One of the great springs of science fiction is that of the time loop: the moment that is repeated over and over again for some reason, the “day of the groundhog”. We recently had that groundhog day in Natasha Lyonne’s excellent ‘Russian Doll’ season 1 (call SkyShowtime: bring ‘Poker face’ now) but this time it takes on a look almost in the form of a thriller with ‘The Lazarus Project’series that can be seen on AMC.
Created by Joe Barton (responsible for the outstanding ‘Giri/Haji’), Paapa Essiedu (‘I Could Destroy You’) leads the cast of the series as George, a young app developer who realizes he’s been living in a time loop for years. One in which a pandemic and other apocalyptic events unfold such as wars in Eastern Europe (what things, huh).
In one of those loops will be contacted by a secret agencyexplaining to him that the one who revives over and over again is because he has a genetic mutation and they recruit him for a secret Project that has been preventing the destruction of the world for decades by “resetting” time to a fixed point, on July 1 of the corresponding year. , until they manage to neutralize the threat.
July 1, ethical checkpoint
The first thing that ‘The Lazarus Project’ makes clear is that they are not interested in the scientific aspect of how things work. What’s more, they disdain to explain it because our protagonists have no knowledge of physics and simply compare it to a video game. This, which can give an impression of vagueness, marks the intention very well.
In this way, Barton and Marco Kreuzpaintnerdirector of the first four episodes, tell us simply that let’s get carried away by the proposal. I already tell you that if we do it, we will enjoy it. As with so many, say, James Bond films (indeed, it has that British spy touch), it obviates the science behind SPECTER’s highly dangerous scientific breakthroughs.
Interested, above all, the human and tragic side. Barton’s script does not stitch without a thread and through a spy story of these high voltage (light and with a touch of humor) immerses us in the ramifications of restarting time. Not so much the small variations that arise, but the personal cost that it implies when the maximum is to achieve the greatest good.
In fact, it will be a tragedy in the life of George himself that will give a rather interesting twist to the story: suddenly we are not talking about the adventure of a normal hero, but about people sailing on the Moral dilemma. Causing or avoiding a reboot del tiempo appears in the middle of a crossroads rooted in profound implications when what is also at stake is trauma. All landed in the intimate.
Essiedu, 007
This is a good trick with which Barton presents the story. The other trump card is the impressive cast. Zero surprises in this aspect since Essiedu already gave off charisma in the Michaela Coel series and here he is joined by solid Tom Burke and Anjli Mohindra, great regulars in British drama.
With an intelligently written script and a good staging ‘The Lazarus Project’ is a riveting sci-fi action thriller that works really well, balancing a certain light tone with its exploration of trauma. The series has been renewed for a season 2 so I’m already waiting for the new episodes.