Episode 5 of “The Lazarus Project” was an improvement upon last week’s nadir of the series. Some new information about the science of the time loops was revealed. I liked the flashback sequences. Yet the story is still bogged down by George’s obsession with setting off the bomb as well as the cluelessness of the Project hierarchy.

There were 3 arcs in this week’s installment. The first dealt with the recruitment of Archie (Anjli Mohindra) by MI-5. We discover that she always has been a driven overachiever.

During an undercover operation for a crime ring which she has infiltrated, she is approached by Shiv (Rudi Dharmalingam) and told that her operation is over. While he doesn’t initially reveal the existence of the Project, he does reveal that this is not the first time that she has been told this.

Eventually Archie joins the Project. She is given an injection by Shiv that allows her to experience the “Wave,” whereby she experiences all of the time loops that she has gone through. This injection facilitates non-mutant humans to have the same understanding as mutants like George and Shiv have of the time loops.

The second arc takes place back at Lazarus HQ. Rebrov (Tom Burke) is asked why he killed Ryan (Tommy Letts). He replies that Rudy uttered a coded message that indicated that he needed to be murdered.

When Wes (Caroline Quentin) and Archie are puzzled, Rebrov tells them that there is a mole in their organization. The two are reminded by Rebrov of how there was no-one at the Lost Glory camp when their strike team arrive. Did they think that this was a coincidence? Of course, given how the writer has made the Lazarus Project so poorly managed, this had not occurred to Wes and Archie. I found this to be hard to swallow no matter how it was written.

George (Paapa Essiedu), now in Romania, tells Archie over the phone about payments that Shiv was secretly making to Janet (Vinette Robinson). So he turns suspicion onto Shiv, dead in the trunk of George’s stolen automobile, as the mole. Is Shiv also a mole like George, but for different reasons?

The third arc, and the dullest despite its action, is George’s never-ending journey through Romania to find the nuclear device Big Boy. Once again, we are treated to a protracted car chase scene through a Romanian town. Later there is a pointless fight between George and Rudy (Alec Utgoff), the caretaker of the bomb, in what looks like a deserted Romanian farmhouse.

George ends up killing 2 more people. At the end of these deaths, George seems to be taken aback by what he has done. I think that this was an attempt to humanize the monomaniacal George. But as he is having this “moment,” Shiv is still dead in the trunk. So I was not moved by this dramatic flourish.

The revelation of Rudy that the Lost Glory was a white supremacist organization when George claims to be the sole survivor of the group was amusing. Then, when Rudy announces that he is entitled to a cash payment upon receipt of the bomb, he doesn’t get it from George. But that doesn’t seem to matter in a series where improbability seems to randomly occur. I will add that this episode does end in a non-revelatory way, unlike the other more cliffhanger-like conclusions of the other episodes.

By dragging out the setting off, or not setting off, of this bomb, the writer has taxed the viewers’ patience. I no longer care if George sets off the bomb, and is then reunited with Sarah (Charly Clive) after the reset. In fact, I wish that George would set off the bomb, and then Lazarus would *not* reset the time loop, so that George would have done this for nothing.

At one point, Archie reprimands George for his cover story of following a lead in Romania on a hunch. She states that he cannot just run off that way. But isn’t this the whole problem with the Lazarus Project? There is absolutely no oversight of its own operations. The leadership is so clueless that they can’t even deduce that there might be a mole when a strike force reaches an empty camp.

The screenwriter Joe Barton needs to shift the focus of this series back to non-internal intrigue. While the flashbacks are filling out the characters somewhat, they are not a substitute for developing characters enough to make us care about them.

Not only should the intrigue involve outside forces, but there needs to be more of an emphasis on the science of the Lazarus Project. A storyline where resetting the time loop leads to unintended consequences not involving their own agents would be a nice touch.

Thanks to the intrigue about Shiv’s payments to Janet and to the flashback sequences with Archie and Shiv, I give this episode 3, not 2, out of 5 stars this week. But set off the bomb already!

When George wakes up one day and finds himself reliving a day from months ago, he thinks he’s lost his mind. All of his recent milestones have been undone, including his success at work and his marriage to the love of his life Sarah. Worst of all, he seems to be the only one who has noticed what’s happened.

That is, until he meets Archie, who recruits George for the Lazarus Project — a secret organisation that has harnessed the ability to turn back time every time the world is at threat of extinction. Like George, those who work at Lazarus are the few people on earth with the ability to remember the events that are undone when time goes back. Alongside colleagues like Archie, standoffish Shiv and their steely leader Wes, George works to prevent global catastrophe — including trying to track down the formidable Rebrov, a wanted criminal intent on detonating a nuclear warhead and destroying the world.

Then a freak accident harms someone close to George. Lazarus won’t let him turn back time to undo it — unless there is the threat of global extinction. Now George must choose to stay loyal or go rogue, as he is faced with the question: if you had the power to rewrite your past, what would you sacrifice to do it…?