12 Monkeys, Season 1
- written by Terry Matalas, Travis Fickett, et al., directed by multiple people
- TV Season
- Science Fiction
- Adults
- Definite Time Travel
- English
- 12 Monkeys, Season 1, written by Terry Matalas, Travis Fickett, et al., directed by multiple people (SyFy, USA, 16 January 2015 to 10 April 2015).
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).
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]
Tags
(24)
- Time Periods
- Circa AD 1970 to 1999: Cole and Ramse both travel to 1987, and Ramse subsequently lives 28 years in this timeline.
- Circa AD 2000 to 2099: The post-holocaust world and most of the earlier times are in the 21st century.
- Timeline Models
- Leaky Timelines: Seen as early as (s01e01) with the scratching of Cassie’s watch, but clearest example of narrative time is when old Cole develops a wound as he’s watching younger Cole get shot (s01e06). And despite pulling in many tropes of different kinds of time travel, the overall arc of the first season follows the model of narrative time from Cole’s point of view.
- Sensing Unfamiliar Timelines: When Cole first changes the timeline and goes forward to the changed 2043, he still remembers the old timeline! He didn’t go poof!
- Single Consistent Timeline: At some level, Terry Matalas and Travis Fickett know that 12 Monkeys (and La jetée before it) are all about a single static timeline where each event that happens meshes perfectly with all the events before and after it. We noticed this, for example, in (s01e07) when Cole is given precisely the information that’s needed to make his Chechnya mission work out in the way that it worked out. But on the other hand, the two developers can’t seem to resist pulling in other incompatible models of time travel, and even in the Chechnya episode, it seems like they’re obsessed with the idea of a reset switch that allows Cole to end up in a pandemic-free Florida Keys.
- Pruned Timeline: The theory being that if our timeline is reset . . . poof!, . . . and we’re all just erased. (s01e05) But don’t worry about this too much because if you happen to poof the wrong timeline, you can reset things back to the poofed line by undoing the poof that poofed it in the first place, as is done in (s01e06). Whew!
- Time Travel Methods
- Hypnosis, Mental Powers, Potions, and Drug-Induced Travel: The time travel mechanism is vague, but Cole is prepared for travel by an injection of some sort.
- Time Tethers: For the most part, the machine appears to shoot Cole into the past and retrieve him, although it also seems to have the capability of shifting him from one time to another when a mistake has been made. At one point, a character says that they’ve lost the “tether.”
- Themes
- Causal Loops: As one example: Cassie Railly sends a message specifically mentioning Cole, so he was sent, which causes her to mention him in her message.
- Entanglement of Concurrent Copies: When a watch is scratched, a simultaneously existing older copy also becomes scratched.
- Fix History!: Throughout the first season, Cole and the 2043 scientists are trying to stop the virus altogether, but there are also hints that this may not be possible.
- Fix Your Time Travel Screw-Up!: In (s01e06), Cole must fix the screw-up he made in (s01e05).
- Making Things Worse: The first major change that Cole manages to make by accident in (s01e05) makes 2043 radically worse.
- Object Meets Self with Bizaare Consequences: Among other things, the watch explodes (s01e01). Sigh.
- Self-Defeating Acts: Despite a belief that the timeline can be changed and previous timelines can disappear, the characters still have minor worries about self-defeating acts, as when Cassie declares You can’t kill me, Cole, ’cause that would mean you’d have no reason to come for me in the first place (s01e01). But clearly they don’t worry about this overly much.
- Self-Visitation: Cole first meets himself in the 2043 firefight of (s01e04), and there are two other self-meetings in Season 1.
- Time Cabal: the pallid man et al. and possibly the Army of 12 Monkeys, although in Season 1, the composition and purpose of the army is murky
- Time Itself Has an Agenda: After (s01e09), [url=https://twitter.com/TerryMatalas/status/576561532357599232)Terry Matalas tweeted[/url]: Time seems to want to make sure that Cole finds that watch unscratched so he can go back to 2013 and meet Cassie . . . But why? Nothing comes of this, though, at least not in Season 1.
- Time Travel Sickness, Injuries, and Mixed-Up Body Parts: Despite the drugs, Cole gets sicker and sicker due to repeated time traveling. Oh, and there were the various failed attempts, too, including the body that ended up far in Japan’s past.
- Real-World Tags
- Fictional Tags
- Mad Scientists: Both Leland Goines and his daughter, Jennifer, fit the bill.
- Post-Apocalyptic and Post-Holocaust Worlds: the post-plague world
- Groupings
Variants
(14)
- 12 Monkeys, Season 1, written by Terry Matalas, Travis Fickett, et al., directed by multiple people (SyFy, USA, 16 January 2015 to 10 April 2015).
