An unlikely trio traveling through time to battle unknown criminals in order to protect history as we know it. – IMDB
The show opens with the death of the Hindenburg, showing one hypothesis about how it met its gruesome fate.
Now we cut to the present day with Lucy Preston (Abigail Spencer) teaching a lecture at some University. She tells a story how once when questioned about the Vietnam War LBJ unzipped his pants and displayed his member “this is why!” As her lecture ends she meets up with some guy who tells her she won’t be receiving tenure. She is really angry, but she also appears to be a history teacher who spends her time talking about former president’s junk. So maybe it isn’t totally out of line. She goes home to her sad life where her sister and her both live in her mother’s house because her mother is on the brink of death.
Meanwhile, somewhere else, a group of men bust into a large warehouse, shoot up a few people (mostly guards) and kidnap a few more and jump into a large machine centered in the middle of the space. The machine spins up (literally) and then disappears.
Back to Lucy, she’s complaining to her sister about not getting tenure when the doorbell rings. Someone identifies themselves as Homeland Security and Lucy says “I don’t know what you are selling but I’m not interested.” I guess in her neighborhood sales people pose as Homeland Security all the time. Despite this, she ends up going with this person and ends up at the facility where the machine disappeared.