The Most Disturbing Thing in The TV Show Travelers

For those who aren’t familiar with the show, it’s a Sci-Fi TV series on Netflix. Hundreds of years in the future, humanity’s population has taken a huge hit, thanks to a combination of things like asteroids, climate change, and war. The future humans devise a plan to change the future. They create a boss AI, which is capable of sending future consciousnesses back through time. They’re able to do this by knowing the exact death date and location of the ‘host’ body.

Of the travelers that get their consciousness sent back, traveler 3468 gets sent into the body of an FBI agent, Grant MacLaren, who was supposed to have died by falling down an elevator shaft.

What we know of Grant MacLaren, is that he was also married to a woman named Kathryn for about ten years. His partner at work, is Forbes, who appears to be a friend of both Grant’s and his wife’s. We get the impression that Grant MacLaren was a family man, and a good friend, with amicable connections at his job. But traveler 3468 doesn’t inherit any of Grant’s memories —this means that all significant events in Grant’s life, are completely unknown to the traveler.

But thanks to convenience, he inherits some fragments of Grant’s romantic memories, due to 3468 being close to death. According to the story, it’s not something that usually happens. But the writers spend a substantial amount of time letting us see the bond between Grant and his wife, Kathryn. By seeing these memories as if he also lived them, traveler 3468 starts to believe that these are his memories, and his bond. But this is only implied! Not a single character mentions this, to my utter chagrin.

At first, the relationship between 3468 and Kathryn MacLaren was purely platonic; and because of this Kathryn begins to suspect infidelity.

But that changes in season 1, ep 7, when traveler 3468 rapes Kathryn. And here’s why it’s rape: Kathryn believes that traveler 3468 is the husband she married ten years ago. She has no reason to suspect that Grant MacLaren is not Grant MacLaren. It’s shown early on that Kathryn deeply loves her husband, so it’s clear that she would never consent to sex with a stranger using her husband’s body.

Despite the obviousness of the nonconsensual nature of this relationship, it’s never addressed. Throughout the show, traveler 3468 engages in conversations where he refers to, and thinks of, Kathryn as his wife. And the other travelers do the same. Not a single character thinks that this relationship nonconsensual, or immoral, which is a huge let down.

Instead, we’re forced to watch dozens of episodes where this guy becomes increasingly un-relatable, because he’s raping, and ghost lighting, the wife of his host. And the writers just ignore this issue, and try to spin it as a potential, genuine love connection — but it’s not. From Kathryn MacLaren’s perspective, it’s scary. Imagine a stalker being able to transport themself into the body of your significant other. Would you be okay with that?

The Travelers series has a lot of really good things, but this one thing was so obvious and hard to ignore, that it ended up souring the entire show for me. I think the issue deserved to be seriously addressed, but unfortunately, it never was.