Eric McCormack became a big name on the small screen with his role on Will & Grace, which lasted for a strong eight seasons. So, when he won the lead role of Dr. Daniel Pierce on TNT’s Perception, plenty of us were more than ready for another long run of McCormack making a character his own. Sadly, Perception was cancelled after three seasons, leaving McCormack free to take on new roles. Now, he has signed on for Netflix's upcoming time travel series Travelers, which looks like it could be a hit.
Travelers will be set centuries from now when the human race is dying off. The last survivors discover a way to send consciousness back through time to the 21st century. Travelers will return to the past to take part in missions designed to save humanity from the desolate future that awaits it. McCormack will star as lead traveler and FBI agent Grant MacLaren, according to Deadline.
An FBI agent seems like the perfect person to lead a team working to change the past to fix the future, but it also looks like he should have his hands full with his comrades in time travel. He’ll be joined by an intellectually disabled young woman, a social worker, a high school football star, a single mom, and a college student addicted to heroin. The group will only have what they know about history, along with access to a social media profile archive, to assist them as they try to build lives in the 21st century while also completing their missions. I’m not sure how the future folks settled on this particular motley crew to send back, so it should be interesting to see how the adventure kicks off.
This new series is in very good hands when it comes to sci fi programming. Travelers is created and written by Brad Wright, who is the co-creator of Stargate SG-1 and creator of Stargate: Atlantis and Stargate Universe. Wright is a longtime friend of Eric McCormack's, which no doubt played into the actor signing on for the project.
The Netflix series is markedly different from Eric McCormack’s previous big projects Will & Grace and Perception, but he’s shown enough range over the years that he should be able to handle whatever time travel shenanigans are thrown his way in Travelers. The rest of the cast consists of MacKenzie Porter, Jared Abrahamson, Ian Tracey, Dylan Playfair, J. Alex Brinson, Arnold Pinnock, Nesta Cooper, Reilly Dolman, and Patrick Gilmore.
The show has only just started production, so it’ll still be a while before we get to see Eric McCormack in action as Agent Grant MacLaren. Luckily, Netflix has plenty of fabulous original series already available for viewing to pass the time. Be sure to check out our schedule of summer TV premiere dates to see what shows are returning to primetime in the not-too-distant future.
