19 Best Time Travel TV Shows: A Guide to the Best Temporal Series From ‘Doctor Who’ to ‘Outlander’ and ‘Quantum Leap’
Take a trip through time with these iconic shows that explore history, romance and adventure
Since television’s earliest days, storytellers have turned to time travel TV as one of the medium’s most flexible dramatic devices—a way to revisit history, imagine the future and test the consequences of changing fate (any fan of the Back to the Future trilogy can certainly talk about that!). In the 1950s, the educational series Captain Z-Ro used temporal journeys to teach young viewers about science and world events, proving that sci-fi could inform as well as entertain. By the 1960s, time travel had become weekly spectacle. Britain’s enduring Doctor Who and America’s high-concept The Time Tunnel sent characters spinning across centuries, while Sherwood Schwartz—in between Gilligan’s Island and The Brady Bunch — offered a comedic twist with It’s About Time.
The concept of time travel TV evolved in the decades that followed. The 1980s and early ’90s brought heart and accessibility to the genre, from the time-correcting missions of Quantum Leap to the aadventures of Back to the Future: The Animated Series. The 1990s pushed further into crime and action territory with Time Trax, Timecop, and the high-stakes political thriller Seven Days.
In the 2000s and beyond, time travel became more emotionally and philosophically layered. Series like Tru Calling and Life on Mars used temporal displacement to explore regret and identity, while Continuum, Outlander, 12 Monkeys, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, Travelers, Timeless, and Paper Girls expanded the idea into serialized, character-driven sagas. Even the 2022 revival of Quantum Leap demonstrated that the format still resonates over generations.
Across seven decades, time travel TV has continually reinvented itself—sometimes educational, sometimes comedic, sometimes romantic or apocalyptic. Yet the enduring appeal remains the same: the fascination isn’t simply where—or when—we’re going, but what each journey reveals about choice, consequence and the fragile architecture of time itself.
1. ‘Captain Z-Ro’ (1951–1956, Syndicated)
Time Diary: A pioneering children’s science-adventure program, Captain Z-Ro followed the titular scientist and his young assistant Jet as they used a “Time Machine” to witness pivotal moments in world history—from Columbus’ voyages to Lincoln’s presidency—teaching lessons in science and civics along the way.
Cast: Roy Steffens (Captain Z-Ro), Bruce Haynes (Jet).
Time Travel Confidential: The show began on local San Francisco television before expanding nationally. Its educational angle helped justify the then-expensive production costs for early sci-fi programming. The “Time Machine” console was cobbled together from surplus electronics, giving it a convincing laboratory aesthetic for the era.
2. ‘Doctor Who’ (1963–1989; 2005-, BBC)
Time Diary: The Doctor, a time-traveling alien known as a Time Lord, explores the universe in the TARDIS, a dimension-defying craft disguised as a blue police box. With various human companions, the Doctor journeys through history and distant worlds, battling monsters and moral dilemmas alike.
Cast: William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy as successive incarnations of The Doctor; numerous companions including Carole Ann Ford (Susan Foreman) and Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith).
Time Travel Confidential: Conceived by BBC Head of Drama Sydney Newman, Doctor Who was intended as both educational and adventurous. The TARDIS exterior was chosen for budget and practicality. The concept of regeneration—introduced to replace an ailing Hartnell—became a storytelling cornerstone, ensuring the series’ longevity and cultural immortality.
3. ‘It’s About Time’ (1966–1967, CBS)
Time Diary: Astronauts Mac and Hector accidentally travel back to the Stone Age and must survive among a tribe of cavemen, introducing them to modern ideas while learning primitive survival skills. Later in the series, the cavemen travel forward to the 20th century, reversing the fish-out-of-water premise.
Cast: Frank Aletter (Mac), Jack Mullaney (Hector), Imogene Coca (Shad), Joe E. Ross (Gronk).
Time Travel Confidential: Created by Gilligan’s Island producer Sherwood Schwartz, the show reused many of that series’ comedic rhythms and sets. Ratings were initially strong but fell after the premise flip mid-season. Its theme song—“It’s About Time, It’s About Space…”—remains one of Schwartz’s catchiest creations.
4. ‘The Time Tunnel’ (1966–1967, ABC)
Time Diary: Two scientists testing a secret government experiment are thrust uncontrollably through time, landing in famous historical moments—the Titanic, Pearl Harbor, ancient Rome—as their colleagues struggle to retrieve them.
