As 12 Monkeys season 3 continues filming and the release date grows nearer, there are trailers and cast news to enjoy.
For fans anticipating 12 Monkeys season 3 on Syfy, speculation doesn’t stop during the long hiatus. Filming began in Toronto in October of 2016, and after the debut of the new trailer at New York Comic Con, news has been coming in that is sure to have everyone anticipating some surprising time periods, amazing guest roles, and new missions for the intrepid time travelers.
12 Monkeys Season 3 Latest News
Showrunner Terry Matalas recently tweeted from the set of 12 Monkeys season 3 this picture of new cast member, Hannah Waddingham (see announcement below).
"You can't have him..."#12Monkeys#Season3@hanwaddinghampic.twitter.com/wyuwwGDsfG
— Terry Matalas (@TerryMatalas) January 16, 2017
The 12 Monkeys season three cast keeps getting better and better. The most recent news from Nerdist is that Hannah Waddingham (the "shame nun" from Game of Thrones) and Faran Tahir (from Star Trek, Iron Man, and many other genre favorites) will be joining the cast in recurring roles, both as baddies. Waddingham will be playing Magdalena, "a member of an apocalyptic cult charged with protecting the Witness," and Tahir will portray a resident of Titan who is a "devout enforcer of the Army of the 12 Monkeys."
Then, of course, two months after the news that Christopher Llyod would be appearing in a guest role in season three of the time travel drama (more on that below), Entertainment Weekly broke the news that Battlestar Galactica alum James Callis will be joining the cast in a recurring role.
According to showrunner Terry Matalas, Callis will play "a highly anticipated and pivotal new character to our series’ mythology," a "rebellious and enigmatic time-traveler raised throughout history by the Army of the 12 Monkeys, one whose conflicted personal and emotional path will change everything for James Cole (Aaron Stanford) and Dr. Cassandra Railly (Amanda Schull)." Sounds pretty important.
It will be nice to see Callis back on the Syfy channel. He played standout character Gaius Baltar on BSG. Callis will be the second BSG alum to appear on the Syfy drama, following Michael Hogan's appearance last season.
The big bombshell, though, was the news that Christopher Lloyd will be joining the cast in a guest role. The Back to the Future star who played the iconic Doc Brown character will play Zalmon Shaw, whom press materials describe as "a charming but deadly cult leader who preys upon other’s tragedies and losses in order to recruit new members into the Army of the 12 Monkeys." Shaw has a familial attachment that explains his malicious intent: he is the father of the mysterious and dangerous Pallid Man, played by Tom Noonan.
12 Monkeys showrunner, Terry Matalas, himself a big fan of Back to the Future as evidenced by his multiple nods to the film trilogy, will also be making his directorial debut with the season 3 premiere. Here is the synopsis for the upcoming season:
In season three, James Cole and Cassandra Railly embark on a desperate search across time to find the man responsible for the apocalypse, a time traveler who calls himself the Witness. Killing the Witness will mean saving the world. But the journey will come at tremendous personal stakes for both Cole and Railly and will call into question new alliances, old bonds, and the virtue of the mission itself.
12 Monkeys Season 3 Release Date
12 Monkeys will return for season 3 in 2017 on Syfy. We'll keep you posted for when an official date is announced.
12 Monkeys Season 3 Trailer
The season 2 finale promised the show’s first leap into the future, and if the latest trailer coming out of New York Comic Con is any indication, the setting in which the city of Titan finds itself is not only a grim post-apocalyptic vision; it’s a complete wasteland.
12 Monkeys has gone from a movie adaptation of a classic film which explored the immutability of time during a post-apocalyptic, virus-ravaged future to a grand story in its own right that went far beyond the prevention of a plague. As season 1 laid the groundwork for causality loops and interference creating the very circumstances characters sought to avoid, the conspiracy surrounding the plague grounded the mission around a central secretive organization, the Army of the 12 Monkeys.
Take a look at the new promo, which uses a combination of familiar quotes from many of the show’s characters, including Jennifer Goines talking about the city of Titan and Cassie Railly speaking about the Witness. With Cassie trapped in 2163, fans can only imagine what it will take to mount a rescue mission to the type of future depicted here.
But the future isn’t the only new location the time travelers in 12 Monkeys will visit! Creator, executive producer, and showrunner Terry Matalas told Entertainment Weekly that the distant past is also in the mix. “In Season 3, the stakes have never been more personal for our time travelers,” Matalas says. “The adventure will take them to their own future as well as further back in time than they’ve ever been before. They’ll face their darkest hour — an all-new threat with deeply emotional consequences for heroes and villains alike.”