The series follows an 11-year-old history buff who finds himself recruited by a band of time-traveling thieves when they all discover his bedroom is a “time egress” that grants access to various points in history. The unlikely team sets out to hijack history while staying a step ahead of both the Supreme Being and the Ultimate Evil. The series premiered on Apple TV+ July 24, 2024. On September 16, the program was reported
having been canceled after a single season.
Previews: Trailer
Time Bandits includes examples of the following:
- Adaptational Villainy: While the original iteration was at worst, stuffy and indifferent to the suffering the Evil Genius caused, the Supreme Being never showed plans to reset the Earth by purging people due to all the problems they cause like this iteration intends to do.
- All for Nothing: It turns out Penelope's entire goal in her adventures was to get treasures to win back her love Gavin. She finds out not only is Gavin living with Susan but he never cared for treasure.
- Baffled by Own Biology: In "Georgian," Bittelig expresses confusion to Widgit about after lying down seeing pictures of sky and people doing magical things even though his eyes were closed. Widgit explains that this was a dream, that the Supreme Being didn't let them have those. Bittelig tells him that it wasn't all good, that he could see bad things too, and Widgit explains this was a nightmare.
- Bag of Holding: Played for Laughs in "Mansa Musa." Penelope says that she put the rubies she stole in the bottomless bag, asking if they are or aren't there. Bittelig informs her that the "bottomless bag" is just a bag that the bottom fell out of and that he was wondering why she was always asking him to put everything in the bottomless bag.
- Big Little Brother: Played with: Saffron is Kevin's little sister, but thanks to spending time in the Ice Age is now taller than him and it terms of time actually spent living, actually is now the big sister.
- The Bore: Kevin is annoyed pretty much everyone calls him this. When he goes into a long tangent on history trivia, it's not hard to see why.
- Butt-Monkey: John, a demon who seems to exist only to get blasted by Pure Evil for saying things he doesn't like. In "Georgian," when Pure Evil complains about the Time Bandits stealing spoons, saying that they could at least be stealing forks and knives because they're spiky, John comments that he thinks spoons could be evil. Pure Evil tells him to never contradict him, that he is fear given form. John tries to protest that he wasn't and Pure Evil incinerates him. In "Home Again," when Pure Evil is confused about Kevin's comments about his parents having been dead, John suggests that maybe Kevin did something to change the timeline. Pure Evil tells him to shut up, that it's not possible, then blasts him to bits. Then, seeming to realize that this isn't the first time that he's killed him, he comments that is indeed very possible. In "Fortress of Darkness," John is somehow back again, now sporting a horn on the left side of his head. When he manages to annoy Pure Evil again, he blasts him again, only for him to reappear, now with hair and horns on both sides of his head. Pure Evil blasts him once again and he just reappears again, now lacking the hair, but still with the horns.
- The Cassandra: A literal case of Kevin running into her in Troy as he vainly tries to warn them about the Trojan Horse. She also previews Kevin's various coming adventures with him doubtful.Kevin: None of that sounds plausible but that's the curse, isn't it?
- Dated History: In-universe, a running theme is Kevin discovering scores of stuff that was supposedly "proven" by historians and scientists as true actually wasn't from how the Mayans didn't really engage in human sacrifice to how people really did ride wooly mammoths.
- Deadly Euphemism:
- A Running Gag in "Prohibition" is Babyface repeatedly using deadly euphemisms such as "sleep with the fishes" and being told that he really ought to just be clear with his threats because nobody understands his euphemisms.
- Additionally in "Prohibition," Kevin tells a group of gangsters about a girl he liked and how another boy kissed her. He tells them that after that day, nobody saw him again. They asked if he had him disappeared, and he tells them that he moved to Preston. "Moved to Preston? That's cold."Kevin: It is quite cold, actually. (narrating) The people around here seem nervous around me.
- Did You Actually Believe...?: The Mayans take it to Kevin for buying into "historical" stories of them engaging in human sacrifice, pointing out that it makes no sense for them to honor their gods by killing people and that these tales were spread by invaders.
- Dinosaurs Are Dragons: Spoofed when a Quetzalcoatlus gets loosed in a medieval town, leaving everyone screaming at the dragon. Kevin tries to clarify that it's not a dragon, merely a large winged lizard, the terrified townsfolk respond that that's exactly what a dragon is.
