopping through history and space with the same blend of jeopardy, banter, and genuine grief that makes Timeless work, backed by decades of mythology.

But A much bigger commitment, and the tone swings from silly to devastating faster than some viewers enjoy.

12 Monkeys2015

Same premise, darker blood pressure: a small team races through timelines chasing an enemy who wants to unmake history, but the stakes are bleaker and the paradoxes actually hurt.

But Heavier and more tangled than Timeless — less fun, more existential dread, and it demands close attention.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Timeless

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

La Jetée1962

Timeless runs on the same core engine — a lone traveler sent back to alter a catastrophe — but strips away the banter and jeopardy to leave just the ache of it. It's the moral question Timeless asks every week, played entirely straight.

The original time-travel-to-save-the-world story, told in twenty-eight minutes of still photographs and a whispering narrator. Haunting and strange, it's the ancestor of every time-loop plot that followed.

But No dialogue-driven scenes, almost no motion — it's an art film, not an adventure, and some will find it too austere.

DC's Legends of Tomorrow2016

A ragtag crew bouncing through history to stop a villain from breaking time — but dialed up into full superhero absurdity, gleefully unserious in a way Timeless only flirts with.

But Requires patience for capes-and-powers logic and a shared universe you may not already care about.

Travelers2016

Flip the premise: operatives sent back from a ruined future to quietly steer history right while hiding in ordinary lives. Same tension between mission and personal cost, colder and more paranoid.

But Slower burn, more procedural, and the emotional payoff takes longer to arrive than Timeless's.

Continuum2012

A cop stranded in the past hunting time-jumping terrorists, wrestling with which side of history is actually right — same chase structure, sharper political edge.

But Modest production values, and the plot gets knottier than it strictly needs to.

The Librarians2014

Pure Saturday-morning energy: a small team protecting history's secrets from magical threats, breezy and self-aware in exactly the way Timeless is at its lightest.

But Leans camp and low-stakes; if you liked Timeless's more serious stretches, this might feel too weightless.

Warehouse 132009

Artifact-of-the-week adventure with a found-family team and constant nods to real history and historical figures — the same cozy, episodic comfort.

But The time-travel element is minimal; it's more about history's leftovers than history itself.

Outlander2014

Takes the single time-jump and lingers there for years, trading Timeless's globe-trotting for one woman fully immersed in 18th-century Scotland — the historical detail is extraordinary.

But A slow, romance-driven long-hauler; nothing like Timeless's brisk hour-a-week mission structure.

Watchmen2019

Timeless visits America's dark chapters as adventure set-dressing; Watchmen insists you sit with one and feel its weight. Same instinct — history isn't finished, it's still shaping the present — pushed to its serious conclusion.

Alternate-history superhero drama that treats a real American atrocity — the Tulsa massacre — not as backdrop for a fun jaunt but as the wound the whole story bleeds from.

But Dense, angry, and demanding; it won't give you the breezy comfort Timeless offers, and it assumes patience with superhero mythology.

Undone2019

Same toy — nonlinear travel through time to fix something broken — but shrunk from saving America to saving one family, and rendered in animation that makes the unreality visible instead of hidden.

Rotoscope-animated series about a woman who can move through her own past to investigate her father's death — intimate, gorgeous, and genuinely unsettling about what memory does to time.

But Slow, interior, and ambiguous about what's real; if you want plot momentum and villains, this won't deliver.