Cast: James Darren (Tony Newman), Robert Colbert (Doug Phillips), Whit Bissell (General Heywood Kirk), John Zaremba (Dr. Raymond Swain), Lee Meriwether (Dr. Ann MacGregor).
Time Travel Confidential: Produced by Irwin Allen, the “Master of Disaster,” The Time Tunnel featured elaborate historical sets and heavy use of Fox’s film library for stock footage. Despite impressive visuals and a devoted fan following, it lasted only one season due to high production costs.
5. ‘Quantum Leap’ (1989–1993, NBC)
Time Diary: Dr. Sam Beckett, trapped in time after an experiment goes wrong, “leaps” into different people’s bodies throughout history to correct mistakes and set things right. Guided by his holographic friend Al, Sam changes lives while searching for a way home.
Cast: Scott Bakula (Dr. Sam Beckett), Dean Stockwell (Al Calavicci).
Time Travel Confidential: Created by Donald P. Bellisario, Quantum Leap merged science fiction with heartfelt drama, tackling issues of race, gender, and morality. Bakula’s empathetic performance and Stockwell’s sardonic charm made it a fan favorite. The series ended on a bittersweet note in 1993, declaring simply that “Dr. Sam Beckett never returned home.”
6. ‘Back to the Future: The Animated Series’ (1991–1992, CBS)
Time Diary: Picking up where the film trilogy left off, Doc Brown, his family, and Marty McFly embark on new adventures through time using an upgraded DeLorean and a steam-powered train. Each episode delivered a light educational or moral lesson amid comic anachronisms.
Cast: Dan Castellaneta (Doc Brown), David Kaufman (Marty McFly), Mary Steenburgen (Clara Brown), Josh Keaton (Jules), Troy Davidson (Verne). Christopher Lloyd appeared in live-action wraparounds introducing each episode.
Time Travel Confidential: Produced by Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis, the cartoon targeted younger audiences while preserving the spirit of the films. Universal’s animation arm worked closely with CBS, and the live-action intros cemented the franchise’s connection to its cinematic roots. The series ran two seasons and later aired on Fox Kids in reruns.
7. ‘Time Trax’ (1993–1994, Syndicated)
Time Diary: Police officer Darien Lambert travels from the 22nd century to the 1990s to track fugitives who escaped justice by fleeing into the past. Equipped with advanced gadgets and aided by a holographic partner, he must adapt to primitive 20th-century life while restoring order to the timeline.
Cast: Dale Midkiff (Darien Lambert), Elizabeth Alexander (Selma, voice).
Time Travel Confidential: Produced by Harve Bennett (Star Trek II–IV), Time Trax was one of the last major American-Australian co-productions filmed at Warner Roadshow Studios in Queensland. It ran for two seasons in syndication and was praised for its sleek tone and moral focus, blending crime procedural with sci-fi action.
8. ‘Timecop’ (1997–1998, ABC)
Time Diary: Based on the Jean-Claude Van Damme film, the series followed an agent of the Time Enforcement Commission who travels through history to stop criminals from altering key events for personal gain.
Cast: Ted King (Jack Logan), Cristi Conaway (Claire Hemmings), Don Stark (Eugene Matuzek).
Time Travel Confidential: Executive-produced by Mike Richardson and Mark Verheiden for Universal, Timecop struggled to balance episodic storytelling with serialized mythos. Despite impressive sets and effects for network television, it lasted only nine episodes. Still, it helped popularize the “temporal police” trope later revisited in shows like Continuum and Loki.
9. ‘Seven Days’ (1998–2001, UPN)
Time Diary: Using alien technology recovered from Roswell, a top-secret U.S. agency can send one person seven days into the past to prevent disasters. Agent Frank Parker becomes the lone operative capable of enduring the process, reliving the same week repeatedly to save lives and maintain national security.
Cast: Jonathan LaPaglia (Frank Parker), Don Franklin (Craig Donovan), Norman Lloyd (Dr. Isaac Mentnor).
Time Travel Confidential: Created by Christopher and Zachary Crowe, Seven Days balanced military action with humor and character drama. UPN promoted it as “Quantum Leap meets The X-Files,” and it built a loyal following despite network limitations. Norman Lloyd, a veteran of Hitchcock and St. Elsewhere, brought gravitas to the ensemble.
