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REVIEW: George (Paapa Essiedu) thought July 1st was going to be the day that changed his life. It just did not happen immediately – or exactly as I had planned.
While a successful meeting with the bank to help fund its data analytics app is Hazard Lights’ cause for celebration, it is overshadowed in the weeks that follow, first by the news that his girlfriend Sarah (Charly Clive) is pregnant, then by the rapid spread of the Mers-22 viruses.
“It’s going to be okay,” George assures Sarah, nervously taking her into an emergency room that looks more like wartime. “George – do you think we’re going to die?” are the last words he remembers, before suddenly, unexpectedly, waking up in their bed again with the alarm clock reading 07:00, July 1st.
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After Sarah offers him the same spicy exchange to make the toast, George is increasingly distracted by an overwhelming sense of déjà vu. This causes him to blow the pitch and push her away, especially when she begs him to stop obsessing over the “nightmare” he had.
“They were not dreams, I lived them for six months,” he pleads as she prepares to walk out the door.
It is while he is at this low point that he meets Archie (Anjli Mohindra), who tries to convince George he should simply let Sarah go. “She is not ready for what is happening – and I’m pretty sure you’ll get another chance with her.”
She reveals herself as someone with answers to all his questions and encourages George to look for her when he experiences another “time jump”. It’s not long before he gets that chance.
Sky TV
Sci-fi thriller The Lazarus Project follows a secret organization that can go back in time when the world is threatened with extinction.
By wasting no time accepting her on that offer, George finds himself being absorbed into the world of The Lazarus Project. A top-secret multinational organization (while Archie is MI6, other members are being dragged everywhere from the Black Watch to the Reykjavík Metropolitan Police) dedicated to preventing mass extinction by diplomatic, scientific or militaristic means (“Oh, and us can let the time go backwards, ”adds Anita rather smoothly), they reset the clock when needed in 1963, 1979 and 1983, after all other options had been exhausted.
“We are not here to make the world a better place,” she said when asked by George why they did not stop events like 9/11, “we are here to stop it. We can’t go back every time there is a mass murder, a plane crash, a fire in a school, your dog dies, or you burn your toast. ”
“But what about the coronavirus?” asked George.
“You got a vaccine within nine months – do you think we did not go back?”
But now the clock is ticking not only over the Mers problem, but also a stolen nuclear warhead. And with George one of the few “mutants” they found to “jump time” organically, he might just make a difference, especially when the man they suspect is creating the latter mystery knows exactly how the Project works .
Supply
Viewers can be forgiven for feeling a little exhausted at first, but fans of Tenet, Station Eleven and Doctor Who should be well pleased.
“It’s a lot to take in.” This is a line repeated by the first episode of the dense but devilishly addictive eight-part The Lazarus Project (now streaming on Neon).
Viewers can be granted because they feel more than a little exhausted by the initial installation’s exposition and action, but fans of sci-fi-infused dramas such as Tenet, Station Eleven, Doctor Who, Timecop and The Adjustment Bureau should be well pleased. .
Screenwriter Joe Barton, who helped create an English-language adaptation of Sweden’s Humans and was behind last year’s underrated Riz Ahmed thriller Encounter, once again demonstrates his ability to potentially turn the fantastic organic and mine evocative, sometimes dirty personal drama out of let look. ridiculous concepts.
Here he is well served by former I May Destroy You star Essiedu, who delivers the right mix of wide-eyed amazement and cynical disbelief to enable us to empathize with his predicament.
Thrown in a jaw unraveling to the opening salvo, which surely ensures its bingeability status, and the result is flat-on-the-earth, yet scorching captivating sci-fi.
The Lazarus project is now available to stream on Neon and Sky Go and debuts on Sky TV’s SoHo channel (tonight, June 29) at 9:30 p.m.