Even though Terry Gilliam isn’t involved, that small screen adaptation of one of his best movies, "12 Monkeys," still holds lots of potential. The premise is ripe to be explored in an episodic format, and even though it’s set in the future, there is a certain timeliness to the subject matter. But can SyFy make it work? Well, here’s the first ten minutes of the series, so you be the judge.
And straight off, we’ll just say this — the acting leaves a lot to be desired. Granted, this is SyFy, but there is something stilted and slightly too serious in the material here, and it’s missing Gilliam’s touch of surreality and humor. But to be fair, this is just the pilot, and if we based every series off the first episode, we’d have given up on all of our favorite shows ages ago. Here’s the official synopsis: