In the year 2035, with the world devastated by an artificially engineered plague, convict James Cole is sent back in time to gather information about the plague’s origin so the scientists can figure out how to fight it.

In the moments before a jump, a traveler muses over the realities of time travel.

Sam Taylor, a carpenter remodeling houses with his brother, feels ungrounded in 2019 until he uncovers a century-old photograph of a young bride along with a matchbook from a 1919 speakeasy. Like everyone else, we wondered at the end who Evelyn’s child is. Sam might be the father if a pregnant Evelyn traveled forward a second time, but that seems unlikely. I enjoyed that the writers left things open for us to wonder, and I also enjoyed the carefully constructed single static timeline.