Review: Travelers, First Two Episodes

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I remember hearing something about a new time travel-themed show called Travelers that sounded interesting. Unfortunately it slipped my mind to keep an eye out for the premiere, but then I got a message from one of my regular readers mentioning that they’d fallen in love with the show and recommending I try it. Showcase’s website had the first two episodes available to watch, so I gave it a go.

Pilot episode:

The cast of TravelersIn the world of Travelers, some unnamed disaster in the far-flung future has wiped out most of humanity. In order to prevent this grisly fate, the technology has been developed to send people’s consciousnesses back in time, where they possess the body of someone moments before their death.

The first episode introduces us to one particular team of travelers (apparently there’s an entire army of them) as they enter their hosts and adjust to life in the twenty-first century.

It’s not a strong start.

Travelers’ pilot is very slow and tells us precious little about what is actually going on. I have a certain feeling of being strung along in the hopes of answers, which is something I truly hate in fiction.

It’s already clear that a lot of the series is going to be devoted to showing the travelers’ struggles to maintain their covers and cope with their new lives — the pilot is devoted almost entirely too this — but that’s not an angle that much appeals to me. I’d rather focus on the sci-fi.

I will grant that a few of the concepts are a bit interesting. One traveler, Philip, landed in the body of a heroine addict and is now struggling to cope with his withdrawals, and another, Marcy, wound up possessing a mentally challenged woman and now has to explain why she can suddenly read and use complete sentences.

Marcy in TravelersThe other characters are far less interesting, though.

There are other problems too, such as numerous plot holes. Supposedly most of their intelligence on the past comes from mining the Internet for data, yet apparently they don’t understand Internet slang?

There’s a lot of stuff like that. One moment, the travelers’ knowledge of the past is encyclopedic, the next they’re running into all kinds of problems due to their incomplete intelligence. Marcy being one of the more prominent examples.

Furthermore, it’s clearly established that their goal is to change the past, on a large scale, and yet sometimes they seem determined not to change history. At one point there’s a scene where one traveler has the chance to save someone from death, but he doesn’t because that death was “supposed” to happen according to history. It would be a powerful scene, but the whole point of the travelers’ mission is to change history and save lives, so it just doesn’t make any sense.

The one thing I can say in Travelers’ favour right now is the cast seems really strong. Every actor seems unusually comfortable in their roles for a pilot, and they’re all putting on strong performances.

A shot from the pilot of TravelersAlso, it is good to see yet more Canadian sci-fi. Already spotting some familiar faces, like Ian Tracey (Sanctuary’s Dr. Jekyll and Continuum’s Jason Sadler) and Leah Cairns (BSG’s Racetrack).

Overall rating: 5.9/10

“Protocol 6”:

Travelers’ second episode is a bit less uneventful, though still not terribly impressive.

With the team assembled, the travelers embark on their first mission: preventing a massive explosion that originally claimed thousands of lives. The sudden shift from fishes out of water to expert team saving the world is a bit jarring, but at least it’s a little more interesting.

There’s not quite as much time wasted on each character’s alter ego, and the pacing isn’t quite so slow, but there’s still a fair bit of problems. There’s still that inexplicable disconnect between their trying to alter the past while also trying not to alter the past. There’s still no clue what happened to make the future so bad, and no hint of any over-arching storyline. It will be a tremendous waste of potential if this turns out to be a “case of the week” show.

I don’t understand why the different traveler teams aren’t allowed to help each other, either, but add it to the list, I guess.

The cast of TravelersThe only thing about this show I’m particularly enjoying so far is Marcy. The dynamic with her social worker is pretty interesting.

Overall rating: 6.1/10 I’m not sure if I’m going to keep watching this show right now. There’s some potential, but it certainly hasn’t impressed me so far.

All apologies to the fellow he recommended it to me. I’m sure this isn’t the glowing review you were hoping for.