10. ‘Tru Calling’ (2003–2005, Fox)
Time Diary: Morgue attendant Tru Davies discovers she can relive a day when a corpse calls out for help, giving her the chance to prevent that person’s death. Each reset day tests her empathy, moral limits, and personal relationships as she struggles with fate itself.
Cast: Eliza Dushku (Tru Davies), Shawn Reaves (Harrison Davies), Jessica Collins (Meredith Davies), Jason Priestley (Jack Harper).
Time Travel Confidential: Created by Jon Harmon Feldman, Tru Calling combined supernatural mystery with emotional drama. The show developed a devoted cult following, particularly around Dushku’s performance and the dark rivalry between Tru and Jack, who believes death’s design should never be changed. Fox canceled it midway through its second season, leaving major storylines unresolved.
11. ‘Life on Mars’ (2006–2007, BBC; 2008–2009, ABC)
Time Diary: After a car accident, modern-day detective Sam Tyler awakens in 1973. Unsure whether he’s in a coma, insane, or truly back in time, Sam must adapt to the rough-and-tumble policing of the ’70s while searching for a way home.
Cast: John Simm (Sam Tyler), Philip Glenister (Gene Hunt); U.S. version starred Jason O’Mara and Harvey Keitel.
Time Travel Confidential: The British version became a pop-culture phenomenon, blending noir grit with metaphysical mystery. Its success inspired the American adaptation and sequel Ashes to Ashes. The show’s title, taken from David Bowie’s song, reinforced its haunting ambiguity about identity, memory, and reality.
12. ‘Continuum’ (2012–2015, Showcase/Syfy)
Time Diary: In the year 2077, a group of terrorists escapes execution by traveling back to 2012, accidentally bringing a dedicated cop, Kiera Cameron, with them. Stranded in the past, Kiera must stop them from changing history while longing to return to her son in the future.
Cast: Rachel Nichols (Kiera Cameron), Victor Webster (Carlos Fonnegra), Erik Knudsen (Alec Sadler), Tony Amendola (Edouard Kagame).
Time Travel Confidential: Created by Simon Barry, Continuum fused political intrigue, corporate dystopia, and moral ambiguity. Filmed in Vancouver, it became one of Syfy’s most thoughtful dramas, questioning whether altering history could ever be justified if the future it prevents is oppressive. Its four seasons concluded with a satisfying and emotional finale that tied up its temporal paradoxes.
13. ‘Outlander’ (2014–present, Starz)
Time Diary: A World War II–era English nurse, Claire Randall, is mysteriously transported from 1945 Scotland back to 1743, where she becomes entangled in Highland clan politics, Jacobite rebellion, and a passionate, life-altering romance. As Claire struggles to survive in the past while knowing the future, the series explores how love, history, and personal choice ripple across centuries.
Cast: Caitríona Balfe (Claire Fraser), Sam Heughan (Jamie Fraser), Tobias Menzies (Frank Randall / Jonathan “Black Jack” Randall), Sophie Skelton (Brianna MacKenzie), Richard Rankin (Roger Wakefield MacKenzie).
Time Travel Confidential: Based on the novels by Diana Gabaldon, Outlander blends time travel with historical drama, romance and political intrigue, making it one of television’s most enduring genre hybrids. Unlike most time-travel series, the mechanics are deliberately mystical rather than scientific, allowing the focus to remain on character, consequence, and emotional continuity. The show has been praised for its meticulous period detail and Balfe’s performance, while also sparking discussion for its unflinching depiction of trauma. Now one of Starz’s signature series, Outlander has sustained a passionate global fanbase across multiple eras and timelines.
14. ’12 Monkeys’ (2015–2018, Syfy)
Time Diary: Time traveler James Cole journeys from a plague-ravaged future to the present day to stop the mysterious Army of the 12 Monkeys from unleashing a deadly virus. His mission grows increasingly complex as shifting timelines blur the lines between fate and free will.
Cast: Aaron Stanford (James Cole), Amanda Schull (Dr. Cassandra Railly), Kirk Acevedo (José Ramse), Emily Hampshire (Jennifer Goines), Barbara Sukowa (Katarina Jones).
Time Travel Confidential: Based on Terry Gilliam’s 1995 film, this re-imagined series expanded the concept into a multi-season epic of love, loss, and looping timelines. Showrunner Terry Matalas layered intricate plotting with emotional resonance, earning critical praise for turning a cult movie into one of the decade’s smartest serialized sci-fi dramas.
