12 Monkeys, under duress

I’m not a big fan of TV at all but Grumpy, being disabled, depends on it for entertainment and distraction. As a consequence I watch a lot of TV, none of it of my choosing. He’s a huge fan of the SyFy channel, so when they introduce a new series we usually watch it. Another feature of watching TV with Grumpy is this: he tends to fall asleep before the end. I frequently find myself watching the same shows over and over and over…

SyFy recently began their new series, 12 Monkeys, based on a movie of the same name. I’ve seen the movie many times, and now (against my will) I’ve watched every episode (so far) of the TV show many times. I feel like I’m uniquely qualified to write a review.

12 Monkeys (the series) is exactly like 12 Monkeys (the movie), but without Terry Gilliam, Bruce Willis, Brad Pitt, Madeleine Stowe, the amazing score, the original premise, great dialog, character development, etc., etc., etc.

When I first heard they were making the series, I wondered how they were going to do it. The movie told the whole story, and the story was cyclical. How would they be able to make a series that fits in with that universe? And the answer is: they didn’t. They kept the title, some of the names of some of the characters, a virus and time travel, and discarded everything that made the movie so amazing.

On the positive side, there’s nothing about the show interesting enough to distract me from my book.