- Disappointed by the Motive: After wondering for so long what Stonehenge was meant for, Kevin is jarred to be back when it was being built to learn it was always planned to be...a tourist trap. Downplayed in that Kevin still finds the place cool and decides he wants to stick around to watch it being built.
- The Empath: Judy is supposedly this. Introducing her, Penelope tells Kevin that she can get inside his mind and knows what he's thinking. She tells him that he's sad.Kevin: This is the happiest day of my life.
Judy: I'm new at this. - Eskimos Aren't Real: A key problem with the Bandits is not understanding time eras and what's real. The biggest example is they actually end up with a massive bag of money...and don't understand Kevin's insistence that these "paper portraits of old men" can be used to buy things.
- Evil vs. Evil: Pure Evil with his plans to make a universe of pure evil and The Supreme Being with his resetting everything plan with Earth 2 that even his own men are appalled by. He also admits that he was the one who created Pure Evil in the first place.
- Failed a Spot Check:
- When Madame Queenie confronts Bumpy Johnson on mistaking Penelope for her, both women all but openly call out why in the world Bumpy would think a white woman was the queen of the Harlem underworld.
- The Supreme Being twice fails to notice that Damon, an agent of Pure Evil, is lurking in the background after he orders everyone else except his two most trusted agents out and first reveals that he has a big secret project and later exactly what the nature of this project is and that he needs the Map that has been stolen by the Time Bandits to complete it.
- It turns out in all this time mourning Susan, it never occurred to the Time Bandits to just maybe check the body to see she was very much alive and just ran off.
- Faking the Dead: It turns out Susan isn't dead at all, she faked it to steal part of the map. Also her "faking" was carefully placing her shoes by a huge boulder and yelling out "aaah, I'm falling and this boulder is crushing me" before sneaking off.
- Fish Out of Water: Part of the reason the Time Bandits have problems doing anything right is that they've never actually live in true human culture before and therefore don't know how to relate to actual humans. They were spawned by the Supreme Being as workers for his floral department and that was all they did, prior to stealing the Map.
- Gilligan Cut: In the trailer, Penelope boasts that there is nothing too big for her group to steal… before being confronted by the Trojan Horse at the Siege of Troy and admitting it’s too big.
- Hidden Depths: Saffron is introduced as Kevin's slightly annoying kid sister who mocks his history obsession, is busy listening to music in her room on headphones while her parents are blasted into coal, and then dismisses it as a prank when she finds the remnants of their homes' door being blasted to smithereens by Fianna. She then manages to track several of the places visited by Kevin and the Time Bandits without a map. She then manages to survive being stranded in the Ice Age for nearly three years and adopts a group of Neanderthals as her family, teaching them how to speak English and also domesticating a woolly mammoth.
- If Only You Knew: When Kevin travels back to the past and meets his father as a child, his father introduces himself as "Mikey Haddock." Kevin starts to introduce himself as "Kevin Haddock," but then thinks better of it and calls himself himself "Kevin Haddaway" instead. To this, Mikey replies "I had a way with your Mum."
- I Have Your Wife: Pure Evil demands the Map in exchange for Kevin and Saffron's parents.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Pure Evil makes offers to all of the Time Bandits and Kevin of what they can get from him if Kevin gives him the map. He offers for Penelope a happy future together with Gavin, who has rejected her in favor of Susan, with a couple of children. He tells her he can tell she likes it because she's smiling. She tells him that he couldn't be more mistaken and that she's smiling because he's not as powerful as he thinks he is, or else he would know that this is the last thing that she wants, that she knows Gavin doesn't love her and can't imagine anything worse than watching him be forced to love her and not even know it.
- Jaw Drop: Kevin complains that you can't choose your parents, to which Mrs. Haddock replies that you cannot choose your children either. At this point, the jaw of little sister, Saffron, drops in a manner that suggests even she finds this below the belt, even though she's been just as harsh about Kevin's history obsession as his parents.
- Kid from the Future: In "Home Again," both Kevin and Saffron travel back to the 1990s when their parents were still children - Kevin meets their father, Mike, Saffron meets their mother, Lisa.
