My love of time travel material on the big and small screen took a bit of a battering after the disappointment of Looper. Non-linear stories were once the cutting edge of mind-twisting entertainment, yet recent efforts have been halfhearted at best. William Shatner's live tweets convinced me to give 12 Monkeys a try, but it should be noted I was a jaded audience member going into the pilot.
Creating a tv series from a film premise can be rough, especially in a case like this, where the original movie is a trippy cult number from Terry Gilliam starring Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt. A cinematic reputation like that doesn't make for an easy road to adaptation. And the show's on Syfy, which didn't reassure. I haven't been bowled over by the network's recent scripted television offerings: Dominion, Bitten, and Helix, for starters. The quality of the storytelling has fallen consistently short.
I love science fiction (and the paranormal) because the genres allow narrative to wander in unusual directions. Sci-fi and paranormal shows can push boundaries conceptually and structurally: they're free to explore ideas beyond the parameters of everyday television. Comments can be made on complex social, scientific, and ethical issues all while maintaining empathic, emotional connections with the audience–if the writers know what they're doing, that is. These genres should be the antithesis of clumsy storytelling devices and two-dimensional characters, but increasingly this hasn't been the case, and it's a worrying trend.
Let's face it, when you're watching out for paradoxes and characters are moving all over the (time) board like chess pieces gone rogue, it's easy for the storytelling to stumble. The potential pitfalls with this kind of series are daunting, but 12 Monkeys steps adroitly over any possible chasms. You can tell when writers have faith in their product: there are no empty tricks or desperate grabs for audience attention because they know you're hooked from the first minute, and that sense of confident restraint is what can make a show so addictive.
12 Monkeys has moments of dry, very realistic wit that occasionally break up the intensity: small, well-placed doses of unexpected levity that don't detract from the seriousness of the program, but give the audience time to breathe.
Yes, the true star of 12 Monkeys is the timeline that just won't do what it's told. I feel like this show is a puzzle my brain is currently engaged in, and the state of the timeline is the end game. Whenever a piece moves, I try to work out what impact the change will have on the overall solution, but I'm unknowingly skipping variables, or waiting to turn over cards from a pack that's constantly being reshuffled.
(Kudos to creators Travis Fickett and Terry Matalas, who are responsible for a bulk of the writing in the first season. Just imagining the whiteboard in the writer's room gives me a headache.)
There's some clever casting, too. In all honesty I would never have chosen Aaron Stanford and Amanda Schull as the show's leads. I've only really seen Schull as the unbalanced Meredith in Pretty Little Liars (and a beauty pageant contestant in a Castle episode) so it seemed risky giving her what is a difficult lead role as Dr. Cassandra Railly. She's the controlled scientific type, and those parts can come across as dull and unlikeable–not through any fault of the actor. But Schull does a fantastic job. I really like Cassie, a character I generally wouldn't connect with, and it's because of the way she's portrayed as much as the way she's written.
Likewise, Aaron Stanford. The first time he appeared onscreen, I thought, really? He doesn't seem like a tough survivor from the future. But by the end of the pilot he'd hit it out of the park as James Cole, and each episode sees him reveal another believable layer, in terms of the character's psyche, to the point where Stanford has made Cole one of my favorite characters currently on television.
It's worth noting my sense of solidarity jumps from Cole to Cassie; suddenly I'm starkly identifying with one or the other, completely engaging with their perspective, before swinging back. I love this factor, it's a large part of the show's allure.
From moment to moment I'm uncertain what my viewpoint is, in regards to the status of a period in linear time: the past as a changeable past, the past as the present, the future as a changeable future, the future as the present. For viewers it's like looking through a kaleidoscope. One tiny twist, and you suddenly have a different interpretation of the point the story is passing through.
My favorite character in any television show is generally the wild card. Here it's Jennifer Goines, played by Emily Hampshire. She reminds me of Drucilla from Buffy The Vampire Slayer, possessing, as I call it, the befuddled clarity of insanity. Hampshire manages to compel that particular unease you feel when someone's reactions imply they're not mentally well, and she does it with just her gaze, or a single line.
There are so many ethical and moral quandaries in each episode, not to mention careful attention paid to detail. Favorite examples? When Cassie tried to make Cole comprehend she'd been waiting years for him, even though he'd seen her minutes ago. When Cole tried to make Cassie understand it didn't matter if he killed someone because to him everyone was already dead. When Cole didn't know what a license plate was. When Cassie was in the red forest (a Twin Peaks-esque homage, intentional or otherwise). When Jennifer learnt who killed her father.
The audience can't shake the sensation any moment of stability in the story is constantly balanced on the head of a pin, destined to come tumbling down, and frankly, it's a delicious feeling.
No comments:
Post a Comment