Time Bandits leaves us a tad cold

The Time Bandits get yanked out of their most recent, sandy portal and back into the soft familiar snow of the neanderthal times: the Ice Age. And they’re plenty confused. Whereas the last time they popped up in this period, they mistook some folks in a tent dressed in furs for Kevin’s family, this time he actually does have family here: his sister, Saffron. We always had to figure Kevin and Saff would be reunited in some era or other, considering they have both been portaling around, and she has been actively searching for her bro. The unexpected part is that by the time Kevin and the Bandits arrive in this cold place, she has been there for three years, each day tallied on a rock—and three birthdays circled in red.  

This episode is…fine. Maybe it was the less than thrilling, icy backdrop and CGI critters, maybe it was all the harping on U.K. tween slang for its humor, but this viewing experience honestly left me a little, well, cold. It was important to reunite the sibs, of course, and it’s an interesting choice to introduce a three-year age gap between the two, following Saffron’s lengthy stay with her neanderthal buddies. It’s also cool to see her alternative approach to Kevin’s as a solo time-traveler, electing to stay put in one period rather than continue hopping through portals. She chose to build community with these folks, and with the knowledge she brought from the future, she managed to introduce language (and chairs) and even sort of became their leader. That’s all good stuff, worthy of exploration and all that, but it’s not especially dynamic, and the jokes all sort of land within the same linguistic vein. 

However, I do have to admit, that while it may not make for the most compelling television in this particular case, the restorative justice fan in me really appreciates the themes of repair and second chances in this episode. Characters are finding ways to heal and grow by teaching or healing others and putting themselves through difficult trials to make things right again. That’s my jam. 

On the healers front, we have the Haddocks and Biddelig. The kids are generating a plan to save their parents this whole time, and having conversations that honor their feelings rather than just bickering as they had done before. Saffron has matured—in the literal, years-passing sense—since she was last in contact with her brother, which may be a reason she shows up differently in this relationship now. Meanwhile, Biddelig finds a furry rhino with a broken leg and dotes upon it, committing himself fully to the big animal’s healing. He’s so fixated on his new friend that he ends up missing out when the tribe distributes furs to the Bandits and gets stuck with a tiny rodent hide to keep him warm. At one point, he even ends up cuddling with his rhino outside of the tent rather than killing it for its warm fur, sacrificing his own comfort for the benefit of this creature. These demonstrations of care are touching and nice to see in a family show.

Kal-El Tuck and Kiera Thompson in Time Bandits (Photo: Apple TV+)

Penelope has her own trial to contend with, one of humbling herself to honor the customs of the neanderthal tribe. When she returns the chief’s chest thumping gesture, she inadvertently accepts a leader-to-leader challenge, and is tasked with walking alone, in the dark, to the “rock of fear.” She is able to complete this task, though she gets creeped out by the glowing eyes of what turns out to be a rat-like critter and ruminates on “the eyes of death” for a while. She earns the respect of the tribe this way, and the chief gets hung up on the notion of making her his woman for a while (which is honestly a little much). At least she was culturally sensitive here. That was cool of her.

On teaching duty, we have Saffron and Alto. As I mentioned, Saffron has been teaching everyone in this neanderthal tribe how to speak English—her specific brand of Yorkshire dialect with some internet lingo mixed in, like “lol.” This role seems to provide a genuine source of meaning for her, and she has opened herself up to learn from them as well. Alto’s efforts are not as immediately successful. He strives to teach a pair of neanderthals about the theater, but they really struggle with the concept of a character dying while the actor playing that role remains alive (i.e., Juliet, as in Romeo And…). He quits, actually, but we’ll see if this comes back somehow as his students demonstrate learning later on. Maybe it was just to serve as an example of rewarding work becoming too difficult to sustain for some.

You have to find something to hold onto to continue with difficult work. For Kevin, it’s birthdays (and it’s probably why this whole series starts with his birthday). Penelope argues that his parents are terrible and not worth saving, but Kevin counters that they at least made birthdays really special for him and made him feel loved in that way. This annual kindness stuck with him, and that’s just the example he mentions out loud. There are surely others he carries in his mind.

So even though it betrays the YOLO ethos Saffron introduced to the tribe, she and Kevin, with the help of the Bandits, are off to make their parents alive again. We’re restoring things and possibly reanimating a couple of people here. Though it doesn’t bring the most laughs of the series so far, it’s a lovely concept for an episode. Now maybe we can get back to some actual adventures next time.

Stray observations

• • When Biddelig attracts the attention of a CGI saber-tooth tiger and gets all mad, Alto instructs the Bandits to become the bigger predator together, “as a chorus,” to scare it away. I like this approach. I want to become the bigger predator as a chorus with my friends.
• • It is quite sweet how much Biddelig loves that furry rhino. There’s sincerity in his voice as he explains to Widgit that he can’t kill the big guy, crying out, “I just love him. I can’t do it.” I would like to know what the deal is with this subplot, though. They spend an awful lot of time here.
• • Was it a budget thing to spend so much time at this particular filming location? I feel like now they’ve spent more time here than at any other place, and it’s not that visually interesting. Maybe they just dig the look of furs.
• • The newly-older Saffron rejoices that she can tell Kevin “to shut up whenever [she wants].” Kevin tells her, “You already did that every day.” She sure seemed to, and you know what? She has honestly seemed older than him to me this whole time, even when he was explicitly calling her his “little sister.”
• • I’m surprised I haven’t mentioned yet how Roger Jean Nsengiyumva (who plays Widgit) has been killing it with his delivery this whole time. He had some great lines this episode. He reassures Penelope, when she’s concerned about whether she has done something offensive, “It’s just a weird energy you give off to people and animals.” And he asks Kevin which Haddock sibling is the most annoying kid in their family, adding, “It must be close between the two of you.”
• • Saffron has been calling the rhinos “unicorns.” That’s a little silly. We saw from Saff’s sweatshirt that Fianna kept carrying around that she is indeed a unicorn fan, but seeing a rhino, even a furry one,  and calling it a unicorn feels like a bit of a stretch.
• • Jemaine Clement, Pure Evil himself, wrote this one.