‘Timeless’ Is Dominating Comic-Con (And It’s Not Even There)

Quick, name the buzziest, most talked about show at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con. Doctor Who, with its new, female lead? Nope. The Walking Dead, which will see the exit of longtime star Andrew Lincoln? Double nope. Turns out its NBC’s canceled drama Timeless… And the show isn’t even there.

According to Twitter trends around the annual pop culture convention shared with Decider, Timeless — and the #SaveTimeless hashtag in particular — is dominating the conversation. Of 820,000 tweets sent leading up to Comic-Con on Wednesday, Timeless was number one on TV trends, followed by Supernatural, The Walking Dead, Doctor Who, and Riverdale. On the movie end of things, the top Twitter trends were Deadpool, Thor, Aquaman, Avengers and Star Wars.

First, a quick pitch line for Timeless, in case you’re not familiar with the show. Co-created by Supernatural‘s Eric Kripke and The Shield‘s Shawn Ryan, three time-travelers (Abigail Spencer, Matt Lanter and Malcolm Barrett) journey through history trying to stop a potentially evil (but maybe good???) organization from changing major events. The show has been lauded not just for its humor and big action, but for showing more inclusive eras and historical figures than usually get highlighted on a time travel show. It’s fun, and educational!

Beyond that, a large part of the reason Timeless is making such an impact despite not holding a panel at the convention is the tireless loyalty of the show’s fans. NBC premiered the show on October 3, 2016 to strong ratings (7 million plus viewers), yet ended with less than half that, for the Season 1 finale (3 million viewers and change). The show was canceled a few months later on May 10, 2017… Only to rather shockingly be picked up for a second season three days after that, in a surprise reversal due to fan outcry and negotiations between Sony (who produces the show) and NBC (who broadcasts the show).

The second season premiered on March 11, 2018 to relatively lackluster ratings (just under three million viewers for the live broadcast), but kept steady through its abbreviated run. Regardless, the show was canceled again on June 22, 2018. That was bad news for fans of the show, particularly because the episode ended with a massive cliffhanger when *spoilers* Barrett’s lovable scientist Rufus was shot to death, causing future versions of the other main cast-members to travel back in time in order to save him.

So yeah, there’s some unfinished business.

Fans, naturally, have been railing non-stop to bring the show back in some form since the cancellation. And given this year’s crazy Upfronts season, it seemed like there could be a glimmer of hope. (Upfronts, by the way, are usually when shows are renewed and canceled, in order to sell the new, Fall schedules to advertisers.) Brooklyn Nine-Nine was canceled by Fox, and moved to NBC. Last Man Standing was canceled by ABC, and moved over to Fox. Lucifer was canceled by Fox, and moved to Netflix.

Point being, the atmosphere is such that a surprising second un-cancellation for Timeless didn’t seem out of the realm of possibility.

Unfortunately, like a love child, it was never meant to be. On July 2, Ryan tweeted that Sony’s negotiations with other networks weren’t bearing fruit:

“@SPTV has notified @TheRealKripke and me that efforts to land #Timeless at another network have sadly failed,” Ryan wrote. “While Sony will continue to look at any and all options, actor deals have expired and it appears there will be no Season 3 or beyond.”

He continued, tweeting, “Discussions still take place between @SPTV and @NBC about a possible 2 hour movie to conclude the #Timeless story, but there are considerable economic obstacles that make it an uncertainty. We will update you when we know more. @TheRealKripke, me, the cast, writers & crew of #Timeless want to send our immense thanks and gratitude to all the #ClockBlockers who fought so hard for this show. You made a second season possible and gave us hope for a Season 3. We wish the news was better. We love you all.”

Even with the mild tweetstorm throwing cold water on the enterprise, fan enthusiasm for the show hasn’t tamped down. The tweets have been non-stop leading into Comic-Con, and the Clockblockers (the name the fanbase has taken for itself) haven’t stopped there. Using a GoFundMe, they raised $23,000 in order to rent two helicopters to fly over Comic-Con with a banner reading, “You guys want to get Rufus back, or what? #SaveTimeless.” The first helicopter will fly over San Diego from 12-3pm PST on July 21, while the second helicopter will livestream the first helicopter to the fan Facebook page. Any funds leftover from the helicopter stunt will be donated to a charity TBD. It is unknown at this time whether a third helicopter will be live-tweeting the event.

This isn’t the first sci-fi/fantasy show cut down before its time, and the current media atmosphere is such that Timeless can definitely continue in some form or another. If not on TV, there’s always comics, or books. Or perhaps they could do a live show! On a helicopter! Just spitballing.

And even if the show isn’t brought back for a finale, there are plenty of chances for the series to build a healthy fanbase post-cancellation, as its readily available on streaming. That’s probably not what Clockblockers want to hear… But frankly, if time travel does exist, the show would have been saved already. At least, in some reality.

Update: Twitter has provided Decider with the full trends for this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, including the final tweet volume for Timeless.

Where to stream Timeless