Netflix Is Streaming An Overlooked British Sci-Fi Series With A Perfect Rotten Tomatoes Score
For all of Netflix's multimillion-dollar originals and its immense library of acquisitions, some of the service's most compelling sci-fi offerings tend to arrive quietly — "The Lazarus Project" being a perfect example. The British series, which originally aired on Sky Max, is currently streaming on Netflix and boasts a rare distinction: a perfect 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes. For sci-fi fans who think they've already seen everything the platform has to offer, this one deserves immediate attention.
The series centers on George (played by Paapa Essiedu), a seemingly average man who wakes up one morning to discover the world has jumped back in time by several months. Only a small percentage of people remember the reset, all of them members of a top-secret organization known as the Lazarus Project. Their mission: prevent extinction-level events by rewinding time and steering history onto a survivable path. George is recruited, and the show in earnest begins.
What truly sets the series apart is how grounded it feels despite its high-concept hook. Rather than leaning on sci-fi tropes and bucketloads of CGI, The Lazarus Project focuses on the human emotions at stake when playing god with time. Characters are forced to relive trauma, make impossible choices, and grapple with the knowledge that entire timelines — and the people in them — can be erased in an instant.
In March 2024, the show was canceled after its second season, and there's no news of a renewal. That said, if you've already watched all the best sci-fi shows of 2025, The Lazarus Project is definitely worth checking out.
Here's what the critics are saying
As mentioned, The Lazarus Project holds a perfect 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 14 reviews. Over at Metacritic, the series scored a 73 out of 11 critic reviews. Writing for Empire, reviewer Jordan King said, "Affirming Joe Barton's status as one of the best screenwriters in the game, The Lazarus Project is exactly the kind of head-spinning, heart-pounding TV that you'll be left wanting to revisit time and again."
For those unaware, Joe Barton was the showrunner for The Lazarus Project, who also wrote and directed series like "Giri/Haji" and "Black Doves."
Writing for The Times, Carol Midgley offers a more mixed assessment of the series, noting how abruptly its tone shifts: "The Lazarus Project" transitions from domestic drama to strange time-travel sci-fi, then to a full-blown Mad Max–style car chase in less than an hour..."
There's no shortage of standout TV to dive into on Netflix, but if you're craving smart storytelling that can genuinely go toe-to-toe with the prestige sci-fi dominating Apple TV+, The Lazarus Project is an easy recommendation. It's sharp, ambitious, and refreshingly confident in its ideas, delivering high-concept science fiction without losing sight of the human stakes.