Review by Frank Plowright
Ren Mittal collapses in 1996, and awakens in a futuristic medical facility to discover it’s 2122. Without his consent he’s been included in a time travel exchange programme aiming to have the students of the era learn history from people who were present at the time. After a few months the teens from the past will be returned to their own era at the point they left with no memory of the future.
Indications of where Chelsey Furedi is heading occur early with a discussion among those from the 1990s about possibilities opened up by the lack of consequences. What happens in the future will stay in the future, and there’s a celebrity status accorded the newcomers. However, Ren is more reserved and disoriented, not at all comfortable with what’s happened despite the best efforts of his assigned partner, the cheery Mars. Ren’s contrasted with Phoebe who’s outgoing, keen to experience what the future has to offer and latches on to Jia, a former student with something to prove.
Furedi’s consistently interesting plot and well conceived characters don’t reach their potential due to her art being just functional. She can draw expressive people, but the page layouts don’t maximise their potential, lacking the imagination applied to the plot, and combined with bland colouring it just doesn’t bring an interesting situation to life as it should. There’s also a lack of reality due to Furedi never drawing any more people than are required for the dialogue on a page, giving the impression they wander vast buildings and empty streets alone.
Halfway through the bigger plot bursts into life. Jia gradually convinces others that there’s something very corrupt at the heart of the Chronotech company, and Ren has a terrifying glimpse a little further into the future. It makes the ordinary art even more of a shame as Furedi delivers a real page turner, ramps up the emotional pressures, sets an extremely sinister agenda and has a few passing comments about how we currently live. The possibilities of time travel are well exploited and Furedi brings it all home in style in what’s a chunky drama that would transfer well to TV. Netflix, are you watching?