- “Splinter,” written by Terry Matalas and Travis Fickett, directed by Jeffrey Reiner (SyFy, USA, 16 January 2015).
- “Mentally Divergent,” written by Natalie Chaidez, directed by David Grossman (SyFy, USA, 23 January 2015).
- “Cassandra Complex,” written by Rebecca Kirsch, directed by Michael Waxman (SyFy, USA, 30 January 2015).
- “Atari,” written by Terry Matalas and Travis Fickett, directed by David Grossman (SyFy, USA, 6 February 2015).
- “The Night Room,” written as by Richard E. Robbins, directed by David Boyd (SyFy, USA, 13 February 2015).
- “The Red Forest,” written by Christopher Monfette, directed by Alex Zakrzewski (SyFy, USA, 20 February 2015).
- “The Keys,” written by Sean Tretta, directed by John Badham (SyFy, USA, 27 February 2015).
- “Yesterday,” written by Oliver Grigsby, directed by Michael Waxman (SyFy, USA, 6 March 2015).
- “Tomorrow,” written by Rebecca Kirsch, directed by T. J. Scott (SyFy, USA, 13 March 2015).
- “Divine Move,” written by Christopher Monfette, directed by Magnus Martens (SyFy, USA, 20 March 2015).
- “Shonin,” written by Sean Tretta, directed by Mark Tonderai (SyFy, USA, 27 March 2015).
- “Paradox,” written as by Richard E. Robbins, directed by Dennie Gordon (SyFy, USA, 3 April 2015).
- “Arms of Mine,” written by Terry Matalas and Travis Fickett, directed by David Grossman (SyFy, USA, 10 April 2015).
David Webb Peoples as by David Peoples (based on a work by)
Janet Peoples (based on a work by)
Terry Matalas (developer)
Travis Fickett (developer)
David Webb Peoples as by David Peoples (based on a work by)
Janet Peoples (based on a work by)
Terry Matalas (developer)
Travis Fickett (developer)
David Webb Peoples as by David Peoples (based on a work by)
Janet Peoples (based on a work by)
Terry Matalas (developer)
Travis Fickett (developer)
David Webb Peoples as by David Peoples (based on a work by)
Janet Peoples (based on a work by)
Sean Tretta (other contribution)
Terry Matalas (developer)
Travis Fickett (developer)
David Webb Peoples as by David Peoples (based on a work by)
Janet Peoples (based on a work by)
Sean Tretta (other contribution)
Terry Matalas (developer)
Travis Fickett (developer)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
written by
Richard Robbins as by Richard E. Robbins
David Webb Peoples as by David Peoples (based on a work by)
Janet Peoples (based on a work by)
Sean Tretta (other contribution)
Terry Matalas (developer)
Travis Fickett (developer)
David Webb Peoples as by David Peoples (based on a work by)
Janet Peoples (based on a work by)
Sean Tretta (other contribution)
Terry Matalas (developer)
Travis Fickett (developer)
David Webb Peoples as by David Peoples (based on a work by)
Janet Peoples (based on a work by)
Sean Tretta (other contribution)
Terry Matalas (developer)
Travis Fickett (developer)
Oliver Grigsby (story)
Natalie Chaidez (story)
David Webb Peoples as by David Peoples (based on a work by)
Janet Peoples (based on a work by)
Oliver Grigsby (other contribution)
Sean Tretta (other contribution)
Terry Matalas (developer)
Travis Fickett (developer)
Terry Matalas (story)
Travis Fickett (story)
David Webb Peoples as by David Peoples (based on a work by)
Janet Peoples (based on a work by)
Oliver Grigsby (other contribution)
Sean Tretta (other contribution)
Terry Matalas (developer)
Travis Fickett (developer)
Terry Matalas (story)
Travis Fickett (story)
David Webb Peoples as by David Peoples (based on a work by)
Janet Peoples (based on a work by)
Oliver Grigsby (other contribution)
Terry Matalas (developer)
Travis Fickett (developer)
David Webb Peoples as by David Peoples (based on a work by)
Janet Peoples (based on a work by)
Oliver Grigsby (other contribution)
Terry Matalas (developer)
Travis Fickett (developer)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
written by
Richard Robbins as by Richard E. Robbins
Terry Matalas (story)
David Webb Peoples as by David Peoples (based on a work by)
Janet Peoples (based on a work by)
Terry Matalas (developer)
Travis Fickett (developer)
David Webb Peoples as by David Peoples (based on a work by)
Janet Peoples (based on a work by)
Oliver Grigsby (other contribution)
Terry Matalas (developer)
Travis Fickett (developer)
Previous Works
inspired by La jetée written and directed by Chris Marker (1962), based on 12 Monkeys by David Webb Peoples and Janet Peoples, directed by Terry Gilliam (1995)