12 Monkeys, Season 1
Same pandemic backstory as
the movie, similar names for the characters,
no Bruce Willis, and a mishmash of time-travel tropes along with tuneless minor-key
chords in place of actual tension and slowly spoken clichéd dialogue in place of actual
plot. Random discussions of
fate brush shoulders with an admixture
of possible time travel models from
narrative time (when a wound
sprouts on old JC’s shoulder while watching young JC get shot), to
skeleton timelines (JC thinks that his timeline will vanish if he
succeeds), to a fascination with a single static timeline (you’ll see it in Chechnya)
and
time itself has an agenda. Primarily, we’d say that the
story follows narrative time from Cole’s point of view.
By the end of the first
season, one principal character has seemingly been trapped in the 2043, and Cole is stuck
in 2015, having just gone against fate in a major way, but with a third principal
character poised to spread the virus via a jet plane.
P.S. Whatever you do, whether in
narrative time or elsewhen, don’t bring up this adaptation as dinnertime
conversation with Terry Gilliam (but do watch it if you can set aside angst over a
lack of a consistent model and just go with Cole’s flow).
— Michael Main
About four years from now, most of the human race will be wiped out by a plague, a
virus. We know it’s because of a man named Leland Frost. I have to find him.
—from “Splinter” [s01e01]
