Time Bandits Season 1 Review – An overlong, hit or miss slog-fest

Episode Guide

Episode 1 -| Review Score – 2.5/5
Episode 2 -| Review Score – 2.5/5
Episode 3 -| Review Score – 2/5
Episode 4 -| Review Score – 2/5
Episode 5 -| Review Score – 2.5/5
Episode 6 -| Review Score – 2/5
Episode 7 -| Review Score – 4/5
Episode 8 -| Review Score – 2.5/5
Episode 9 -| Review Score – 2.5/5
Episode 10 -| Review Score – 2.5/5

Welcome to 2024, the year of the spin-off, sequel, prequel, sequel to a prequel, prequel to a sequel or multiversal side-story, thrown through the grinder and watered down for a modern audience. This brings us along nicely to Time Bandits, Apple TV+’s latesy comedy series from Taika Waititi. Fresh off the lukewarm reaction to Thor: Love and Thunder, Taika is back to throw on his usual Marvel-esque slapstick humour to Terry Gilliam’s 1981 time travel romp sporting the same name.

In a way, Time Bandits is the perfect encapsulation of the typical show on the Apple TV+ platform. Big named actors, thrown into a recognizable IP or adaptation, alongside a massive production budget and an overlong, inflated run-time that outstays its welcome long before the final credits roll. This pretty much sums up Time Bandits to a tee.

The story here is quite straightforward and centers around an 11 year old history nerd called Kevin. His parents don’t care about anything other than their gadgets, his younger sister Saffron isn’t much better, and life at school sees Kevin as a loser and a loner.

When a ragtag group of thieves show up in his bedroom one night, Kevin finds himself whisked up on a time-travel adventure as he jumps backwards through time to numerous different periods through history.

The Bandits happen to be in possession of a map, which just so happens to be the key to the whole universe. This attracts the attention of two powerful beings (basically God and Satan) in the form of Supreme Being and Pure Evil. These two set out to try and get the map back, while Kevin whisks off to save his parents from a fate worse than death at the hands of a demonic presence called Fianna.

The episodes are largely standalone bottle chapters, with humour that ranges from slapstick and lowbrow to overdone, drawn out anachronisms that poke fun at different time periods. In fact, a few jokes here are surprisingly effective and these are the ones that lean into the sort of Horrible History style of educating while also poking fun at the absurdity of history. The significance of Pineapples in Georgian times or using feathers to tickle as a form of capital punishment are two such examples.

One of the more amusing episodes in this show actually comes late on, around episode 7, which sees the gang back in the ice Age with a bunch of Neanderthals that learn British slang. It’s a nice little mashup of ideas (if you don’t think too hard about the ramifications this has on history) but it’s a rare bright spot in what’s otherwise a rather indifferent and dour journey through history.

The biggest problem here though stems from the Bandits themselves. In the original, the bandits had a quirky, charismatic feel to them and the juxtaposition of these guys being larger than life thieves while also being dwarves drew up a delightful contradiction. Here though, we get Lisa Kudrow leading the gang as Penelope in one of the biggest miscasts in the whole show. She hams up every scene she’s in, has awful comedic timing (whether the fault of hers or the Directors, it’s hard to tell) and draws on that Phoebe style of humour from Friends that just does not work in this setting.

The rest of the gang are caricature pieces and don’t really have all that much development  and even the big bad(s) of the show repeat the same jokes that get tired quickly. Pure Evil can’t say Supreme Being’s name without gagging. It’s funny the first time but 5 episodes in and he’s still doing it? Come on guys. Similarly, we get other gags repeated but it’s very hit or miss.

Time Bandits definitely looks good but like many other Apple Originals, a high production value only gets you so far. On a platform that’s already lagging behind with viewers, with an abundance of shows that are overlong and dragged out for far too long, Time Bandits doesn’t have a whole lot to recommend. If this was released in one hit, maybe its okay for a one-time binge (and it does work better as a binge rather than waiting for two episodes a week by the way) but a cliffhanger ending and a lot of painful, overlong sequences along the way do nothing to help this one.

If anything, you’ll find yourself wanting to rewind time and return to the original movie. And to be honest, you’re better off skipping Time Bandits altogether and going straight for the source material if you want a good time. This reimagining is best left to the recesses of your imagination.

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