Amanda M. Castro is a Network TV writer at Collider and a New York–based journalist whose work has appeared in Newsweek, where she contributes as a Live Blog Editor, and The U.S. Sun, where she previously served as a Senior Consumer Reporter.
She specializes in network television coverage, delivering sharp, thoughtful analysis of long-running procedural hits and ambitious new dramas across broadcast TV. At Collider, Amanda explores character arcs, storytelling trends, and the cultural impact of network series that keep audiences tuning in week after week.
Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Amanda is bilingual and holds a degree in Communication, Film, and Media Studies from the University of New Haven.
Time travel has become one of television’s favorite toys. There have been Time Lords, superheroes, historians, and countless reluctant saviors hopping between centuries. Timewasters had no interest in any of that, though. Daniel Lawrence Taylor’s British comedy, which aired for two seasons on ITV2 between 2017 and 2019, followed four struggling musicians from South London who stumbled into a time machine hidden inside the elevator of their rundown apartment building.
Rather than discovering some grand destiny, they found themselves trapped in the past and trying to make the best of it. The result was one of the funniest and most original sci-fi comedies of the last decade — and one that almost received an American remake before those plans quietly faded away.
Nick, Lauren, Jason, and Horace aren’t scientists or explorers, oddly; they’re a jazz quartet trying to stay afloat in modern London. Their fortunes change after an encounter with “Homeless Pete,” a mysterious regular around their building who insists that the lift can travel through time. Before long, the band is stranded in 1926, where their biggest problems aren’t paradoxes or world-ending catastrophes. They’re trying to find somewhere to stay, secure paying gigs, and avoid making their situation even worse. The series wrings plenty of laughs out of the collision between modern sensibilities and life in the Jazz Age, where wealthy socialites are fascinated by them one moment and wildly ignorant the next.
Taylor originally conceived the series while learning the trumpet himself. The idea of a Black jazz band in the 1920s appealed to him, but adding time travel transformed the concept into something much stranger. The result feels unlike most shows in the genre. Nobody in Timewasters believes they’re destined to save history. In fact, the group spends most of its adventures simply trying to survive it.
Season 2 moved the quartet into the late 1950s and Britain’s cool-jazz scene, giving the show a new era to play with while keeping the same chaotic energy. Across both seasons, the entire story unfolds in just 12 episodes, making it an easy watch and an even easier recommendation.
Plenty of high-concept comedies have clever premises, but far fewer have four leads who feel this naturally in sync. Taylor stars as anxious bandleader Nick, while Adelayo Adedayo’s Lauren is usually the first person to lose patience with everybody around her. Kadiff Kirwan gives Jason enough confidence to fill an arena, even when common sense tells him otherwise, and Samson Kayo nearly steals the series as Horace, whose enthusiasm frequently outruns his judgment.
The music becomes a huge part of the show, too. This group takes modern hits, plays them in a jazz form, and they would all fit in very well with the 1920s. These musical interpretations add depth to the story, reminding you that these characters are musicians, no matter what outlandish things are going on with time travel and the like.
The quartet quickly discovers that life in the 1920s and 1950s comes with prejudices that period dramas often gloss over. Racism, sexism, and class divisions are impossible to avoid, yet the series never approaches those subjects with a wagging finger. Instead, Taylor and co-writer Barunka O’Shaughnessy use satire. The jokes often come from the absurdity of outdated attitudes and from watching the group react with disbelief, annoyance, and resignation. The series also takes aim at the way period dramas have traditionally treated Black characters as if they barely existed. That perspective gave Timewasters something many time-travel stories lack. It wasn’t interested in rewriting history or placing its heroes at its center. It simply asked what history might look like from the perspective of people who are usually pushed to the edge of the frame.
For a short time, it appeared that Timewasters would be able to resume operations in the USA. There were reports of LL Cool J's involvement in the show, and by 2021, ABC was working on a remake with A Black Lady Sketch Show writer Lauren Ashley Smith set to be the showrunner. The US version would have taken place in New York and had the characters going back in time to the Harlem Renaissance, which provided just as much comedic and historical potential as the original series.
Taylor and producers Kenton Allen and Matthew Justice were involved behind the scenes, and reports suggested production had been delayed by the pandemic. No major updates emerged after 2021, and the remake appears to have quietly stalled before cameras ever rolled, which was unfortunate, because the concept deserved the chance to reach a wider audience.
Twelve episodes — all available to stream on Amazon Prime Video — may not sound like much, but Timewasters packs an impressive amount into its brief run. Sharp writing, excellent chemistry, and a perspective rarely seen in science fiction helped turn a bizarre premise into one of British television’s most overlooked comedies. This one, at least, is worth rediscovering.
