The Lazarus Project

Resembling a more user-friendly Tenet, this Paapa Essiedu-starring show delves into a tangled web of morality.

This is post-Covid, and now the world is faced with “Mers 22”, but no-one seems overly concerned at this early stage (sound familiar?). Sarah gets pregnant, they marry, but then the new virus spreads and everyone gets ill, much iller than with Covid. He secures the funds, and as he’s out celebrating with partner Sarah (Charly Clive), there’s a news bulletin in the background talking about a new pandemic. It’s only thanks to a shadowy organisation that kept turning back time until we landed on an iteration of history in which humans were able to develop the jab before coronavirus made the human race extinct.

In Joe Barton's gripping timebending saga, an app developer gets drawn into a secret society that keeps saving the world from imminent demise … until the ...

They are led by kindly yet steely Wes (an unexpectedly and brilliantly cast Caroline Quentin) who – uh – harnesses the power of a singularity in space to reset the world whenever its annihilation is imminent. But it is stuffed with good performances, knotty problems and is compelling enough to keep even those of us who, much as we may wish otherwise, don’t quite understand what’s going on coming back for more. She (Archie, played by Anjli Mohindra) is part of the Lazarus Project, a secret organisation made up of people who can travel through time and remember they have done so. He reawakens on 1 July. Panicked and disoriented, he blows the meeting and instead of an app and a baby, spends the next six months researching hazmat suits and developing what looks like paranoia about an impending virus sweeping the country. It is in this spirit that I embrace The Lazarus Project (Sky Max), the new offering from Giri/Haji’s creator Joe Barton, and beg forgiveness from him and you, readers, for any misunderstandings, misinterpretations and mistakes in what follows. Although the mechanics will forever elude me, I have learned you don’t have to understand them to enjoy the slaloming freedom that the disapplication of all known laws provides.

The Lazarus Project starring Paapa Essiedu is a classic space-time tale, but is well worth the ride as it asks the big questions too.

But when things get personal, George finds himself struggling with his newfound power. Pressing the rewind button is The Lazarus Project, a multinational organisation of former spies and special ops agents turned time travellers headed up by Wes (Caroline Quentin doing her best M impression). It turns out that thanks to some snazzy space tech (don’t even bother trying to understand it, it’s really not the point), the world can be reset back to a checkpoint on July 1 every year, much like a very high-stakes video game.

Paapa Essiedu capably leads the cast of a sci-fi action series that grounds big ideas and action set-pieces in ordinary lives.

In short, this ambitious Sky thriller is the complete blockbuster package. George’s understated confusion faced with the intensity and solemnity of Lazarus agents is funny and relatable. The Lazarus Project is a big, robust sci-fi thriller with proper action scenes. Alongside the intrigue, humour, action and enjoyable characters are big questions, such as those posed in similarly cool, ambitious British drama Utopia by similarly cool, ambitious British writer Dennis Kelly almost a decade ago: what’s the value of a life? Something Else is going on and the Lazarus Project is behind it. The first thing (of many) that The Lazarus Project does right is casting Paapa Essiedu as its lead.

Sky's new series, starring an excellent Paapa Essiedu, is eminently watchable but full of clichés that make it feel wearily familiar.

Kristin Scott Thomas did that in Slow Horses. A car chase (admittedly a good one), TVs in the background of bars showing news reports of a killer virus, a stolen nuclear warhead, sinister foreign powers − it all feels wearily familiar. No? Really no point in my trying to explain it to you then.” And when he asks if they could use their powers to go back to, say, London in the 1800s, she snaps: “I’m a brown woman, why the f--k would I want to?” which seems like a fairly personal issue in comparison to saving the world from extinction. A Bond-style control room where a formidable female boss (Caroline Quentin) stares up at a bank of screens?

Hands up if you don't want to see another pandemic-related storyline ever again. If your hand's raised, fair warning: you'll be in for a pang of horror in ...

We’re well used to those in the real world by now. And there are some gruesome surprises along the way. Now, they’re taking on Mers, and they invite George to help. Despite the world recovering from Covid not long before, people are coughing again and the news is back to playing constant updates about the many lives lost. Causes for celebration just keep on coming: first comes a business loan approval, then comes a pregnancy announcement, and then a wintery wedding with all their friends and family in tow. Stick with it, though, and you may find yourself drawn into a world of perfectly enjoyable, time-shifting intrigue.

The series follows a secret organisation that can turn back time to stop apocalyptic events. The cast includes Paapa Essiedu and Caroline Quentin.

The cast includes Caroline Quentin and Paapa Essiedu. The Lazarus Project is a new science fiction thriller coming to Sky Max this month. The series was created by Joe Barten, who previously wrote Girl/Haji and has an impressive cast.