15. ‘DC’s Legends of Tomorrow’ (2016–2022, The CW)
Time Diary: A misfit team of DC heroes and villains, recruited by rogue time-master Rip Hunter, travels through history to fix “anachronisms” and prevent catastrophic timeline distortions. Over time, the team evolves from reluctant saviors into a found-family of chaotic do-gooders.
Cast: Arthur Darvill (Rip Hunter), Caity Lotz (Sara Lance), Brandon Routh (Ray Palmer), Dominic Purcell (Mick Rory), Victor Garber (Martin Stein).
Time Travel Confidential: Spun off from Arrow and The Flash, the series quickly abandoned solemn superhero tones in favor of irreverent humor and genre pastiche—musicals, Westerns and even puppetry. Its meta sensibility and emotional arcs made it the most unpredictable and beloved entry in the CW’s “Arrowverse.”
16. ‘Travelers’ (2016–2018, Netflix)
Time Diary: In a grim future, consciousnesses of elite agents are sent back into 21st-century hosts just before their deaths, allowing them to covertly alter history to prevent global collapse. The agents must balance missions with the messy personal lives of the people they now inhabit.
Cast: Eric McCormack (Grant MacLaren), MacKenzie Porter (Marcy Warton), Nesta Cooper (Carly Shannon), Jared Abrahamson (Trevor Holden), Reilly Dolman (Philip Pearson).
Time Travel Confidential: Created by Brad Wright (Stargate SG-1), Travelers mixed tense procedural pacing with deep moral questions about identity and predestination. Shot in Vancouver, it gained strong word-of-mouth on Netflix for its realism and understated performances, particularly McCormack’s against-type portrayal of a conflicted team leader.
17. ‘Timeless’ (2016–2018, NBC)
Time Diary: When a terrorist steals a prototype time machine to alter U.S. history, a historian, a soldier, and a scientist form a reluctant trio to pursue him through the past, from the Hindenburg to the moon landing. As they chase him, they uncover a vast conspiracy shaping the timeline itself.
Cast: Abigail Spencer (Lucy Preston), Matt Lanter (Wyatt Logan), Malcolm Barrett (Rufus Carlin), Goran Višnjić (Garcia Flynn), Paterson Joseph (Connor Mason).
Time Travel Confidential: Created by Eric Kripke and Shawn Ryan, Timeless blended high-concept adventure with historical empathy, highlighting lesser-known figures from history. Fan passion saved it from cancellation twice, leading NBC to grant a two-part finale movie. Its warm ensemble and commitment to emotional storytelling made it one of the decade’s standout network sci-fi entries.
18. ‘Paper Girls’ (2022, Prime Video)
Time Diary: On Halloween night in 1988, four newspaper delivery girls become trapped in a conflict between warring factions of time travelers. Stranded across decades, they must navigate adulthood, destiny, and their own intertwined futures.
Cast: Camryn Jones (Tiffany Quilkin), Riley Lai Nelet (Erin Tieng), Sofia Rosinsky (Mac Coyle), Fina Strazza (KJ Brandman), Ali Wong (Adult Erin).
Time Travel Confidential: Adapted from Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang’s acclaimed comic, Paper Girls balanced coming-of-age emotion with high-concept sci-fi. Shot primarily in Chicago and Cleveland, it was lauded for its performances and tone but canceled after one season, becoming an early casualty of streaming’s content contraction.
19. ‘Quantum Leap’ (2022–2024, NBC)
Time Diary: Thirty years after Dr. Sam Beckett vanished, a new scientist, Dr. Ben Song, restarts the Quantum Leap project to uncover its secrets—and mysteriously becomes trapped in the same cycle of leaping into other people’s lives throughout time. As his team in the present tries to bring him home, Ben races to fix historical wrongs while unraveling why he leaped in the first place.
Cast: Raymond Lee (Dr. Ben Song), Caitlin Bassett (Addison Augustine), Ernie Hudson (Herbert “Magic” Williams), Mason Alexander Park (Ian Wright), Nanrisa Lee (Jenn Chou).
Time Travel Confidential: Developed by Steven Lilien and Bryan Wynbrandt, the reboot continues the legacy of creator Donald P. Bellisario’s original series while updating its themes for a new generation. Filmed in Los Angeles, it balances emotional storytelling with modernized technology and serialized mystery. Raymond Lee’s performance has been widely praised for channeling the heart and empathy that defined Scott Bakula’s Sam Beckett, while the writers weave connective tissue to the classic show—including recurring references to Sam’s still-unsolved fate.
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