4.0 out of 5 star rating<\/span> <\/span> <\/div> <\/div> At first glance, you might think you know what sort of show The Lazarus Project is. You might even have the vague sense you\u2019ve watched something with a similar premise before.<\/p>\n
George (Paapa Essiedu) is an ordinary app developer who suddenly realises he\u2019s reliving six months of his life \u2013 soon, he\u2019s recruited by a mysterious organisation who turn back time every so often to prevent apocalypses, with only a few special people (including him) able to notice the redo.<\/p>\n
Once he\u2019s in the team, the gang (also including Anjli Mohindra and Caroline Quentin among others) work together to stop some moustache-twirling terrorists from setting off nukes and the like, using their nous and action hero skills to save the world.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a little bit Spooks, a little bit Primeval and sort of redolent of US TV shows like Timeless, and it\u2019s easy to see where the story could go next \u2013 each week George and the team will surely stop an apocalypse, with a few ongoing arcs to tie together for a big finale. Except that\u2019s not what The Lazarus Project does.<\/p>
Instead, creator Joe Barton (best known for his critically-adored, gone-too-soon crime drama Giri\/Haji) invents a syndication-friendly set-up, only to sadistically prod at and unpick it over the course of the series. Somehow, the business of world-saving becomes background noise as George and other characters go through the emotional wringer in a slick, wrong-footing serialised story.<\/p>\n
The technology at the heart of the series feels like a dream \u2013 whenever something goes apocalyptically wrong, the Lazarus team (or rather, Quentin\u2019s enigmatic boss Wes) simply turns back time by making a phone call, returning things to where they were on the last 1st July, aka the checkpoint. If the Earth manages to make it to the next July, it resets to that date. There\u2019s no zipping back to 1939 or dealing with other real-world issues (though COVID does get a brief nod) \u2013 it\u2019s just like a video game save point, allowing for second (and third, and fourth) chances.<\/p>\n
As I said, it\u2019s a dream \u2013 but soon Barton finds the nightmare. In every episode, he pulls at the thread of what this power would actually mean for the men and women affected by it \u2013 the children unborn, the pregnancies relived, the loved ones returned and the positive milestones undone. And the temptations. If you lost someone, and had the power to bring them back, why wouldn\u2019t you? And if you\u2019d seen the world die over and over again, would you start to lose sight of why it should survive anyway?<\/p>\n