Characters from the TV show Travelers staring at the camera
Characters from the TV show Travelers staring at the camera

This is a really good TV series, with three seasons available on Netflix. The characters are compelling, but for a story about a fundamentally unbelievable idea (time travel from the distant-future to the near-future) I was most impressed by the fact that they handle the idea in an intellectually rigorous manner.

While there is some malarkey about the time travel itself being a function of quantum mechanics, it is clear that the writers have made some significant effort to imagine a future world – and to imagine a plausible explanation for how those characters might behave. For example, it is very credible to imagine a human future where eating animals is considered as reprehensible as slavery is considered today. It is credible to imagine a future where ethics have moved from today’s standards, and it is credible to imagine a future with genuine moral concerns about some of today’s behaviour. After all, I’m old enough to remember back 13 years, when Barack Obama was an opponent of same-sex marriage, and yet now, even the Pope indicates some support for same-sex civil unions.

Similarly, these travellers from the future are not all-powerful, and they are actual, relatable, humans – trying to adapt from the norms of the distant-future to the norms of the near-future. They have their mission and their purpose in life, but they are very three-dimensional characters.

One downside is the end of Season Three. I felt that the series could have continued, but was cancelled abruptly – causing some of the stories to be compressed absurdly in a dramatic effort to wildly conclude the series at the end of that season.

Michael Josem is a long-term consumer advocate, most prominently as a global leader in combating fraud in the online gambling industry. He was in part the inspiration for the 20th Century Fox Movie, Runner Runner, starring Ben Affleck and Justin Timberlake.

Josem has over a decade of experience as a senior business leader working across various high-tech and online industries, and takes action to build a better community. His primary volunteer roles include service for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, and Graih, the homelessness charity.