Not Revolutionary

To say a new TV show is going to be bad isn't exactly going out on a limb, I know. And it's not even fair. There's a lot of shows that didn't become really good until they hit their second season. And sometimes the first seasons and the pilots were just outright bad (if it wasn't for the assurance that it gets better, I doubt I would have stuck through the first one of Babylon Five); Seinfeld, probably the greatest sitcom of our time, had a terrible, terrible pilot. The butler episode of the fake Jerry was probably better. :)

So when I say I don't have high hopes about NBC's Revolution after seeing the pilot on Hulu, I realize this isn't exactly a revolutionary statement either. But honestly, I'm the kind of person who should like it, probably. I liked Lost. I liked Heroes (Season One). I like post-apoc stuff too; I actually own the DVDs to Mad Max and the Road Warrior, I've played all the Fallout RPGs. Ideally, I should like it.

And yet I don't. Post apocalyptic fiction always reflects the fears of the society (or perhaps more accurately, the writer) that created it. In a sense, Revolution is smarter than, say, Mad Max, which is about an energy crisis. The failure in Revolution is more systemic in that it turns off electricity (and advanced technology in general, it seems), assuming that human society can survive and adapt through one resource shortage, like gasoline. It also has a nice green environment, an aesthetic I prefer after the wastelands of most apocalyptic worlds.

But the little details of Revolution bug the hell out of me. I don't normally get hung up on the little stuff, but a world with half a dozen little errors in the first episode shows a lack of thoroughness in the world-building, I think. For example, the scene of power failure shows jet planes DROPPING out of the sky. Just straight dropping. If a plane experiences power failure, it doesn't just fall vertically downward like a stone; it still has wings, and velocity. Planes would crash, sure, but not immediately; why not film it correctly?

Then there's the issue of the weaponry. Don't get me wrong, I'm down with swords instead of guns, and on seeing the previews I had assumed that whatever Space Magic had turned off electricity and the internal combustion engine had also affected gunpowder. But no, people use guns. Clumsy black powder weaponry. Even though America has about as many guns as it does people. I don't think we'd need to resort to muzzle loaders that fast.

And the characters are pretty. Despite the lack of running water, characters are all clean, and have hair that has clearly seen conditioner recently. And the characters wear clothing that was obviously manufactured, yet also in very good condition. This complaint is fairly half-hearted, of course. :) And people on television are supposed to be good-looking, even in terrible situations (like Lost).

Finally, there's the issue with the environment. Everything is way too overgrown. And sometimes, nonsensically, things are underwater as well. For whatever reason, no one uses our nation's highways as a pedestrian road, even though that would make logical sense; it's as if pavement itself has disappeared. But maybe the 'nature gone wild' thing is some kind of plot point. But when you throw out stuff that doesn't make sense, you need to have audience buy-in that the stuff you do will eventually be explained, instead of these plot points just being dumb.

But this is all little stuff, stuff that's fun to critique, but something I could easily ignore if the show was good. The pacing was bad (but pacing is more a matter of opinion than anything else). And the characterization ranges from flat to non-existent. With some of the main characters, I could perhaps assign them a single character trait to describe them, after watching them run around for forty minutes. One. With others, I'm not sure I could describe their personalities at all. Granted, the show does need to waste time on setting development, but you would expect more than that.

I might watch the next episode to see if it improves; if not, it will take some serious opinions on the internet about how good the show is to change my mind. I gave Jericho more time to get better, but that was back in college, I think. (My friend told me that eventually that show became good, but it was too little, too late). But this season's new genre shows do not look especially promising.

Next post on Wednesday: My Thoughts on the post-apocalyptic genre in general, I think.