Gaming Round-Up: Halloween in Landmark and TSW, Nova Raving, and Skyforge

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Halloween as an adult is always a little depressing, isn’t it? It used to be a day you spent all year looking forward to, and now… it’s Monday.

The Rider, the star of The Secret World's Samhain 2016 eventHalloween celebrations in online games can at least soften the blow a bit.

The Secret World’s Halloween celebrations are, of course, the stuff of legends, but I must admit I’m not quite feeling the usual joy this year.

The new event is… strange. There’s not much story. A lot of it boils down to new world boss fights, but there’s a sort of puzzle-like requirement to summon them. Mostly it involves a lot of people running around like headless chickens, desperately hoping to find their targets before the boss despawns. I can’t say I’m fond of the time limit.

Of course, the official forums are on fire. For my part, while I agree with most of the criticisms, I’m inclined to judge the event less harshly than some.

I at least give Funcom credit for trying something different. The elements of mystery and community cooperation that this event hinges on are cool in theory. In practice it hasn’t turned out well, but I don’t think we should penalize developers too harshly for trying new things. The industry is risk-adverse enough already.

Ultimately, you have to accept that not all experiments are going to work, so if you want games to try new things, you need to learn to live with the occasional hiccup.

The new freestyle dance in The Secret WorldIt is worth noting that as of this writing we haven’t uncovered the entirety of the event yet. There’s quite a mystery over how to summon the empowered versions of the bosses. My opinion of the event may change, for better or for worse, once we’ve seen all of it.

All the previous events are back again, too, but those aren’t quite igniting my fancy this time, either. That’s just simple burnout, though. The Broadcast is still awesome, but I’ve done it a rough estimate of eleventy bajillion times now, so it doesn’t have quite the same lustre it used to.

One thing that has been interesting, though, is that I recently discovered an old friend from the TrekUnited days has gotten into TSW, and this is her first Halloween in the game. I’ve been helping her out here or there, which is gratifying. She even lucked into a couple of rare drops from my goody bags.

On that note, the new dance from this year’s party bag is awesome. I think it’s the most elaborate emote I’ve ever seen in an MMO.

Tip: For best results, equip Hell skin fist weapons before dancing.

Meanwhile, Landmark is also having a Halloween event. As one would expect from a game like Landmark, it’s mainly player driven. The developers just plunked down an island for seasonal builds and let people go nuts.

A Halloween build in LandmarkI haven’t had too much time to spend in Landmark lately, but from what I’ve seen the Halloween island is another testament to the talent of the Landmark community. It’s not particularly scary, but it’s fun in a cheesy haunted house kind of way.

The trouble with Landmark from a blogger’s perspective is that there’s never too much to say about it. Wandering around gawking at pretty sights is plenty enjoyable, but it doesn’t require in-depth analysis.

In other news…

Moving on from Halloween, I’ve got a few more articles published at MMO Bro I hope may be of interest.

Firstly, I take a look at the surprisingly swift release of Nova as a playable commander in StarCraft II’s co-op.

Nova is astonishingly fun, I have to say. She solves almost every complaint I’ve ever had about SC2’s game mechanics. As much as it feels like a betrayal of my Protoss brethren, she may well be my new favourite commander.

The fact she’s spectacularly overpowered doesn’t hurt, either. I’m trying to get plenty of games in with her now, because I’m convinced she’ll be nerfed soon. The reactions from some of the people I’ve been matched with have been hilarious, though a lot of them can’t be repeated in polite company.

Calling down the thunder as Nova in StarCraft II's co-opNext, I also took a second look at Skyforge following its huge Ascension patch, only to discover it really isn’t that different.

Skyforge feels like a tragic waste of potential to me. It does some things very well, but when you get down to it, it’s still an incredibly shallow game.

Not for the first time, I wish it was possible to combine different aspects of various MMOs, Frankenstein-style. Imagine SW:TOR’s story with Skyforge’s combat and graphics. That would be a truly amazing game.