Revolution

[Draegan]

I gave up on this 6 months ago when they put out a trailer.

[CmdrSlack]

Zune had it as a free show to watch days before it was on network TV.

I made the mistake of watching it. My only solace is that I didn't have to deal with commercials, so I didn't waste as much of my life as someone watching it when it was broadcast.

[Nevermore]

Apparently someone at NBC watched Terra Nova one night and thought to himself "I bet I can make something even more retarded than that!" and then shat out Revolution.  The amount of stuff in this show that makes no sense whatsoever is staggering.  Also, Giancarlo Esposito needs to fire his agent.  How do you go from Breaking Bad to this? 

[sickrubik]

Apparently someone at NBC watched Terra Nova one night and thought to himself "I bet I can make something even more retarded than that!" and then shat out Revolution.  The amount of stuff in this show that makes no sense whatsoever is staggering.  Also, Giancarlo Esposito needs to fire his agent.  How do you go from Breaking Bad to this? 

Thank you for the name. I was wondering where I knew the guy from (not Breaking Bad)... turns out I was recognizing him from Do The Right Thing... and probably only because I saw it about a week ago.

[Ubvman]

What turned me off most is the sketchy grasp on science and how things work.

Why do guns work but combustion engines don't? We are talking rural America here, there must be tons of pre-electronics cars around that still ought to work. And don't let me get started on Steam Power. After so many years, this should be a Steampunk setting, not the Stone Age with firearms.

Modern guns are still based purely on mechanical and chemical effects. Nothing electrical in guns unless you use the fancy scopes, laser pointers and night sights. Also, modern ammunition has a long shelf life so 15 years later, M-16s and AK-47s should still work; they are still manufacturing ersatz Lee Enfield/SMLE rifles in Afghanistan and using leftover WW2/50s ammo.

The rest I agree with you.

[Tebonas]

Modern guns are still based purely on mechanical and chemical effects.

So are Diesel Engines. Yes, maybe they'd have to remember the good old hand spring to start the motor. But they've got 15 years to figure that out.

[Nevermore]

Modern guns are still based purely on mechanical and chemical effects. Nothing electrical in guns unless you use the fancy scopes, laser pointers and night sights. Also, modern ammunition has a long shelf life so 15 years later, M-16s and AK-47s should still work; they are still manufacturing ersatz Lee Enfield/SMLE rifles in Afghanistan and using leftover WW2/50s ammo.

I guess someone should have told the dude using the muzzle loaded rifle that. 

[Ironwood]

So, is this show any good ?

 

[RhyssaFireheart]

You know, I still have this sitting on the DVR and none of this conversation is making me eager to watch, unless it's for the trainwreck factor.

Someone said physics stopped working and that's why planes fell and cars stopped working.. so does that mean only certain areas of physics stopped working or something?  Since that made me wonder about... oh anything really.  Like arrows flying straight and bullets and silly things like that. 

Am I overthinking this?

[sickrubik]

Someone said physics stopped working and that's why planes fell and cars stopped working.. so does that mean only certain areas of physics stopped working or something?  Since that made me wonder about... oh anything really.  Like arrows flying straight and bullets and silly things like that. 

EXACTLY. The premise is that thqat all electricity stopped working, but a character, whom is allegedly smart says "physics stopped working", and there is some power later in the episo... AND OH GOD WE DON'T KNOW BECAUSE IT'S SHIT.

[Ceryse]

I almost want to keep watching just to see how they try to explain all the idiotic decisions (muzzle loaded guns, absolutely no vehicles working, etc., etc). The sheer stupidity of many of their decisions intrigues me as they've gone out of their way to make stuff that should work, not work.. or completely ignore common sense replacements (steam power!).

I may give it a second episode, but I doubt it, as I figure I already know the "why" behind the stupidity; more stupidity.

[CmdrSlack]

It's stupid all the way down.

[Samwise]

My favorite part is the scene when the lights go out and they're having their daughter have ice cream for the last time EVAH because there's not going to be electricity. Would everyone here who's made ice cream in a hand crank like to raise our hands? I use Thomas Jefferson's recipe. I suspect he used a hand crank too.

