In Lauren Beukes’ 2013 SF thriller, The Shining Girls, a drifter named Harper Curtis discovers a strange house in Chicago. In it, he finds a list of local women from various period in history, who, for unexplained reasons, he feels compelled to kill. (They all “shine,” as he puts it.) The house also features a portal that allows him to travel to any point in time that he wishes—also unexplained. He uses this ability to visit each of his planned victims when they’re young, often giving them a small toy, and then turns up again years later to brutally kill them and leave behind a small talisman from a previous victim. His bizarre plan hits a snag when one girl, Kirby Mazrachi, whom he thought he killed in 1989, survived his attack. Now, in 1993, she’s a 20-something intern at the Chicago Sun-Times, trying to track down the serial killer with the help of Dan Velasquez, a sportswriter and former crime reporter.

The author spends a fair amount the novel telling the stories of the various women whom Harper kills; they include a dancer in the 1930s who coats herself with radium; the only Black woman at the Chicago Bridge & Iron Company in the ’40s; a transgender burlesque performer in the ’50s; an abortion provider in the ’70s; and a Korean American social worker in the ’90s, among others. These chapters are never less than engaging, but there’s little suspense about what’s going to happen to these characters; their deaths are, more or less, a foregone conclusion—and often gruesome in the extreme. In addition, Harper doesn’t even realize that Kirby is alive until nearly the end of the novel, which slackens the tension further.

Unfortunately, Beukes also does very little with the time-travel element of the plot. The murderer’s actions in the past have no ripple effects on the future; history’s already happened, and he’s always been a part of it—a not-uncommon but unimaginative way to tackle such a tale. A new Apple TV+ series adaptation, Shining Girls, attempts, with varying degrees of success, to mix things up a bit. It stars Emmy winner Elisabeth Moss as Kirby and BAFTA Award winner Jamie Bell as Harper, and its first three episodes premiere on April 29.

The show, written by Strange Angel writer-producer Silka Luisa, makes some minor changes of the sort that are common in adaptations. For example, Kirby is somewhat older than her counterpart in the novel, and Dan (played by Narcos’ Wagner Moura), still a crime journalist, has a new, angsty backstory, including a drinking problem. Kirby’s mother, played by the great Amy Brenneman, gets more to do, as does one of Harper’s victims, played with compelling urgency by Hamilton’s Phillipa Soo, although many other victims’ stories are absent.

None of these changes hurt the series in a significant way, although it does feel somewhat padded at times—eight episodes is just too many. One alteration, though, had potential to improve it considerably: Whenever Harper kills someone, it mysteriously affects Kirby’s own history in seemingly random ways, and only she’s aware that anything has changed. For example, after one murder, she finds that she’s now married—but she has no memory of her shared past with her spouse. It’s a fascinating conceit, but other than giving Moss the chance to act anxious and haunted—which she does exceedingly well, as any fan of The Invisible Man or The Handmaid’s Tale could tell you—the series does disappointingly little with it. It’s a neat idea, but it feels like a missed storytelling opportunity.

That said, the series’ stars give it their all. Moss’ character feels a bit underwritten in this adaptation, but she delivers an intense performance that makes Kirby consistently compelling. Bell gives Harper a swaggering menace that never lets viewers forget that the man is an inhuman monster; the actor has come a long way from Billy Elliott. Overall, though, these turns aren’t quite enough to make the series feel especially remarkable. Time-travel aficionados, in particular, will be frustrated by the series’ unfulfilled promise; fortunately, in the streaming age, they can always re-watch episodes of the brilliant Syfy show 12 Monkeys. And there’s always HBO’s The Time Traveler’s Wife, based on Audrey Niffenegger’s 2003 bestseller, which is headed to small screens on May 15; hopefully, it will spend its time more wisely.

David Rapp is the senior Indie editor.