The Lazarus Project
Created by Joe Barton
Written by Joe Barton
Executive producers Joe Barton, Johnny Capps, Marco Kreuzpaintner, Julian Murphy
Producer Adam Knopf
Cinematography Phillip Haberlandt
Editors Johannes Hubrich, Anil Griffin
Production company Urban Myth Films
Original network Sky Max
Cast:
Paapa Essiedu as George
Tom Burke as Rebrov
Anjli Mohindra as Archie
Caroline Quentin as Wes
Charly Clive as Sarah
Rudi Dharmalingam as Shiv
Lorn Macdonald as Blake
Vinette Robinson as Janet
Brian Gleeson as Ross
Lukas Loughran as The Dane
For sheer entertainment value, you just can’t beat a well-told time-loop story. Some, like Groundhog Day or Russian Doll, are surreal and funny. Some, like Predestination, take a more serious bent. That Australian movie, woefully neglected, was based on Heinlein’s –All You Zombies– , acclaimed as perhaps the most perfectly plotted time-loop stories ever. (Heinlein reportedly wrote it in one day). But just the built-in intricacy and surreal logic make time-loop stories a favorite of mine.
The Lazarus Project (Sky Max) is a great new addition to that library. The story centers around George (Essiedu) who suffers a traumatic event and wakes up at midnight on the cusp of June and July, only to realize that he has already lived much of the previous twelve months before.
He is recruited by a clandestine British agency, The Lazarus Project. They have a machine that can reset time. Nobody outside of the Lazarus Project (except George) knows that time has been reset. Eight billion people wake up on July 1st, unaware that they have woken up on that day before—sometimes dozens of times. The agency’s mission is benign; they reset time when an extinction level event is about to occur, such as a nuclear war. Members of the agency have witnessed many, many outbreaks of such wars. A bright flash, and they wake up in their beds the previous summer morning, armed with accumulated knowledge of the sequence of events leading up to the war that helps them to prevent it. They don’t have a great batting average, but when you get endless at bats, you are going to score runs.
George’s lady gets pregnant shortly before a Reset. They pass the Reset date without a rollback, and she eventually gives birth to a baby boy. However, in the following months there is a Reset, and the child is erased from reality. Only George and the agency know he ever existed. Now his lady is glowing, newly aware of her first pregnancy, and she eventually gives birth. Only this time, it’s a girl. George begins to learn the dark secret of the agency—they suffer from remembered lost lives, including in many cases not only the deaths of loved ones, but their own deaths as well. This leads to people in the agency working at cross purposes, saving not just the world, but friends and family as well.
Aside from a set of beautifully crafted paradoxes, this is a taut, tight action adventure, combining the best of a murder mystery and a spy novel. Barton has excelled in creating and telling this story.
The final episode captures some of the frenetic and hilarious mirror-maze reality that made Russian Doll so much fun, and the series concludes with the viewer avid for more.
Sky Max would be mad not to renew the series for a new season, and creator Joe Barton has assured everyone that he has much of the story continuation mapped out.
A great series that works on all levels. It’s coming to the US in the near future. Don’t miss it.