I was going to say "where the hell would you get the ice?" but then I remembered that in some parts of the country that stuff just falls from the sky.

[HaemishM]

Modern guns are still based purely on mechanical and chemical effects. Nothing electrical in guns unless you use the fancy scopes, laser pointers and night sights. Also, modern ammunition has a long shelf life so 15 years later, M-16s and AK-47s should still work; they are still manufacturing ersatz Lee Enfield/SMLE rifles in Afghanistan and using leftover WW2/50s ammo.

I guess someone should have told the dude using the muzzle loaded rifle that. 

Yeah, the muzzle loader thing was just... Wookies on Endor levels of WUT?

[luckton]

Hate it as much as you want, the premiere ranked as the top drama series debut for any network in the last three years, and the biggest for NBC in the last five.  If they can keep the momentum, expect a renewal.

I didn't think it was totally bad.  The whole "fuck physics" thing was  , but then when you start trying to explain why to the type of audience that NBC has, why bother spending the money to create the series anyways when you're going to loose them the second you start talking over their heads.

[Segoris]

Hate it as much as you want, the premiere ranked as the top drama series debut for any network in the last three years, and the biggest for NBC in the last five.  If they can keep the momentum, expect a renewal.

 "Gotta give big ups to marketing"

[HaemishM]

Hate it as much as you want, the premiere ranked as the top drama series debut for any network in the last three years, and the biggest for NBC in the last five.  If they can keep the momentum, expect a renewal.

I get the feeling it's going to lose momentum. I've already shitcanned it from my Tivo.

[luckton]

Between this and Falling Skies, I don't think Hollywood has given up on the sci-fi/alt. future tense genres, but they're effectively "done" with the space opera dramas/syndications of the past (Babylon 5, the Treks, the Gates, etc.)  They're trying to evolve it into something that has broader appeal that can hook the non-hardcore while still trying to appeal to the hardcore. 

The problem, IMO, is that you can't.  It's a balancing scale, not a Venn diagram of creating a show that services both groups.  You either slant the show towards the hardcore and limit the understandable/likability of others, or you broaden things out by dumbing it down or breaking some rules to allow the non's to 'get it' but at the cost of your hardcores not getting really attached.

The newer Battlestar Galactica was the last show I can think of that did a pretty decent job of balancing the scales between the two.  Again, IMO, of course 

[Evildrider]

I'd rather watch this then another cop or medical show. 

[Samwise]

I'd rather watch this then another cop or medical show. 

That's not a ringing endorsement.  I'd rather stare out my window than watch another cop or medical show.

[RhyssaFireheart]

Husband: "I hope you didn't set this to series record, did you?"

Finally watched it this morning and that was his comment.  He was interested because of the Chicago setting but even he thought it wasn't too great and this is a guy fascinated by reality TV.

I watched it knowing all the comments in this thread and when he brought up similar issues... yeah.  I may record the second episode just for lulz, but I don't think this one will hold our attention beyond that.

[Evildrider]

I'd rather watch this then another cop or medical show. 

That's not a ringing endorsement.  I'd rather stare out my window than watch another cop or medical show.

Not endorsing it but at least the studios are trying to push different shows out instead of Cop show #2342342.

[angry.bob]

Am I overthinking this?

If you're conscious you're overthinking it. When the airplanes fell, they fell straight down spinning in place on their vertical axis, while still having working electricity. Then the electricity goes out at a liesurely pace one car at a time down the freeway as if a gremlin was strolling down the road touching each car like Monk. But anyway, planes lose every single bit of energy that lets them fly, but not birds, arros, bullets, etc. It's just to much to even think about without going mad, especially since the whole thing is layer after layer of stupid. Like a giant retarded onion inviting you to peel away one mindless layer at a time only to left with your own tears and no explanation in sight. And a pile of stinky, dumb onion.

I was going to say "where the hell would you get the ice?" but then I remembered that in some parts of the country that stuff just falls from the sky.

