Time Slipping Away

I am sure you have too many shows in your television diet to make room for a recent single-season show that was canceled on a cliffhanger. And yet, I feel compelled to say a few words in praise of Time Bandits.

Streaming on Apple TV+, Time Bandits is a series re-imagination of early 80s film written by Terry Gilliam and Michael Palin. It's about a young British kid who falls in with a band of utterly inept thieves who bounce around time looking to steal valuable loot. They brush up against historical figures while trying to avoid the agents of the Supreme Being and Pure Evil, both of whom want the magical map they use to move through time portals.

It's been a long while since I've seen the original movie. I imagine it will be heretical to many for me to say this, but I don't remember it being particularly good. And more heretical still to say that my comic sensibilities don't really overlap much with Monty Python. But they do tend to overlap with the sensibilities of Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi, creators of What We Do in the Shadows and Wellington Paranormal. Here, they've teamed with Iain Morris to put their own spin on the Time Bandits premise. And if you like either of those other two shows, I feel confident you will enjoy Time Bandits.

But perhaps the real secret sauce of this TV series is its main star, Lisa Kudrow. She plays Penelope, the leader ("but really, we have no leaders") of the bandits -- and her comic skills and timing make everything about this show measurably funnier. Friends fans: imagine a character as flighty and scattered as Phoebe, but give her a massive ego and exaggerated self-confidence. That's Penelope. And she's hilarious. (Really, the whole cast is solid. But Lisa Kudrow is next level.)

Over the course of 10 episodes, you quickly come to understand how Time Bandits was canceled. It looks like a preposterously expensive show to make. There's constant jumping into new time frames, requiring new sets, guest actors, and costumes. And this isn't Doctor Who style time travel, where most things can look like someplace within a short drive of London. The Time Bandits visit the Prohibition-era United States, the African desert, the Mayan Empire, and the Ice Age, among other stops. Time Bandits surely would have needed an off-the-charts viewership to justify these costs. And given that Apple TV+ has already announced the cancellation of the show after one season, it's clear they didn't get that.

I'll be direct: the show ends on a cliffhanger (that will now never be resolved). But personally, I find it light enough to not be too upset by that. After 10 episodes of watching these characters bumble their way out of any crisis they bumble into, I really don't need to know the particulars of how they get out of this last one. I think I can just appreciate that I got 10 half-hour episodes that made me laugh. Maybe they want to make me try the original movie again some time, even. (But What We Do in the Shadows made for a far better TV series than a movie; why can't it be the same for Time Bandits?)

I give Time Bandits a B+. It may not stand the test of time, I suppose (ha!), but I think many people reading this would find it fun.