The Lazarus Project (TV series)

George awakes on the morning of July 1. Six months later, he awakens and discovers that it is July 1 again, but neither his girlfriend Sarah nor anyone else seems to notice. Another six months later, it reverts to July 1, and he is approached by Archie, a mysterious woman who invites him to the secret office of the Lazarus Project. George learns that he is one of only 0.000001% of the population with a mutant gene that – after hundreds of time reverts over the course of their lives – has the possibility of organically coming to remember that reverts are occurring.

He joins the project team, which works to prevent apocalyptic threats by observing their causes, then instigating a time reset (always back to the most recent July 1, thus the calendar can move forward if no reset is needed) to address their causes. The team works on a scale starting with the minimum amount of adjustments, escalating through diplomacy, physical intervention, or even implementing a large scale (small, when compared to an apocalypse) amount of death and destruction.

When Sarah is killed in a vehicle accident, and with the following July 1 "too late to reset this year" point approaching, George breaks every rule of the Lazarus Project by instigating a nuclear war between Russia and America to save one person, rather than millions or billions. The project lead, Wes, triggers a reset and the team succeeds (mostly because George does not secretly countermand their work) in preventing the war. However, the team then has to deal with the unintended cascading consequences of George's original selfish action.

At the end of the first season, with other repercussions still unfolding, the team is stunned to learn that the Chinese have attempted to build their own time reset mechanism, which conflicts with the original Lazarus mechanism and plunges the universe into a self-triggering, endless, three week time loop.

• Paapa Essiedu as George, with the time-loop awareness gene
• Anjli Mohindra as Archie, who was recruited to the Lazarus team with a time-loop awareness serum
• Rudi Dharmalingam as Shiv, with the time-loop awareness gene
• Charly Clive as Sarah, George's wife (later reset) / fiancée (later reset) / Lazarus confidant (after he gives her the serum)
• Caroline Quentin as Elisabeth 'Wes' Wesley, Lazarus Project team lead
• Tom Burke as Rebrov, former Lazarus agent who comes to feel that humanity clearly wants apocalypse
• Brian Gleeson as Ross, Archie's teammate and lover, who dies forever while preventing an apocalypse
• Vinette Robinson as Janet, Rebrov's wife and a former Lazarus agent who shares his opinion of the project
• Alec Utgoff as Rudy, an arms dealer who supplies George with a nuclear bomb

• Lorn Macdonald as Blake
• Lukas Loughran as Erik Eriksen 'The Dane'
• Salóme Gunnarsdóttir as Greta
• Enyi Okoronkwo as Laurence
• Tommy Letts as Ryan
• Chris Fulton as Karl
• Safia Oakley-Green as Becky (season 2)

Produced by Urban Myth Films, the series features Marco Kreuzpaintner, Akaash Meeda, and Laura Scrivano as directors. Filming took place in second quarter of 2021 in Cardiff, Bristol, Prague, and Postoloprty.^[5][6][7]

In February 2023, Empire had first look images from the filming of the second season, with Colin Salmon, Royce Pierreson, Safia Oakley-Green, Lorne MacFayden, Zoe Telford, Sam Troughton and James Atherton having been added to the cast.^[8] Filming locations on the second series in Bristol included Old Market, Easton, Bedminster, Fishponds, Henbury, Clifton and St Paul's.^[9]

The first trailer was revealed in February 2022.^[10] After being retitled, The Lazarus Project aired in the UK on Sky Max and Now from 16 June 2022.^[11] In the United States, TNT airs the series; it premiered on 4 June 2023.^[12][13]

The series has received positive reviews, for its storyline and performances. Lucy Mangan of The Guardian awarded it four stars out of five, praising the writing, tension created by the premise and cast.^[14] Nicole Vassell, writing for The Independent, gave it three stars, writing "Though a little under-explained and occasionally simplistic, The Lazarus Project has a bright concept behind it with satisfying bursts of action."^[15] The Telegraph gave it three stars.^[16]

• List of films featuring time loops

• The Lazarus Project at IMDb