'Timeless' turns back the clock to focus on trailblazing women, icons of color in Season 2

Brian Truitt | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption 'Timeless' exclusive: Heroes scramble to save one of their own Rufus (Malcolm Barrett) and Wyatt (Matt Lanter) get the Lifeboat ready to go rescue Lucy in World War I France in an exclusive clip from the second season premiere of NBC's 'Timeless.'

Timeless is making the most of its second chance at history.

The NBC time-traveling adventure was canceled last May, then renewed days later, thanks in part to fan support from USA TODAY's Save Our Shows poll. And with a second season premiering Sunday (10 ET/PT), its creators are emphasizing trailblazing women of America's past and icons of color.

In the first season, the show's central "Time Team" visited familiar events and people, including the Alamo, Abraham Lincoln's assassination and Al Capone. But more than ever, 10 new episodes embrace untold stories and the notion that "history's for everybody, and all races and creeds," says executive producer Eric Kripke. "That's a show the world needs right now."

History professor Lucy (Abigail Spencer), soldier Wyatt (Matt Lanter) and engineer Rufus (Malcolm Barrett) return to save the world from the villainous Rittenhouse organization, which has sleeper agents in key time periods to manipulate events and alter the present. Sunday's opener finds Wyatt and Rufus heading to 1918 France to rescue Lucy, who's on the front lines of World War I with her mom, Carol (Susanna Thompson) — revealed to be a key leader in Rittenhouse — and French scientist Marie Curie (Kim Bubbs).

With the Me Too and Time's Up movements, "women of all shapes, sizes, colors and forms are becoming our present-day superheroes," Spencer says, and she's proud to be part of a show that honors earlier ones. This season, Lucy and her crew run into movie star/inventor Hedy Lamarr in 1941 Hollywood; suffragette leader Alice Paul; Grace Humiston, a private investigator who earned the nickname "Mrs. Sherlock Holmes"; and Benjamin Franklin's mom, Abiah Folger, during the 1692 Salem witch trials.

"Every woman moved the needle forward in ways that we couldn't have imagined if we had lived in that time, and we're in the middle of another one of those historic moments," Spencer says.

Barrett grew up on Quantum Leap, Doctor Who and Back to the Future, but "I very rarely saw myself, at least somebody of my skin tone," he says. Playing a time-traveling African-American on a network show is "a great opportunity to show a mirror to society, to reflect history and also to represent a huge section of the public whose views are under-represented."

One of Barrett's favorite episodes last year featured Bass Reeves, a 19th-century U.S. marshal tied to the myth of the Lone Ranger, and more black figures are to come in Timeless' second season: Next week's episode sends Rufus to 1955 to meet the first African-American NASCAR driver, Wendell Scott, and his gang also runs into influential blues man Robert Johnson in the 1930s.

Kripke says the move toward more diverse characters marks a conscious effort to show American history isn't "just a bunch of rich old white dudes."

'Timeless' exclusive: Lucy's recruited by the bad guys Carol (Susanna Thompson) tries to sell her daughter Lucy (Abigail Spencer) on the Rittenhouse way in an exclusive clip from the second season premiere of NBC's 'Timeless.'

A Timeless tale later this season involves Harriet Tubman, the Underground Railroad abolitionist who also commanded Union troops and went on raids of Confederate forces. "She's like full-on Civil War Sarah Connor," Kripke says referring to the Terminator heroine. "I didn't know that, that's news to me! People need to know."

He promises the show's taking some "big swings" after its timely resurrection — Kripke teases one episode that brings a historical figure into present day. And if they're looking to include more famous women, Spencer would love to do a Cleopatra episode, which came up recently due to her 9-year-old son Roman's book report.

"He was like, 'Mom, can you go back to the pyramids?' " Spencer says. "I'm like, 'Maybe Season 3.' We'll have to see if we can get the budget for it."