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 When Ernst materialized again, he found himself in familiar surroundings! He realized it was his own town, but there was something different . . .
