Image via BBC
Published Oct 24, 2026, 6:24 AM EDT
Amanda M. Castro is a Network TV writer at Collider and a New York–based journalist whose work has appeared in Newsweek, where she is an Associate Editor, and The U.S. Sun, where she previously served as a Senior Consumer Reporter.
She specializes in network television coverage, delivering sharp, thoughtful analysis of long-running procedural hits and ambitious new dramas across broadcast TV. At Collider, Amanda explores character arcs, storytelling trends, and the cultural impact of network series that keep audiences tuning in week after week.
Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Amanda is bilingual and holds a degree in Communication, Film, and Media Studies from the University of New Haven.
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Time travel has become one of television’s favorite toys. There have been Time Lords, superheroes, historians, and countless reluctant saviors hopping between centuries. Timewasters had no interest in any of that, though. Daniel Lawrence Taylor’s British comedy, which aired for two seasons on ITV2 between 2017 and 2019, followed four struggling musicians from South London who stumbled into a time machine hidden inside the elevator of their rundown apartment building.
Rather than discovering some grand destiny, they found themselves trapped in the past and trying to make the best of it. The result was one of the funniest and most original sci-fi comedies of the last decade — and one that almost received an American remake before those plans quietly faded away.
‘Timewasters’ Gives Time Travel a Very Different Kind of Hero
Nick, Lauren, Jason, and Horace aren’t scientists or explorers, oddly; they’re a jazz quartet trying to stay afloat in modern London. Their fortunes change after an encounter with “Homeless Pete,” a mysterious regular around their building who insists that the lift can travel through time. Before long, the band is stranded in 1926, where their biggest problems aren’t paradoxes or world-ending catastrophes. They’re trying to find somewhere to stay, secure paying gigs, and avoid making their situation even worse. The series wrings plenty of laughs out of the collision between modern sensibilities and life in the Jazz Age, where wealthy socialites are fascinated by them one moment and wildly ignorant the next.
Collider Exclusive · Sci-Fi Survival Quiz Which Sci-Fi World Would You Survive? The Matrix · Mad Max · Blade Runner · Dune · Star Wars
Five universes. Five completely different ways the future went wrong — or sideways, or up in flames. Only one of them is the world your instincts were built for. Eight questions will figure out which dystopia, galaxy, or desert wasteland you'd actually make it out of alive.
💊The Matrix
🔥Mad Max
🌧️Blade Runner
🏜️Dune
🚀Star Wars
TEST YOUR SURVIVAL →
01
You sense something is deeply wrong with the world around you. What do you do? The first instinct is often the truest one.
APull on every thread until I understand the system — then figure out how to break it. BStop asking questions and start stockpiling — food, fuel, weapons. Questions don't keep you alive. CKeep my head down, observe carefully, and trust no one until I know who's pulling the strings. DStudy the patterns. Every system has a rhythm — learn it, and you learn how to survive it. EFind the people fighting back and join them. You can't fix a broken galaxy alone.
NEXT QUESTION →
02
In a world of scarcity, what resource do you guard most fiercely? What we protect reveals what we believe survival actually requires.
AKnowledge. If you understand the system, you don't need resources — you can generate them. BFuel. Everything else — movement, power, escape — runs on it. CTrust. In a world of fakes and informants, a truly reliable ally is rarer than any commodity. DWater. And after water, information — the two things empires are truly built on. EShips and credits. The galaxy is big — you survive it by being able to move through it freely.
NEXT QUESTION →
03
What kind of threat keeps you up at night? Fear is useful data — if you're honest about what you're actually afraid of.
AThat reality itself is a lie — that everything I experience has been constructed to keep me compliant. BA raid. No warning, no mercy — just the roar of engines and then nothing left. CBeing identified. Once someone with power decides you're a problem, you're already out of time. DBeing outmanoeuvred — losing a political game I didn't even know I was playing. EThe Empire tightening its grip until there's nowhere left to run.
