In 2016, a sci-fi drama about time travel premiered on NBC. Timeless, starring Abigail Spencer, Matt Lanter, and Malcolm Barrett, was canceled after one season. This was back before shows being saved from cancellation became more and more common. But it was. Three days after its cancellation, NBC renewed it. Then, after Season 2, it was canceled again, in 2018. Miraculously, it was then saved again and given a wrap-up movie later that year
Considering how popular revivals have become in the years since, we can’t help but think now is the perfect time to delve into that world again. And when TV Insider spoke with Abigail Spencer in March for her dark two-episode arc on 9-1-1, it became clear we’re not the only ones.
“I call [Timeless creators] Shawn Ryan and Eric Kripke occasionally. I’m like, ‘Hey, let’s do a movie,’” she told us. “My perfect world, because I do love Lucy — my big joke was that every few years, we’ll do a movie until I am in a walker, Matt and Malcolm and I, we’ve got canes and walks, ‘Let’s go back to the future.’ And I think that would be hilarious.”
Spencer added that doing a movie in the new world of streaming would be fun. “There’s less, ‘We do it this way.’ You can kind of do anything,” she explained.
Not only would she love to do a movie, “I’d really love to direct it,” she added. She’s been moving in the direction of doing more of that and producing. The first feature she produced, The Actor, hit theaters in March. She and her director and producing partner, Duke Johnson, had optioned the book 10 years ago.
“I am really loving being on the other side of the camera, too. I know the Timeless world. I know those characters and I know that world so well, so I would really love to come on in a larger capacity,” Spencer shared. “That’s just an idea that always seems to pop up. And then I think something I really learned was, it was my first time really being at the center of a story that the fans just loved, saved it twice. We got a movie. And I feel like if maybe we had been in a slightly different time in television where streaming mattered more — at that time, it was still more about live numbers that night — I think we’d still be on the air.” She pointed out that Timeless was a family show that people watched days later.
“Sometimes just because a show doesn’t find its right window doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have a lasting effect,” she added, also referring to the success Suits found on Netflix. “It just kind of feels like anything’s possible, and I feel so fortunate to be a part of something that is so beloved to fans. That is not lost on me.”
Would you want to see more Timeless? Let us know in the comments section below.
Timeless, Streaming now, Prime Video