Monkey business
In an ideal world, 12 Monkeys would be a tinderbox drama set deep in an African jungle, where poopthrowing triggers societal unrest. But until then, we have the Showcase sci-fi series based on the likenamed 1995 film, returning Wednesday for a third season.
When we left off, Cassandra Railly (Amanda Schull) realized that her son with James Cole (Aaron Stanford) will become the evil leader The Witness.
“Season 3 takes place months after the big bombshell of Season 2,” executive producer Terry Matalas told Entertainment Weekly. “It’s where we’re going to catch up with Cole’s search for Cassie and what life has been like in Titan in the future for her, and there are quite a few surprises for both those characters pretty early on.”
Season 3 will also summon new villains. Magdalena (Hannah Waddingham) will be the leader of The Guardians, who must protect the child throughout time. Christopher Lloyd also guest-stars as the husband of Vivian Rutledge and the father of Pallid Man.
“In our sixth episode of the season — which has the return of Agent Gale from last year, Jay Karnes — we get to see the birth of the Army of the 12 Monkeys and how the cult came together,” Matalas said.
“The episode guest stars Christopher Lloyd, who plays the recruiter for them. The episode really dives into religious beliefs and cults and what kind of person would be drawn to this particular philosophy of time.”
DREAM A LITTLE DREAM
Archer’s eighth season, a tribute to film noir titled Archer: Dreamland, wraps up Wednesday on FXX. In the episode Auflösung, the titular spy voiced by H. Jon Benjamin gets a break that finally leads him to Woodhouse’s killer.
This season has taken viewers deep into Sterling Archer’s subconsciousness as he lies in a coma in “real” life. It’s a creatively freeing setup that lets characters adopt alternative personas and, as always, get up to all manner of hijinks.
“It’s pretty much the same tone, even though the setting changes. The idea is to keep Archer pretty much the same as possible,” Benjamin told U.S. TV station KSDK.
The show has been renewed through season 10.
JUST DUCKY
Lin-Manuel Miranda — he of three Tony Awards, two Grammys, an Emmy and a Pulitzer Prize — has revealed his next Very Important Gig. It’s DuckTales.
The Hamilton creator will voice the superhero Gizmoduck for the upcoming Disney XD reboot. Gizmoduck’s true identity is Fenton Crackshell-Cabrera, a smart intern working for the mad scientist Gyro Gearloose. The show debuts this summer.