NEXT QUESTION →
04
How do you deal with authority you don't trust? Every dystopia has a power structure. Your approach to it determines everything.
ASubvert it from the inside — learn its rules well enough to weaponise them against it. BIgnore it and stay out of its reach. The further from any power structure, the better. CAppear to comply while doing exactly what I need to do. Visibility is the enemy. DManoeuvre within it carefully. You can't beat a system you refuse to understand. EResist openly when I have to. Some things are worth the risk of being seen.
NEXT QUESTION →
05
Which environment could you actually endure long-term? Survival isn't just tactical — it's physical, psychological, and very much about where you are.
AUnderground bunkers and server rooms — cramped, artificial, but with access to everything that matters. BOpen wasteland — brutal sun, no shelter, constant movement. At least the threat is honest. CA dense, rain-soaked city where you can disappear into the crowd and nobody asks questions. DMerciless desert — extreme heat, no water, and something enormous living beneath the sand. EThe fringe — backwater planets and busy spaceports where the Empire's attention rarely reaches.
NEXT QUESTION →
06
Who do you want in your corner when things fall apart? The company you keep is the clearest signal of who you actually are.
AA tight crew of believers who've seen behind the curtain and have nothing left to lose. BOne or two people I'd trust with my life. Any more than that and someone talks. CNobody, ideally. Alliances are liabilities. I work alone unless I have no choice. DA community bound by shared hardship and mutual survival — people who need each other to last. EA ragtag team with wildly different skills and total commitment when it counts.
NEXT QUESTION →
07
Where do you draw the line — if you draw one at all? Every survivor eventually faces a moment that tests what they're actually made of.
AI won't harm the innocent — even the ones who'd report me without hesitation. BI do what I have to to protect the people I've chosen. Everything else is negotiable. CThe line shifts depending on who's asking and what's at stake. DI draw a long-term line — nothing that compromises my people's future, even if it'd help now. ESome lines, once crossed, can't be uncrossed. I know which ones they are.
NEXT QUESTION →
08
What would actually make survival worth it? Staying alive is one thing. Having a reason to is another.
AWaking others up — dismantling the illusion so no one else has to live inside it. BFinding somewhere — or someone — worth protecting. A reason to keep moving. CAnswers. Understanding what I am, what any of this means, before time runs out. DLegacy — shaping the future in a way that outlasts me by generations. EFreedom — for myself, for others, for every world still living under someone else's boot.
REVEAL MY WORLD →
Your Fate Has Been Calculated You'd Survive In…
Your answers point to the world your instincts were built for. This is the universe your temperament, your survival instincts, and your particular brand of stubbornness were made for.
The Matrix
You took the red pill a long time ago — probably before anyone offered it to you. You're a systems thinker who can't help but notice the seams in things.
- You're drawn to understanding how the system works before figuring out how to break it.
- You'd find the Resistance, or it would find you — your instinct for spotting constructed realities is the machines' worst nightmare.
- You function best when you have access to information and the freedom to act on it.
- The Matrix built an airtight prison. You'd be the one probing the walls for the door.
Mad Max
The wasteland doesn't reward the clever or the well-connected — it rewards those who are hard to kill and harder to break. That's you.
- You don't need comfort, community, or a cause larger than the next horizon.
- You need a vehicle, a clear threat, and enough fuel to outrun it — and you're good at all three.
- You are unsentimental enough to survive that world, and decent enough — just barely — to be something more than another raider.
- In the wasteland, that distinction is everything.
Blade Runner
You'd survive here because you know how to exist in moral grey areas without losing yourself completely.
- You read people accurately, keep your circle small, and ask the questions others prefer not to answer.
- In a city where humanity is a legal designation rather than a feeling, you hold onto something that keeps you functional.
- You're not a hero. But you're not lost, either.
- In Blade Runner's world, that distinction is everything.
Dune
Arrakis is the most hostile environment in the known universe — and you are precisely the kind of person it rewards.
