If you live in LA and you’re a Geek, chances are you know of the Meltdown Comics store on Sunset Blvd; there’s a darkly lit room in the back of that giant palace of panels that inhabits shows and podcasts. The NerdMelt Showroom. Last year, I went to one that had two gentleman by the names of Terry Matalas and Travis Fickett — who had previously done Nikita and Terra Nova — who had just signed with SyFy to do a series based on the film, 12 Monkeys.
Point is, I have an enormous amount of respect for both producers, based on their work, and I’ve been looking forward to this show for quite some time.
Blah. Blah… Blah.
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Now, suddenly, it’s 2043 (Damn, now Moody is almost 65-years old!), and a man named James Cole (Nikita’s Aaron Stanford) gets sent back to 2013 to try a find a woman named Dr. Cassandra Railly (Suits’ Amanda Schull). His belief is that she knows of the man responsible for starting a virus that, oh, only winds up wiping out a massive amount of the world’s population in the future.
Simple enough? Hmmm. With a premise like this, does 12 Monkeys: The Show belong on SYFY? (Then again, does WWE Smackdown?) I thought of watching the Brad Pitt/Bruce Willis movie again — a.k.a. Twelve Monkeys — but then I thought ‘it’s 20-years old and how many people really remember it that well?’ I’m sure there are some of you out there that are criticizing that decision, despite that it comes from the brilliant director Terry Gilliam; however, The One and Only Divine One wanted to stay away from doing immediate, scruciatingly obvious comparisons.
Let’s see how the show stands on its own.
The first thing to like?! The troubled and complicated character of Cole. In 12 Monkeys, Stanford takes his talents to a new level, leaving his nerdy former self of Birkhoff from Nikita in the dust. Railly is an obvious intelligent, well read woman but sabotages her career and social life because she can’t shake her wanting to help Cole.
The show has a well-driven pace. There’s a constant shift of action to coincide with Cole’s time travels, which makes his visits brief as his mission is crucial. There’s an appearance of Zeljko Ivanek (Damages, Revolution) as the aforementioned Leland. The actor always brings a bad-ass presence to any role he takes on.
Because of the option of time travelling — and multiple timelines — the options for several great story arcs and numerous unique characters leave many reasons to be optimistic about this show. Surely, 12 Monkeys is hard to grade solely on the pilot with so much of its expository set-up. Still, your TV Minister was easily entertained by its initial premise, and baited with just enough to see what happens next.
Congrats to Terry and Travis on delivering a show that (so far) was worth waiting for.
12 Monkeys airs every Friday at 9/8c on Syfy.