Skip to main content

TV Series Review: 12 Monkeys (2015 - Season 1 ) *Spoiler Free*

Being a fan of the 1995, Terry Gilliam movie, Twelve Monkeys, when I discovered SyFy channel had adapted it into a TV series, 12 Monkeys, I was interested to see how that would pan out.

Although the show has been aired in Australia on free to air TV (I'm pretty sure I've seen it listed there at ridiculous hours on occasion), it's only recently that the first two seasons were added to Australian Netflix. So I added it to my list of shows to watch.

This article is not so much a review of the show, rather it's my thoughts on adapting to the TV version after being a big fan of the film. At this point, I've only seen all of season one and the first episode of season two.

Going into the TV series I literally went in cold, not knowing anything about the approach to this adaptation from pre-publicity or trailers beforehand. I didn't really have any expectations other than wondering if the show would stick to the movie plot lines closely and, if they did, how would they make the show surprising if you knew how the film ended.



This is not your Grandaddy's version of Cole.
Right from the first episode it becomes apparent that the show's creators weren't that interested in simply adapting the film into an extended TV series. As soon as you meet James Cole (played by Aaron Stanford) it's obvious he's not the disorientated, reluctant and less capable version played by Bruce Willis in the movie. This Cole is focussed, calculated and has a clear purpose that he's dedicated to. Stopping the virus.

I must admit that initially having such a different version of Cole was off putting. I liked Bruce Willis' version quite a bit because that character never seemed quite sure of what he was supposed to be doing beyond gathering information. I still feel the TV series would be more compelling if TV Cole was more like the movie Cole.

However once you discover that Cole's relationship to his time travel machine creators is also vastly different from the film you quickly begin to realize that the TV version of Twelve Monkeys has clearly decided it's going to be its own thing. It has familiar elements and characters from the film but that doesn't mean any of them will go on the same journey as they did in the film.

I wrestled a little with disapointment about all the changes through the first few episodes but, once you get past that, you get a compelling time travel show where it becomes interesting trying to keep track of the various time lines.

Who are these people? I didn't see
any of 'em in the movie!
By the end of season one the show barely resembles any of the events in the movie with only the main goal of trying to stop the spread of the virus being the common thread, still intact. Everything else has pretty much become its own thing within the TV version of the story.

In the end that was a smart move because people like me, who have seen the movie multiple times, can enjoy the TV series knowing that they don't know what's coming.

If you're a fan of the film, definitely check out the series. You may initially be disappointed with it but if you can ride that out it does become compelling in its own right.

If you've never seen the movie then I'd suggest not watching it before this series as it'll only set you up for disappointment.

In my opinion the movie has two of the best performances in Bruce Willis as Cole and Brad Pitt as Jeffrey. You'll miss that version of Cole in the TV series and, Emily Hampshire, who plays a gender swapped version of Jeffrey, feels a little like she's doing an impression of Brad Pitt's version of the character. Which is not to say she's no good but, she's not Brad Pitt. It may have been better if she'd found her own interpretation of such an unstable character.

Twelve Monkeys is currently in its third season and well worth a look if you like wrapping your mind around time travel timelines.

Comments

Buy Gifts and Apparel featuring art by TET.

Popular posts from this blog

I'm Confused About Why People Prefer to Say Discombobulated?

D iscombobulated. Is a word that I think someone rediscovered about three or four years ago (maybe more because the pandemic years have thrown out my sense of time) and now I hear it a lot. It's not a new word by any means, but when I started hearing multiple celebrities using it in everyday sentences, I actively had to look up what it meant. Define it with as many synonyms as you like but essentially it's just another word meaning 'confused'. Seinfeld Quotes: Quotes.net The words are pretty much interchangeable. He was discombobulated by too many choices. He was confused by too many choices.  My confusion is the length of the word. It's unnecessarily long with too many syllables. There are many other words that mean confused, and therefore also mean discombobulated. Most of them are shorter and easier to say. So why not just say 'confused'? Perhaps discombobulated sounds more intelligent, maybe?  Hawaii Five-0 Quotes: Quotes.net I've noticed it gets us...

Introducing Resident Dragon: The Trials and Tribulations of Living in a Shared House with a Dragon in the Suburbs

Resident Dragon Cast: TET, Red the Dragon Cool Froyd the Cat, and Grrr Dog. Buy Prints of finished toons . L ast year (2024), for my birthday in May, my sister bought me a quality, metal bodied, ball point pen (black ink).  As someone who likes to sketch with ball point pens, and with a big concern that these last few years I really wasn't drawing as much as someone who considers themselves to be an artist should, I decided to put the pen to good use. In June of the same year I bought two A5 sketchbooks and spent as much time as I needed to fill a page with ball point pen 'doodles', each morning after breakfast.  I'm predominantly a cartoonist who's always drawn from imagination, so filling a page in a sketch book is not a challenge. I just draw a line, or a circle, or whatever and see what emerges. Filling Sketch Books Just to Draw More Filling an A5 sketchbook page would take me about 20-25 minutes. I drew all kinds of random things, occasionally using the time to...

