Started the re-watch. I'll try to do one or two of these per week, but this will be slower going than my DS9 Rewatch. Quite a difference watching 12 Monkeys the second time versus taking it all in with the first.
101. "Splinters"
They managed to sum up the entire premise of the series within a span of 47 minutes. The first 20 minutes are spent on James Cole convincing Dr. Cassandra Riley he's from the future (2043) and that in 2017, a few years from her time (2013 pre-opening credits, 2015 afterwards), a plague is going to wipe out most of the world's population. The rest of the episode is spent on a Cole's mission to kill Leland Goines in order to stop him from developing said virus. Riley points out he can't just kill someone and that there's no way of knowing if the virus isn't already in development. By the end of the episode Leland Giones does end up dying, but not before revealing he already met James Cole in 1987, a time Cole hasn't been to yet. Leland realizes Cole hasn't heard of the Army of the 12 Monkeys yet either. Leland tries to kill Cole and Riley, but Cole outsmarts him and Leland dies. But there's a catch: Cole hoped that killing Leland would undo his timeline. Except it wasn't undone. And that's the brilliance of this series: No matter what Cole tries to do; someone is always 10 steps ahead of him. When Cole gets back to 2043, Dr. Jones asks he if found out anything and he says that they're looking for the 12 Monkeys. Back in 2015, Leland's daughter (who's in an insane asylum), Jennifer Goines, is told that her father died but he left her with a lot of money, as she sketches a drawing the 12 Monkeys symbol on one of her walls.
A solid start to the series. I liked it just as much this time as I did last time. It still holds up knowing what I know now. I give it an 8.
PIC/12M Comparisons: Earlier in the thread, I mentioned some similarities between Jack Crusher and James Cole. Here's another one. The scientists working for Leland Goines point out that Cole's biology is like a walking, talking human computer. With Jack Crusher's DNA that he inherited from Picard/Locutus, he's a walking, talking carrier of Borg technology, since he has Locutus' DNA in him. Jack Crusher isn't just "the next generation" of Picard, he's "the next generation" of Locutus, which is what the Borg Queen wanted. I'm going to have to look out for parallels between the Borg Queen and Olivia Kirschner, to see if that leads anywhere or adds up to anything.
These are the types of things you don't really start noticing until the second time around.
This is entirely by coincidence, since Terry Matalas had nothing to do with Picard Season 1, but you know how Raffi's theory that the Romulans were behind the Mars Attack was dismissed, and she was written off as crazy? It's similar to how after when Riley met Cole, people began to dismiss her and thought she was crazy. Terry must've picked up on that similarity when he started working on Picard. It's not so much there in PIC S2, but in PIC S3, we're back to Raffi as the Intelligence Agent coordinating with Worf (even though she doesn't know it at first) and looking into things that most people would think of as crazy.
These are the types of things you don't start noticing until the second time around.
Of Other Note: One more thing from "Splinters". I love when Cole scratches Railey's watch from her time and then the scratch appears on Riley's watch from his time. It's just like comparing Doc Brown's watch to Einstein's watch in Back to the Future.
101. "Splinters"
They managed to sum up the entire premise of the series within a span of 47 minutes. The first 20 minutes are spent on James Cole convincing Dr. Cassandra Riley he's from the future (2043) and that in 2017, a few years from her time (2013 pre-opening credits, 2015 afterwards), a plague is going to wipe out most of the world's population. The rest of the episode is spent on a Cole's mission to kill Leland Goines in order to stop him from developing said virus. Riley points out he can't just kill someone and that there's no way of knowing if the virus isn't already in development. By the end of the episode Leland Giones does end up dying, but not before revealing he already met James Cole in 1987, a time Cole hasn't been to yet. Leland realizes Cole hasn't heard of the Army of the 12 Monkeys yet either. Leland tries to kill Cole and Riley, but Cole outsmarts him and Leland dies. But there's a catch: Cole hoped that killing Leland would undo his timeline. Except it wasn't undone. And that's the brilliance of this series: No matter what Cole tries to do; someone is always 10 steps ahead of him. When Cole gets back to 2043, Dr. Jones asks he if found out anything and he says that they're looking for the 12 Monkeys. Back in 2015, Leland's daughter (who's in an insane asylum), Jennifer Goines, is told that her father died but he left her with a lot of money, as she sketches a drawing the 12 Monkeys symbol on one of her walls.
A solid start to the series. I liked it just as much this time as I did last time. It still holds up knowing what I know now. I give it an 8.
PIC/12M Comparisons: Earlier in the thread, I mentioned some similarities between Jack Crusher and James Cole. Here's another one. The scientists working for Leland Goines point out that Cole's biology is like a walking, talking human computer. With Jack Crusher's DNA that he inherited from Picard/Locutus, he's a walking, talking carrier of Borg technology, since he has Locutus' DNA in him. Jack Crusher isn't just "the next generation" of Picard, he's "the next generation" of Locutus, which is what the Borg Queen wanted. I'm going to have to look out for parallels between the Borg Queen and Olivia Kirschner, to see if that leads anywhere or adds up to anything.
These are the types of things you don't really start noticing until the second time around.
This is entirely by coincidence, since Terry Matalas had nothing to do with Picard Season 1, but you know how Raffi's theory that the Romulans were behind the Mars Attack was dismissed, and she was written off as crazy? It's similar to how after when Riley met Cole, people began to dismiss her and thought she was crazy. Terry must've picked up on that similarity when he started working on Picard. It's not so much there in PIC S2, but in PIC S3, we're back to Raffi as the Intelligence Agent coordinating with Worf (even though she doesn't know it at first) and looking into things that most people would think of as crazy.
These are the types of things you don't start noticing until the second time around.
Of Other Note: One more thing from "Splinters". I love when Cole scratches Railey's watch from her time and then the scratch appears on Riley's watch from his time. It's just like comparing Doc Brown's watch to Einstein's watch in Back to the Future.
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. Still, 12M is arguably one of the top three genre series of the 2010s. And I'd be hard pressed to identify any serialized genre series that managed to stick the landing like it did.
