George is recruited to a secret organization with the power to turn back time to save the world from annihilation. 

Another week, another time time-loop paradox series.

Hang on a minute! Didn’t I start a review with those exact same words just a few days ago? It is, as the saying goes, like déjà vu all over again.

I really wanted to like this. Paapa Essiedu is a skilled and extremely likeable screen presence. Tom Burke has proven pedigree. Caroline Quentin is… Caroline Quentin, also likeable, although I’m always waiting for her to crack a joke, so I’m not a hundred per cent sure about her as the tough, no-nonsense head of operations at the secret organisation to which George (Essiedu) has been recruited. Quentin looks as if she’s struggling as much as I am to take this whole thing seriously.

The problem is… the whole thing. The following is not a spoiler, by the way.

Okay, so the premise of The Lazarus Project is that existence is like a video game and every time the planet succumbs to an apocalypse, they can use some gizmo, or a few individuals’ innate ability, to go back to the beginning of the level (randomly set at July 1st) and try again, thus creating a new timeline, and thereby saving the world.

Hmmm.

That doesn’t make any kind of sense, because the only people who are saved in that instance are the Lazarus operatives who can create the new timelines. The people in the original timelines are still dead. It’s an entirely selfish operation. Plus, the criteria for resetting seem conveniently narrow. If they really wanted to save humanity from total wipeout they’d go back and wean us all off fossil fuels about fifty years ago.

That fundamental aside, does it work as a piece of chewing gum telly? No. The more they die and reset the less we care. Nothing is at stake. It’s precisely the same problem that made the recent BBC series Life After Life such a hollow viewing experience.

Add to that the hokey ‘secret base’ and the array of really rather dull characters. By the end of episode 2 there’s a story developing about something George wants to change for himself, but given that his relationship with his other half isn’t that interesting to start with, I’d say he should just plough on with saving the world, he’s bound to be able to pop back again soon, or find someone better.

As the French series The 7 Lives of Lea proves, time-loop paradox dramas work best when the consequences of the protagonist’s actions can’t be reset. That’s a fundamental of all drama. Actions have consequences, immutable consequences. Duh!

Verdict: In 2009 the BBC touched a low point with a dreadful sci-fi cop show called Paradox which was a very similar idea, but applied to domestic crimes and train crashes. Given that the effects and production values for The Lazarus Project are mostly not bad, the best I can say about this new show is that it’s Paradox with a budget. 4/10

Martin Jameson