It’s mind over matter for these ‘Travelers’

young woman nearly dies in the frightening opener of “Travelers,” the new Netflix series.

Attacked by ruffians outside the library where she works as a janitor, she collapses. An on-screen graphic counts down the seconds to her death while she screams. Then the death clock reverses and counts the seconds of her resurrection.

Amazingly, she stands up and knocks out one of her assailants.

The young woman’s name is Marcy (Mackenzie Porter). She lived in an institution until age 18, hampered with “a significant intellectual disability.” But the Marcy who comes back to life has doubled her IQ , lost her stutter and can handily defend herself. A medical examination leads a doctor to ask if this is the same person.

Yes — and no. In “Travelers,” a large group of people from a future century — when humanity is all but extinct — use their conscious minds to inhabit the “host” bodies (not the “Westworld” variety) of 21st century humans moments before their deaths. Their purpose: to ensure mankind’s survival. When FBI agent Grant MacLaren (Eric McCormack) joins their ranks, having fallen down an elevator shaft, he is assigned a number — Traveler 3,468 — and must act as if nothing has changed: which means going to work and returning home to his wife (Leah Cairns).

“I take over the body 30 seconds before he died,” says McCormack, 53. “So Grant’s wife doesn’t know [he’s dead]. And you have no idea what I [really] look like.”

Like an espionage unit (think “Mission Impossible”), the Travelers work on a need-to-know basis, deployed by an unseen director to stop attempts at world destruction. “Each one of us fulfills a piece of a larger puzzle. They don’t fully understand everything,” says McCormack — whose previous series, TNT’s “Perception,” cast him as a neuropsychiatrist who solved crimes with the college-town police.

“We are spies. Not from another country, but from another century.”

The Netflix model of distributing Season One’s 12 episodes at once is one of the reasons the Torontoborn McCormack signed on to do the series, as it allowed for creator Brad Wright (the “Stargate” franchise) to employ a more intriguing storytelling pace as opposed to the exposition dump so common in broadcast television pilots.

“We mete out the details so you need to know more,” McCormack says.

“Travelers” is McCormack’s first foray into streaming entertainment but don’t expect Netflix, which has produced revivals of “Full House” and “Gilmore Girls,” to get behind the long-rumored revival of “Will & Grace,” the NBC comedy that aired from 1998-2006 with McCormack and co-stars Debra Messing, Megan Mullally and Sean Hayes and earned McCormack an Emmy award in 2001. “The four of us are game but it’s bigger than us,” he says, hinting that NBC and Warner Bros. have the final say on the reboot.

McCormack has no problems with the current revival craze, though.

“There’s nothing wrong with wanting what we want,” he says.

“Travelers” Premieres Friday on Netflix