Amazed to see how new improvisations are created with the beaten down path of time loop sci-fi. This sky production from the Giri/Haji writer Joe Barton, delivered a clever variant of time travel story with few unexpected twists and plenty of cliff hangers. Barring the slowness and repetitions in the first two episodes, the momentum is spot on. It has borrowed a lot from other shows and movies but i still found it entertaining thanks to its not so complicated approach format.
The plot - The Lazarus Project is a top-secret Brit organization which has powers to turn the clock anticlockwise to a particular checkpoint date. But that key is controlled and triggered only to prevent and undo mass extinction events like nukes or Thanos snapping the finger. They leverage all sort of means to stop and if failed, do a reset. So technically in this show, the world has ended multiple times but has been resurrected back.
The group has few chosen ones, some of them born with a talent to experience this discarded timelines (called as mutants) and some selected for a great cause but those will be manufactured ones. The group dont have any intentions to make the world a better place so they turn blind eyes to lesser catastrophic events. When one of their mission goes for a toss (human err), the groups opinion gets divided and that rift creates a parallel and interesting story track. The main rule is you cannot unwind things for personal merit. But when people lose their dear ones, rules get broken and spirals go for a toss. Can they unite back covers the rest.
The editing was top notch and has a mad rhythm to it. After a long time heard some perfect Brit accent. The way they utilized the story format felt fresh and exciting especially the dry humor mixed dialogues. The one liners had enough punch. All the love stories had a great emotional touch. Each episode smartly build the characters and their back stories. The show strength lies in their relationship. A clever final twist elegantly opens up a big scale Phase 2. With an impressive casting and great performances this singularity based show will stand tall even with a tried and tested formula.
Verdict - 3.5/5(An interwoven thriller)