12 Monkeys: 1.04: Atari

[Dave]

Sorry, don't have a heart attack! This episode hasn't aired yet. I only have the name.

However, I think the name itself is interesting. Atari is from the Japanese verb meaning "to hit the target." Assuming it refers to Cole's journey in the time machine, does it mean that they have perfected it so that it is more accurate (previously he has been several weeks out?) Or, could it refer to them being able to send him further back in time (from the home computer and video game company 1972-1984?)

As I said before, a visit to Leland Goines lab before 1987 might give them many of the answers they are looking for. Also some assumptions based upon spoilers from the Syfy website "Wall".

Spoiler: Theory on Cole

Goines lab was a genetic lab which experimented in cloning and molecular genetics. Cole is apparently some kind of super-soldier (fast healing and resistance to viruses.) I assume the others; Ramse, Whitley and the girl, are also super-soldiers, probably grown as a result of the lab. However, the ages of the actors would suggest that the characters were born between 1999 and 2004, and not 1987.

 

[Dave]

Well, according to 12 Monkeys the definition of "Atari" comes from the game of Go and means that 'one is all out of moves'. So much for my musings then. The moral was that with time travel, one is never all out of moves.

I didn't think it was such a great episode, but then the others were so good it would be hard to keep that up.

This was an episode that again took nothing from the film. It gave us background on the 'Western Seven' scavenger group and how Cole and Ramse came to leave. Introduced us to the rest of the group, who I expect to figure greatly in future stories, but it took us no further to the truth. I found the short jump back two days confusing. I think they need to explain the length of the jumps better.

The Machine seems to be intact after the attack and Dr. Railly says she has found the 'night room,' but I still expect them to string us along with this night room location until the end of the Season and then develop a jump back further in time to make it of no consequence at all.

 

[Cli-Fi]

Happy to see Kirk Acevedo going with some emotion for once. His character is really growing and most of the time he doesn't get to do that. Or it's overlooked.

They just asked an interesting question:
Ramse asked what the point of all this trying to reset the past stuff is. Like all Cole's changes really already happened so what is the point of trying to change the past. It is obvious that Cole fails?

 

[Michael Colton]

On the episodes where they are having a time-jump without giving us a blank screen with a year to signal it, you can hear a mechanic sound from the machine to let us know time jumped. They did that in this episode when Max was walking through the camp - they had her character pass behind an object, gave us that sound, and she walked out from behind the object with slightly different hair and cleaner. Time had jumped but they didn't give us the year announcement screen. If I remember correctly, that was the four day jump. Listening for that sound can make those scenes less confusing.

 

[Dave]

They just asked an interesting question:
Ramse asked what the point of all this trying to reset the past stuff is. Like all Cole's changes really already happened so what is the point of trying to change the past. It is obvious that Cole fails?

Yes, that is a really a problem with the whole premise behind the story. I guess they will address it, but I hope they don't do it by invoking some kind of Dr. Who style "timey-wimey" "fixed point in time" concept. Possibly, they have just not gone back far enough in time to make a difference. If they were to go back to before Goines builds his lab they might be able to alter the timeline, but they apparently can't. He has only failed up to this point in the story. When he is successful then none of this will have happened. There was a lot of discussion in the first two episodes about him being on a one-way mission for that reason, yet he has returned many times.

 

[Dave]

On the episodes where they are having a time-jump without giving us a blank screen with a year to signal it, you can hear a mechanic sound from the machine to let us know time jumped.

I guess I've been missing that cue.

 

[Michael Colton]

I guess I've been missing that cue.

They intentionally made it subtle to try to unsettle the view, I think. That's why I mentioned it.