The Lazarus Project’s Season 2 Cliff-Hanger Will Be Left Hanging

Goodbye, The Lazarus Project. Unless a mysterious sci-fi organisation steps in to reset time to before Sky chose to cancel the mind-bending time travel drama, that’s our lot. After airing two seasons, they won’t be making a third.

The news was first announced in The Sun, and later confirmed by trustworthy outlets including TV Zone and RadioTimes.com. It had previously been rumoured that if season three were to go ahead, creator Joe Barton would be stepping back to a producer role and welcoming in new writers, who would have to do without some of the major cast members including Tom Burke. Now, that won’t happen because season two will be the last.

Barton (Giri/Haji, The Bastard Son & the Devil Himself) posted the cancellation news on social media, along with a meme featuring a woman and a child wearing matching denim jackets throwing confetti in the air, along with the words “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”

If you insist, Joe, but first, let us cry a little bit because it’s over – chiefly because season two ended on a cliff-hanger now destined to join the great elephant’s graveyard of unresolved sci-fi TV endings. Shuffle over, Alphas, Sliders, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and co., make room for a little one.

The Lazarus Project aired two seasons on Sky in the UK and TNT in the US in 2022 and 2023. It’s the story of George (Paapa Essiedu), an everyman who stumbles on a world-changing secret that destroys his life and turns him into a killer. The world has ended, you see, multiple times before. But every time it ends – thanks to nuclear war or global pandemic or sundry missile strikes – shadowy organisation Lazarus turn back time and bring everyone back to life. Or not quite everyone, as George discovers when he loses someone he loves.

It was a great sci-fi, funny, surprising, cool, and with ambition to spare. Essiedu made an excellent lead, and the cast around him – Anjli Mohindra, Tom Burke, Rudi Dharmalingam, Charly Clive, Caroline Quentin, Vinette Robinson – were all top notch. Bafta Cymru obviously agreed, and awarded it Best Television Drama in 2023, alongside a Bafta TV Best Actor nomination for Essiedu. Terrific work, applause all round.

And now it’s over. Unless Barton and co. choose to explain it all on a commemorative tea towel or tie-in graphic novel, George’s head-scratching moment walking into that office after all the deaths, doppelgangers and double-crossing of the season two finale will remain unanswered. Anybody feel like smiling yet?

The Lazarus Project seasons one and two are available to stream on NOW in the UK, and on TNT in the US.