Time Bandits (series): I'm not wowed so far but I'm the wrong demographic

Most of you are probably too young to remember the film that this series is based on because it was released in 1981. I remember it, and I recall not particularly caring for it either.

I was excited to see this reboot series though and perhaps my enthusiasm for a big budget, CGI that works (there was none in 1981), and because AppleTV tends to make decent productions had set my levels of expectation too high.

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The premise behind the show is one that could see this series go on forever if they wanted to but basically it is a group of thieves and an 11-year old boy who knows a lot about history and therefore is a great asset to the team, even though they don't respect him.

The aim here was to make this show family-friendly and I guess this is part of the reason why I am a bit "meh" about what I have seen so far. Also, they focus on child actors quite a lot and I am not really a fan of that outside of very rare and specific situations where a child is necessary.

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The situations that they find themselves in are rather silly but I suppose that is what you get when you make a show that is rated PG. To me, it is a bit too childish for me to fully enjoy it but I can understand why Apple would do this. They need to create a wide array of shows that will appeal not jut to the adult audience but encourage the subscribers' children to want to watch it as well. That's called audience retention.

Will it be a long standing show? Well if online rating sites are to be at all trusted, the information that we have thus far would indicate that at least for now, it's doing just fine with a rating over 8/10. I wouldn't go that far but will say this: It is visually appealing and is light watching. You don't really have to focus a great deal to get what is going on and in a way it could be considered educational programming as well because a lot of facts, lore, and mythology is correctly identified in it as well. I suppose if we can trick the kids these days into learning something, that is a good thing.

Should I watch it?

It depends on how old you are and if you have a tolerance for shows whose primary audience is children. If you have kids this could be something wonderful for you to enjoy together.

For me, I will give this a few more episodes but am unlikely to continue watching it because I am not 6-11 years old. That being said, I am a bit of a snob when it comes to what I am going to watch so I would say that you should probably watch one episode of this on your own and see what you think. Maybe you would really enjoy it because the idea behind a bunch of time travelers going to and from various points in history on an all-encompassing quest, is pretty cool.

_{the only way to legally stream this at the moment is with an AppleTV+ subscription}