No CEO. No secret baby. No contract marriage. No alpha male who’s cruel first and madly in love by episode twelve.
Instead: 1881. The Civil War. A scientist who has been studying a time traveler for years. A man from the distant future who isn’t allowed to say what he knows. A dangerous industrialist. And somewhere in between, a cosmic presence called the Time Consciousness.
Time Away isn’t what you’d expect from a vertical drama. And that’s exactly why it’s worth watching.
What it’s about
At the center is Dr. Ronnie Young, a scientist who has spent years studying the time traveler Jep. Jep moves through the years of the American Civil War and asks the big question: can the past be changed — and should we even try?
Around that: power struggles with a wealthy industrialist, mysterious journeys across the universe, and a man from the future whose silence matters more than any confession. The whole thing is an independent production, releasing weekly on Instagram (@timeawayseries), and it’s free to watch.
What Time Away does differently
Most vertical dramas work through a very clear promise. You know within three seconds what you’re signing up for: billionaire, marriage, betrayal, drama. Time Away refuses exactly that.
Instead of romance escalation, there’s science, responsibility, mystery. Instead of a penthouse, there’s 1881. Instead of “You belong to me,” there’s “I’m not allowed to tell you what I know.”
That’s not just a different setting. It’s a different logic. Time Away isn’t betting on what hits hardest emotionally in the first ten seconds — it’s betting on curiosity. You don’t keep watching because two people might finally kiss. You keep watching because you want to understand how this world works.
Why it still works in the vertical format
You might assume a science fiction series with a historical setting can’t survive in 60-second episodes. It can.
Time Away has a hook that’s just as sharp as any “She was his wife and didn’t even know it”: time travel, 1881. Instant image, instant pull.
And the format itself plays into the show’s strengths. Vertical drama lives on proximity — a face, a glance, a held breath, an unfinished sentence. A character who isn’t allowed to say what they know is exactly that. No special effects needed. A hesitation does the work.
The weekly release pace fits too. Time Away doesn’t explain everything at once. It leaves questions open and gives the audience time to sit with them — a welcome contrast to the “escalate-everything-in-90-seconds” mode of most app dramas.
The takeaway
Time Away isn’t as polished as the big platform dramas. But that’s part of the point. This isn’t industrial output — it’s a series someone actually wanted to tell, with its own characters, its own tone, its own world.
And those are the productions that ultimately move the format forward. Not the hundredth CEO drama, but the series asking: what else is possible?
Time Away has an unusual answer. And that makes it one of the more interesting verticals currently running.
🎭 CAST
Jennifer Jelsema – Dr. Ronnie Young (Jennifer Jelsema – Stage and screen actress based in Chicago)
Justin Mane – Jep (Justin Mane – Actor and pro wrestler based in Detroit)
Marcus Woods – Charlie (Marcus Woods – Film and TV actor from Detroit)
Barton Bund – Mr. Jens (Barton Bund – Actor, filmmaker, and series creator from the Great Lakes region)
Jessica Grové – Angie (Jessica Grové – Broadway actress and producer)
Yorg Kerasiotis – Time Consciousness (Yorg Kerasiotis – Musician and promoter from Detroit)
