REVIEW: ‘Travelers,’ Season 3 Closes Out a Strong Year of Sci-Fi for Netflix

Travelers (2018) is the science fiction Netflix original from Canada that if you are in the United States, can only be seen on Netflix. It focuses on time jumping operatives from a dismal and apocalyptic future as they take over host bodies. If you’re new to the show, it’s filled with world-building and does a good job at laying out the rules that the time travel abides by.

Seconds before the historical death of a person in the 21st, the consciousness of a person from 400 plus years in the future enters the body. In doing so, they lose all memories of the host and only know what they learned from the historical record. Coming off of one of the biggest cliffhangers I’ve seen in the past few years, Travelers Season 3 had a lot of questions to answer.

With every single member of the traveler program that we’ve grown to love revealed, season three had a lot weighing on it to be successful. In the end, it most definitely was. Now, Since the nature of the show is built on intricacies and the cliff-hanger from last season is solved in episode one, this is a spoiler-lite review. Continue reading below the picture for more.

In Travelers season 3 we see the return of our main travelers Grant (Eric McCormack,) Marcy (MacKenzie Porter,) Carly (Nesta Cooper,) Trevor (Jared Abrahamson,) and Phillip (Reilly Dolman). Having been exposed in a plot presented by 001, the first traveler in the program, we didn’t know if their lives would be destroyed. Beyond that, it was unclear if the psychological toll exerted on their loved ones would destroy them?

While the exposure is not as bad it seemed, and the travelers are able to drug and erase the memories of their loved ones. The heart of the season revolves around the human dynamics within the group just as much as the impending apocalypse. While some loved ones move through their lives as if it was all a crazy hoax, others are not able to believe the lies. As the travelers continue to gaslight their partners, the complex relationships of maintaining their host’s normal lives and completing their missions become even murkier.

For added complexity, the inaccuracy of the historical record comes into play multiple times in Travelers Season 3. It’s a question and a plothole that I’ve had a noticed since season one: is the historical record infallible? Now, we know that the Director, the supercomputer in charge of the missions, builds the historical record from public information. This information is then taught to the traveler assuming the identity and the Historians sent as a part of the team.

The holes in this are that if it wasn’t publicly known or written down on the internet in some form, the traveler doesn’t know the event. This lack of memories comes into play for relationships in this season but when a new traveler shows up, the misinformation is so drastic that everything almost fails. Tackling such a complicated piece of the Travelers lore was important to me as a viewer and showed that the showrunners were aware of the consistency issue.

In Travelers Season 3, we also see the introduction of a new traveler type, the Archivist. These travelers view the world, it’s media, and events and stores their information in their blood to then be uploaded to the Director. It’s a small addition but one that leads to big world-building, in my opinion at least.

We also see the beginnings of the Director, the impetus of the world ending events, and the travelers struggle to understand if their future world has actually changed. Beyond the world-saving aspect of their mission, Travelers Season 3 delves deeper into the problems that have been building up since the series began. The strongest thing about the series is its characters and season three is no different from the ones before.

Travelers Season 3 delves deeper into the problems that have been building up since the series began

Carly struggles with her abusive ex, Phillip struggles as a historian in a host plagued by addiction, Trevor’s age as the oldest traveler on record, Grant’s marriage and true love for Kat, and Marcy’s strong yet delicate relationship with David. The problems that each traveler’s faces evoke moments of sadness and the latter left me a crying mess.

While Grant is one of the more central characters, Marcy and David are my standouts, especially David. Played by Patrick Gilmore, David is singularly the best man on television. Full stop. He is kind, loving, dedicated, and determined to mean something.

David is a character that doesn’t do good out of a mission, he just does it. He isn’t a traveler, he can’t fight, and he is oblivious to the world around him. This season even gives him his own episode, titled “David,” much like other episodes have done for other characters. But beyond that, we see his story sprinkled through others as well and if he wasn’t your favorite character by the end of season two, he will be now.

There isn’t much to critique this season on the show on as a whole. As a series that has gotten a little buzz on the Twitter-verse and is criminally underrated. The science-fiction technology introduced, the unique time-traveling concept and the strong world-building that established hard rules which have become more malleable over time coalesces in one of the best science fiction television series available right now.

Travelers Season 3 is a win for sci-fi fans and fans of the series. Unlike other shows, this season wraps up or cuts all of the loose ends of the story. It leaves no questions unanswered and could easily be the end of the series. But I don’t want it to be. Season four hasn’t been announced yet, and although I want it, I can easily say that if the season finale was the show finale, it would be one of the strongest in television.

Travelers Season 3 is now streaming on Netflix.