In a TV season filled with series about time travel, the last thing a potential TV viewer might want to see is another series in the genre. Fortunately, the latest addition to that group of shows, Time After Time which sees a two-hour premiere this Sunday on ABC, comes from the prolific Kevin Williamson who gives the project his own twist much like he did for vampires, teen shows, and scary movies back in the day. Of course, Williamson’s ability to scare the viewer is still present, as is his ability to craft a good antagonist.
Time After Time is, of course, based on the classic movie of the same name, and the pilot episode (the first hour airing on Sunday) picks up many of those story beats. Technology has changed how such a story is told, and the villain of the story, Jack the Ripper (really Dr. John Stevenson, as played by Revenge’s Josh Bowman) might be classified more as “misunderstood” rather than absolutely pure evil.
“You can’t look at a character as pure evil,” Williamson explained during a Q&A with press earlier this week. “When I think about John Stevenson, I think that you have to have a bit more of a biography than pure evil and psychosis, so as a writer, I take it all the way back to the parents and what happened to him, and what damaged him, and what created this huge thing,” he continued, adding that Episode 5 will dig in to Stevenson’s past a bit more.
“He goes in search of something, and we take one of our time travel trips [in episode 5],” Williamson revealed. “He goes in search for his backstory, a little bit. We open him up and you see what makes him tick, and what his Achilles’ heel is that he may have that has power over him. It sort of humanizes him in a way.” Exploration into Stevenson’s character will also be explored in the show’s second hour, which sees Jane (Genesis Rodriguez) as being able to get to John in a way that only she seems to be able to.
And, yes, there is time travel, but most of the series takes place in present day — there will be time travel three or four times throughout the course of the season, but best of all, other stories from the H.G. Wells library will be explored.
“We open up the H.G. Wells playbook, and we start pulling from his greatest hits. So, you’ll see the ideas. You’ll see the inspiration for all of his greatest hits. You’ll see little elements of The Invisible Man. In a lot of ways, Griffin in The Invisible Man is a lot like John, in terms of some of his character and his backstory. By the time the show is over, H.G. Wells will go home to 1893 and write all of his books, based on his experiences in modern-day New York City. That’s the idea,” Williamson promises.
You can see a trailer for Time After Time at the top of this article. Official photos from the first two episodes can be found here.
