TIMELESS — “Pilot” — Pictured: (l-r) Matt Lanter as Wyatt Logan, Malcolm Barrett as Rufus Carlin, Abigail Spencer as Lucy Preston — (Photo by: Joe Lederer/NBC)

TIMELESS premieres tonight on NBC at 10/9c and it’s a perfectly fine show. The story of a mad man (…or is he) who travels through time to stop the world’s most famous catastrophes for his own gain (….or is that why), and the three people who race after him to protect the past, present, and future, the show starts with a flashy and fun trip back to WWII and the Hindenburg disaster, and immediately confronts how the past can impact the future with a surprising twist or two.

Abigail Spencer (historian Lucy Preston) is always a delight – she’s smart, tough, gorgeous, and SO GOOD at crying on screen. You can’t go wrong with Malcolm Barrett (programmer Rufus Carlin) or Goran Visnjic (the mad man from above, Garcia). And also, Matt Lanter (Wyatt, the muscle) is there.  The costuming is gorgeous and one of the main reasons I’m excited to watch more than a few episodes is to see what they’ll put these guys in next.  It comes from Eric Kripke and Shawn Ryan, two of my favorite minds, and there is some fun humor mixed in among the time travel and drama.

A way to introduce history and flip it on its ear, TIMELESS isn’t going to change the course of TV as we know it, but it’s an easy way to spend an hour of your time each week.