An unfortunate miss. It looks too sharp in that Doctor Who/British children's TV way. The cast doesn't gel and it lacks the dark undertones of the original movie. The absence of delight and absurdity in humour drags the production down. Some of the jokes land. But this is a show about burglars with a cosmic map of time and space on the run from order and chaos. The ambition on screen here isn't enough.

How are the Bandit troop? Bland. For reasons of sensitivity people with dwarfism are extras not leads. I see no reason the Bandit troop could not have consisted of people with dwarfism. It isn't that they're funnier or anything cruel, it's that on screen they are as vulnerable as the lead. The stakes are higher, everyone is in this together. Guile, intellect and bravery are the tools available to the troop to overcome challenges.

I suspect children feel comfortable with an authority figure in their fiction, more so if the subject turns grim. In the 1981 movie Sir Ralph Richardson, as the Supreme Being, was warm but had gravitas. Did the troop steal the map and run into Kevin accidentally or did the Supreme Being orchestrate the meeting? The answer is yes depending on how Supreme you think Richardson is when you see him. Taika Waititi plays the same role here but as an incompetent flake.

While in life the person ill suited to the position can get the big job this need not be the case in fiction. The forces of order and chaos in this situation are not convincing enough. We see too much of Waititi, and Jemaine Clement's Wrongness is more pantomime than evil. Someone laughed at but not feared. The big bad wolf had sharp teeth when it ate Grandma. Kids like their villains evil and the comeuppance swift at the end of a woodcutters axe. Missing that point is the final nail in this series' coffin.

This was the wrong team to handle Time Bandits.