- List of Transgressions: When Saffron meets her mother Lisa as a child, she uses it as an opportunity to apologize for all of the bad things she ever did under the guise of a game of "Babies and Mummies." We don't get to hear everything because the scene keeps cutting between her and Kevin with their young father, Mikey. However, what we do get to hear includes "Sorry for using your phone to buy things off the Internet,"note "Sorry for practicing graffiti on the bathroom wall and the lounge wall" and "Sorry for calling Mrs. Fitzroy the B word and saying I learned from you. Even though I did learn it from you."
- Master of Disguise: Alto claims to be this and the team accepts it. As it turns out, his "disguises" are just silly voices which the rest of the team treat as if he's completely changing his face.
- No-Sell: In "Fortress of Darkness," the Supreme Being repeatedly blasts Pure Evil with lightning. Pure Evil just shrugs it off, pointing out that his powers won't work against him in his own Fortress of Darkness.
- Picked Last: In the premiere, "Kevin Haddock," Kevin bores those picking for the football team with facts about ancient history and the kid in a cast and on crutches, Scott, is chosen for the team, leaving him standing alone.
- Poke the Poodle: Played with. Pure Evil's type of villainy at first seems to be this - for example, he talks of creating a world in which people will have eyes on their buttocks and thus be forced to either choose between either going around without pants or not being able to see. However, it quickly becomes clear that he is more than capable of doing things like blasting minions simply because he's annoyed with them or torturing people to get what he wants.
- Posthumous Character: The Time Bandits often like to mention Susan and compare Kevin to her. She was part of their team before they met Kevin, but died on one of their adventures and according to them, was "the best of them." "Pell-Mell" reveals that she had been Faking the Dead the entire time, wanting to quit because she felt that they were a failure as bandits.
- Real Life Writes the Plot: Judy's vanishing halfway through the season is due to Lo Mutuc leaving the series amid claims of abuse on the set.
- Repurposed Pop Song: The trailer is set to “Roam” by The B-52s.
- Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: Kevin still remembers his parents being turned to coal by Fianna after he and Saffron travel back in time and interact with their parents in the past, causing them to surrender to Fianna when she arrives and thus still be alive. By extension, the Time Bandits and Saffron remember him telling them that they were turned to coal.
- Running Gag:
- A bit of a running gag in latter installments involves the episode ending with Kevin asking if the group wants to hear a fact about the time period that they just visited and everyone else shouting "No!"
- "Home Again" has one with a Goth woman at a party being repeatedly confused for the demon Fianna.Goth: Why does everybody keep doing that?!Widgit: You look like my ex!Goth: Lucky man.
- Skewed Priorities:
- When he meets Saffron in prehistoric times, Kevin is less focused on how they got into this time period and more that they're riding a mammoth, which scientists supposedly "proved" wasn't true.
- When being chased by a pterosaur, Kevin is more concerned with pointing out to the Time Bandits that it is a pterosaur and not a dinosaur than running.Bandits: Pterosaur! Run!
- Spotting the Thread: A couple of Pure Evil's minions try to con Kevin by posing as his parents and trying to make him think that his adventures with the Time Bandits were All Just a Dream. He figures out the ruse when one of them tells him not to get jealous of Saffron just because she's the oldest. Saffron is actually his younger sister and is only taller than him and older from a chronological standpoint because she spent three years in the Ice Age, which A.) they shouldn't know if they were really his parents and B.) never would have happened if it were really all just a dream.
- Tastes Like Feet: In "Mayan," the Supreme Being complains that the cherub spice tastes like urine. Of course, given that he's the Supreme Being, it's possible he may actually know what that tastes like.
- Temporal Duplication: In "Home Again," when Pure Evil discovers Kevin and Saffron in 1996, he just activates a version of Fianna in that era to come after them. Meanwhile, the Fianna he originally sent after them is still on the trail and ends up coming there as well and they end up interacting. For added amusement, there's a goth woman at a party who looks a lot like Fianna and who keeps getting confused with them.
- Translator Microbes: The Bandits all wear translation helmets that allow them to understand anything said to them in any language in any era and to speak back fluently in the same language.
- Verbal Backspace: In the trailer, Penelope identifies herself as the leader of the group when confronted by pirates… and then clarifies that it’s an equal leadership deal when the swords come out.