- Patience, discipline, and political awareness are your core strengths — and on Arrakis, they're survival tools.
- You understand that the long game matters more than any single victory.
- Others come to Dune and are consumed by it. You'd learn its logic and earn its respect.
- In time, you wouldn't just survive Arrakis — you'd begin to reshape it.
Star Wars
The galaxy far, far away is vast, loud, and in a constant state of violent political upheaval — and you wouldn't have it any other way.
- You find meaning in being part of something larger than yourself — a cause, a crew, a rebellion.
- You'd gravitate toward the Rebellion, or the fringes, or whatever pocket of the galaxy still believes the Empire's grip can be broken.
- You fight — not because you have to, but because standing aside isn't something you're capable of.
- In Star Wars, that willingness is what makes all the difference.
↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ
Taylor originally conceived the series while learning the trumpet himself. The idea of a Black jazz band in the 1920s appealed to him, but adding time travel transformed the concept into something much stranger. The result feels unlike most shows in the genre. Nobody in Timewasters believes they’re destined to save history. In fact, the group spends most of its adventures simply trying to survive it.
Season 2 moved the quartet into the late 1950s and Britain’s cool-jazz scene, giving the show a new era to play with while keeping the same chaotic energy. Across both seasons, the entire story unfolds in just 12 episodes, making it an easy watch and an even easier recommendation.
Plenty of high-concept comedies have clever premises, but far fewer have four leads who feel this naturally in sync. Taylor stars as anxious bandleader Nick, while Adelayo Adedayo’s Lauren is usually the first person to lose patience with everybody around her. Kadiff Kirwan gives Jason enough confidence to fill an arena, even when common sense tells him otherwise, and Samson Kayo nearly steals the series as Horace, whose enthusiasm frequently outruns his judgment. Filled with guest stars, most notably Joseph Quinn, the series also features an early appearance from Saturday Night Live UK star Paddy Young, who plays Telegram Sam in a Season 1 episode.
The music becomes a huge part of the show, too. This group takes modern hits, plays them in a jazz form, and they would all fit in very well with the 1920s. These musical interpretations add depth to the story, reminding you that these characters are musicians, no matter what outlandish things are going on with time travel and the like.
The quartet quickly discovers that life in the 1920s and 1950s comes with prejudices that period dramas often gloss over. Racism, sexism, and class divisions are impossible to avoid, yet the series never approaches those subjects with a wagging finger. Instead, Taylor and co-writer Barunka O’Shaughnessy use satire. The jokes often come from the absurdity of outdated attitudes and from watching the group react with disbelief, annoyance, and resignation. The series also takes aim at the way period dramas have traditionally treated Black characters as if they barely existed. That perspective gave Timewasters something many time-travel stories lack. It wasn’t interested in rewriting history or placing its heroes at its center. It simply asked what history might look like from the perspective of people who are usually pushed to the edge of the frame.
An American Version of ‘Timewasters’ Never Made It Off the Ground
Image via Big Talk Studios/ ITV2For a short time, it appeared that Timewasters would be able to resume operations in the USA. There were reports of LL Cool J's involvement in the show, and by 2021, ABC was working on a remake with A Black Lady Sketch Show writer Lauren Ashley Smith set to be the showrunner. The US version would have taken place in New York and had the characters going back in time to the Harlem Renaissance, which provided just as much comedic and historical potential as the original series.
Taylor and producers Kenton Allen and Matthew Justice were involved behind the scenes, and reports suggested production had been delayed by the pandemic. No major updates emerged after 2021, and the remake appears to have quietly stalled before cameras ever rolled, which was unfortunate, because the concept deserved the chance to reach a wider audience.
Twelve episodes — all available to stream on Amazon Prime Video — may not sound like much, but Timewasters packs an impressive amount into its brief run. Sharp writing, excellent chemistry, and a perspective rarely seen in science fiction helped turn a bizarre premise into one of British television’s most overlooked comedies. This one, at least, is worth rediscovering.
