I stopped watching at episode 10! Now, let me say that I was really looking forward to this show and I'm very disappointed it didn't live up to my expectations. What made me stop watching? It's not the acting, not the effects - it's the story.
It feels like the writers didn't know where to go with this around episode 7. Cole and Cassy stopped the outbreak, everything seemed to be fine! Guess what? They didn't! Somehow the story must go on and thus the outbreak wasn't really stopped. I suspected this would happen, but it threw me off anyways.
I think the two hour movie it was based on just hadn't enough juice to fuel a whole TV show, so the writers introduced some other characters and brought more storylines into play. Unfortunately, this didn't really help and made the whole show more confusing than interesting. If they had sticked to the original storyline, explained some parts of it in more depth, especially some characters, I believe they could've made a great 20 episode show.
There was so much potential. Instead the show was convoluted with characters and storylines, which I think are just there to stretch the whole show over more episodes.
I started this show last year, and binged it in a week, after I heard about it many times in r/DARK. I wanted to stop somewhere at episode 6 or 7. Every episode had the same structure, I was kinda bored. Everybody told me, I have to get through Season 1 and I will be rewarded. DAMN, they were right. Season 2 was way better, I was more intrigued. In Season 3 I was really into the story, started to fell in love with some characters (it really took a while for me) and Season 4 f****ing blew me away! Wow. From start to finsih, with THE BEST FINALE I have ever seen. Even better than the finale of Six Feet Under, which is theoretical not possible. The last 3 episodes are so amazing, so smart, I was crying non stop for 2 hours while watching this, only be interrupted by many, many laughters. They circled back to things I didn't even knew needed to be circling back to. They answered every question, they finished it PERFECT.
I finished 12 Monkeys again, last night, and I can't believe this show is even better on the 2nd watch. I liked Season 1 way better. I even thought the acting was better - of course I am biast now because this show managed to get up into my Top 3. I enjoyed the finale even more, cried even more and I can't wait to watch it all again next year!
WHAT A RIDE!
Ramse: We always try to do the right thing. We just end up doing it the wrong way.
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Please please please ignore David Linsin's 4/10 review before watching this, or at least watch a few episodes first before forming your own opinions.
This has been one of the few series that remained spectacularly great the whole way through to the end. Sure it has some questionable quirks or dialogues that you can tell may have been production notes written in and not intended in the original plot to 'spruce' up the series for a mainstream audience - but the core story, beginning to end, has been one of the best, if not the best, I have so far seen for a TV show, and a 4-season TV show based off a successful 90s movie to boot (Which if you are worried renders this series obsolete after having watched the movie already, worry not).
In the process of watching the series, I think I may have realised my favourite genre now is sci-fi, more specifically sci-fi set in the dystopian future (which is probably most sci-fi). If you like this series, consider giving Blade Runner 2049 (movie) and fringe (TV-series) a watch as well.
12 Monkeys the series is poetry, beautiful poetry about an ambitious plot, with the most human of themes. It would have been a 10/10 for me if not for some of the dialogue choices. Despite this very forgivable hitch, 12 Monkeys is an absolute must watch. Fullstop.
Review by SoraBlockedParentSpoilers2023-03-09T05:19:22Z
"THERE ARE MANY
ENDINGS BUT THE RIGHT ONE IS THE ONE
YOU CHOOSE"
-Jennifer (12 Monkeys)
I don't think that any show will ever be able to give us a better ending than this one just did, but I hope that they all try. Because this one was just phenomenal and hit on all of the timey-wimey and character points that the show has always been good at hitting. Everyone who needed a shot at redemption got it and nailed it. Well, except for Olivia, but we knew that all along, pretty much. (But even there, her bones served a purpose.) And perhaps most importantly, everyone got an ending. Or the beginnings of endings. And happy ones, at that.
Two nice touches that I really appreciated: (1)
They didn't actually show Cassie hitting the Big Red Button, so we don't know for sure if she did.
The results either way are similar, but also different in terms of where Cole ended up. I choose to believe that Cole ended up in the same new timeline as the "real" others. (2) As it clung by a thread to a tree limb, that red (.) leaf that the camera panned to so that it could lead us out of the show at the very end was perfectly symbolic of all living things having an ending.
Cassie and Cole and the others have one life now. Free will over destiny. Do it right or go home. No do-overs. The way that it should be.