There are two types of family-friendly children's shows. The type you watch 'just for the kids' but secretly relish (ahem Bluey *cough, cough*) and the ones you can only watch with the little ones.
Syphoning off some of the kids' innocence makes it more special – it scrapes the jaded layers from the corneas of older viewers.
Lisa Kudrow's new show Time Bandits falls into the latter camp: the one where you need to borrow your kids' vision of the world to get into it.
That's not to say that, independently, it's a bad watch, just perhaps not as enthralling and believable as you would have hoped. Well, as believable as an assorted bunch of time-travelling bandits attempting to evade a literal Big Bad and save the world could be.
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Friends star Kudrow plays Penelope, the self-imposed/begrudgingly-accepted leader of a group of bandits who accidentally enlist Kevin (Kal-El Tuck), an 11-year-old know-it-all, on their dangerous quest.
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Despite the many roles Kudrow has taken on since leaving Friends – Romy and Michele's Highschool Reunion, Scandal, The Good Place, Feel Good etc etc – her Phoebe Buffay is still, for many, her signature role.
Those wondering how Penelope stacks up against the idiosyncratic genius behind 'Smelly Cat' will find it interesting to know there's a certain familiarity to Kudrow's portrayal of Penelope. The intonation has a certain Phoebe-esque quality to it but, pleasingly, the likeness ends there. Penelope and Phoebe couldn't be more opposite in spirit.
Kudrow strips away that perky, optimistic and sunshiny nature and instead offers us this bitter, grumpy, resentful character with distinct trust issues and a tendency to befriend more out of necessity than choice.
There is still an eccentricity to the way Kudrow approaches Penelope – this dismissive, hapless leader – but it's more grounded.
To counter her dejection, there's Kevin. Though his trope is one we've seen far too many times for it not to be a little grating (uber-intelligent 'nerd' overlooked by parents and downtrodden by peers for daring to have an inquisitive mind and a love of history) there is something sweet and earnest about Tuck's portrayal of Kevin.
His low-self esteem and abjection are paired with keenness and kindness of heart, making his otherness ripe for the hero arc they're pushing.
In the two debut episodes on Apple+ now, there are kernels of something interesting between Kevin and Penelope. But we've yet to scratch beneath the sweet yet undeniably superficial and cliché backstory they've given Kevin.
Similarly, Penelope has yet to reveal any depth that persuades viewers to gravitate towards her. As a consequence, everything between them at this moment feels trite.
Related: Friends star Lisa Kudrow admits live audience "irritated" her
For a comedy, the funny moments are subdued. Though they give the show an undercurrent of amusement that keeps the energy light and fun, there are no real funny moments that give you that true feelgood buzz. For the most part they play out quietly, when they need to be bigger and more impactful.
As a collective the ragtag group of woeful thieves work in a jangle-of-keys-with-far-too-many-keyrings sort of way. There's a torch and a Swiss Army knife that will eventually come in handy but more often than not they're just fun to keep around.
We get the impression this is the way the show wants it to be: odd pairs of socks all bundled together who work in a pinch because they have to, but, once again, we wish the personalities didn't feel so forced, played up for the camera any time they get air time but ultimately shallow.
As a premise, Time Bandits' spoonful-of-sugar approach to dropping historical knowledge also doesn't really work, at least not in the first two episodes.
The show throws hunks of historical facts at its audience before hastily moving on to the next time period. Before you know it, you're thrust into another world with a whole new set of rules and another bonkers situation, making it hard to contextualise them.
Yes, we know, this is a fictional TV show not a documentary, but so was Horrible Histories and they had it down.
All that being said, Taika Waititi's take on the 1981 cult-classic film has promise. If it delves deeper into its characters and embraces its own absurdity for bigger, more comical beats it could be a fun watch.
Time Bandits episodes 1 and 2 are available to watch now on Apple TV+ with new episodes releasing weekly on Wednesday.
TV writer, Digital Spy Janet completed her Masters degree in Magazine Journalism in 2013 and has continued to grow professionally within the industry ever since. For six years she honed her analytical reviewing skills at the Good Housekeeping institute eventually becoming Acting Head of Food testing. She also freelanced in the field of film and TV journalism from 2013-2020, when she interviewed A-List stars such as Samuel L Jackson, Colin Firth and Scarlett Johansson. In 2021 she joined Digital Spy as TV writer where she gets to delve into more of what she loves, watching copious amounts of telly all in the name of work. Since taking on the role she has conducted red carpet interviews with the cast of Bridgerton, covered the BAFTAs and been interviewed by BBC Radio and London Live. In her spare time she also moonlights as a published author, the book Gothic Angel.
