TNTs The Lazarus Project Uses Suspense Trapping to Ask Smart … – Roger Ebert

It turns out that agroup calling themselvesthe Lazarus Project has been keeping humanity afloat by jumping the whole world back in time whenever natural events or human actions threaten a mass extinction event, to use their language. And while most people dont remember the alternate timelines, George has somehow woken up to them. Hes a mutant, and he joins the group of time-traveling world savers rather than be alone in the crazy-making do-overs.

As George goes deeper into the secret society of the Project, Essiedu works well as an everyman, both skeptical and excited. Its noteworthy to see a Black man in this part, a hero and a human, a flawed character we empathize with. The show doesnt remark on his race in the four episodes available for critics to screen, while it does note others, demonstrating that it knows what its doing. And The Lazarus Project keeps pushing, allowing Essiedu to flex his acting chops, sometimes comedic and at others heart-wrenching.

George is put through these paces by a set of arbitrary rules that the show doesnt explain, even though they determine everyones fate. George does ask how it works, but his guide and time-traveling mentor Archie (Anjli Mohindra) brushes aside his query (and that of the audience)by saying youd need to understand quantum physics for the answer to make sense. The basic gist is that they have a checkpoint of July 1st that they reset to if things go bad. Make it to the next July, and that year is locked.

And reset they do. The Lazarus Project offers up a pretty grim view of humanity in which we, as a group, regularly do ourselves in (thanks, nuclear weapons), and it takes the extraordinary actions of a few rogue heroes to keep that from happening again and again.

While all this sounds noble, it gets thorny for those who do remember the time resets. What if they get pregnant? Give birth? Lose a loved one? How do they balance their personal needs with humanitys? And if most dont remember, why cant they hit the reset button when needed?

Read more:

TNTs The Lazarus Project Uses Suspense Trapping to Ask Smart ... - Roger Ebert