Movie Review: The Fall Guy (2024) *Minor Spoilers*

W hen I initially heard they were making a movie version of the TV series, The Fall Guy (1981-86) , I was definitely interested, as a person who tuned in to that series, weekly, when it originally aired. I had intended to see The Fall Guy in the cinema but, for whatever reason, didn't get there, and didn't prioritize seeing the film as the reviews, and more importantly, general information about the movie came out. Specifically, The Fall Guy makes no effort to capture whatever magic it was the TV show had that made it the show it was. A fact that is driven home by the reworked TV series theme song, played over the end credits and behind the scenes footage of stunts in the film, that removes all references to real world actors and replaces iconic line of "I'm the unknown stuntman who made Redford such a star" with the nonsensical "I'm the unknown stuntman who tries to win your heart." - sure... I guess... I mean, the original song is about never gett...

TV Series Review: The Penguin (2024) *No Spoilers*

W hile we wait for an eternity (well an eternity in movie fan years anyway) for The Batman Part 2 , sequel to Matt Reeves acclaimed, The Batman  (2022), we have, what is essentially a direct sequel with  The Penguin , a limited. eight episode, TV Series set within a week or two of the end of the first film. Unfortunately it's a direct sequel to Colin Farrell's Penguin rather than Robert Pattinson's, Bruce Wayne/Batman. Fortunately that's the only real disappointment I have with this series.   Right from the first episode The Penguin establishes itself as a show for grown ups who enjoy actual character development, that hooks you in, is thought provoking, and raises questions that you expect will be answered as the story unfolds. After the events of The Batman, there is something of a power vacuum left in Gotham's crime world that Oswald 'Oz' Cobb a.k.a. The Penguin, sets out to fill using his experience, quick thinking, and his ability to hustle his way into...

Social Media: It's All Fake News - Even That News You Shared, That Proves the Thing, Because It's Backed Up By a Credible Expert, is Fake.

Social Media profiles need a peer based rating system that locks you out for 30 days if your feed is one long stream of depressing boredom that bums everyone out. I  don't watch or read the news anymore (mainstream or otherwise). From time to time, if something filters through that piques my interest, I'll take a bit of a dive to find out more. The recent US election is a good example. I even wrote a few opinion pieces in this blog. The Daily Show Is Not News Note that I don't count The Daily Show as news, because I did watch quite a lot of that during the US election. While they lean quite a bit toward the left overall, it's not a show you look to for context, since much of their humor is based on reframing context to get a laugh. The one thing The Daily Show does well is highlight how both Liberal and Right wing media latch onto one or two bullet point messages each day and run them through the mouths of every on screen commentator like they're all wind up parro...

Movie Opinion: Love Actually (2003) Actually has Aged Just As It Should

S creen Rant ran an article by Bisma Fida , Love Actually: The 8 Storylines That Aged Badly, Ranked  (Published Dec 10, 2021), which obviously was regurgitated into one of my newsfeeds because  Love Actually (2003) is still one of the best Christmas movies ever made, that's why it's still topical in 2024. Bisma, who completely failed to get their profile page pro-nouns in order. Something that should be a priority for anyone commenting on what is accepted by modern audiences, who are all completely comfortable accepting preferred pro-nouns without question, because we're just that enlightened in 2024. F**K Screen Rant Full disclosure, I hate Screen Rant to the point that, if I do click on their click bait titles because I didn't see it was a Screen Rant story, I'll close the browser window almost immediately once I see what it is (which is why I'm not providing any links to their homepage). It's not because I dislike their articles. I would actually like to...

President-elect, Donald Trump Eyes Canada, Greenland, and Panama for US Expansion

W hile I'm personally hoping to see President-elect, Donald Trump attempt to be a dictator for his first day in office, as he vowed he would like to be, his latest assertations to bring Canada, Greenland, and Panama under the control of the United States have me somewhat scratching my head? Why Trump is targeting Panama, Greenland, Canada  - thehill.com Panama is perhaps not such a head scratcher given China's controlling interest in the Panama Canal. Trump believes the US is being overcharged for passage through such an important gateway. I don't know if that's true, but Trump thinks so, so yeah, getting control of that kind of makes sense, I guess? Greenland is apparently a strategic national security acquisition, overlooking China and Russia. Well at least the Artic does, so Greenland is ideally placed. Apparently, with the ice up there melting, new commercial shipping routes are opening up (global warming isn't all bad news then?) and Greenland would be a great...