It is set around Chicago after all. But seriously, the Romans were able to make ice out in the field using shallow pits of water covered with polished metal and there are no shortage of ways to do it chemically now. If I were a post civilization warlord, enslaving some good chemists would be a pretty high priority.

[Ghambit]

The show lost me simply with the cast.  An angsty katniss wanabe, a Jacob stand-in, and an asthmatic Bieber-boy are the leads in this.  really?  The only saving grace about the entire show was Giancarlo Esposito (the Captain).  I'm sure Abrams will have him killed off shortly though.   

Why Favreau WHY?

[Numtini]

I was going to say "where the hell would you get the ice?" but then I remembered that in some parts of the country that stuff just falls from the sky.

Before electric refrigeration, ice used to be a big business. Cut it from ponds in the winter, store it in ice houses, and deliver it to people to be put in "ice boxes" which were primitive refrigerators cooled by actual ice. We're talking something my father remembered, still common in the 1920s. For ice cream, the bigger problem would probably be salt, which you'd need to get from the the ocean and which has far more important uses than luxury items. However, from reading ex-pat blogs, it seems like junk food is one of the most intense things people miss when they can't get what they're used to. The number of Americans who move abroad and pine for liberty or something like that is close to nil, the number who move home because they can't get doritos is kind of frightening. I'm sure somebody at the spring festival or something would be making ice cream.

[Lakov_Sanite]

I don't think it's necessarily about americans and junk food, more like the little comforts of home.  My girlfriend from italy constantly pines over the lack of something called gingeralia.

[Merusk]

For ice cream, the bigger problem would probably be salt, which you'd need to get from the the ocean and which has far more important uses than luxury items.

The Great Lakes have miles and miles and miles of underground salt.  Wouldn't be a problem in Chicago who'd be able to trade for it from Cleveland and Detroit as Chicago doesn't have a salt lick themselves.  (Funnily enough, this would make both of them fucking WEALTHY cities in this post-apocalyptic world.  Yet another reason to befriend angry.bob when the world ends.)

Course with physical laws changing like this, who knows.. maybe Chicago is now the salt capital of the world in "Revolutionland"

[shiznitz]

I don't think it's necessarily about americans and junk food, more like the little comforts of home.  My girlfriend from italy constantly pines over the lack of something called gingeralia.

Is that a sexy name for a body part?

[RhyssaFireheart]

Fucking downtown Chicago to Pontiac in a day on foot!?!? Has plausibilty gone completely out the door? The husband walked off, he refuses to watch this he says it's so bad.

[Nevermore]

The laws of physics changed, remember!

[RhyssaFireheart]

The laws of physics changed, remember!

So they have mini-wormholes or something?

Grand Hotel & Restaurant Supply (best guess for the loc in the show) to Pontiac, IL is ~100 miles.  So not doable in a day, more like a week if you average walking 20 miles a day. 

Pontiac, IL to Lowell, IN is ~90 miles, so at least the "meet me in Lowell, IN in two weeks" is plausible. 

I think I'm fascinated by the whole trainwreck aspect now.  Stupid girl ignores somewhat common sense reasoning and sets off on her own to follow needlessly mysterious uncle off on his own agenda (more revealed next week!) and is followed by resident hunk either following uncle or girl for supposed reasons of his own.  Google-guy suddenly comes up with "Oh yeah, dead dad told me to go see X person in Y place and give mysterious item", but I never bothered to mention that to anyone until uncle and stupid girl have wandered off. 

It's like the plot is trying to be obtuse and retarded on purpose.

[Numtini]

Really? The black man took the white man's gun away and burned his flag? Really?

[Ghambit]

Really? The black man took the white man's gun away and burned his flag? Really?

The laws of physics changed, remember!

[Ironwood]

This sounds like a gift that keeps on giving !

[luckton]

Really? The black man took the white man's gun away and burned his flag? Really?

The laws of physics changed, remember!

 

Yeah, Stupid Girl made me want to throw something at my 46" last night, and then I remembered it's a 46" LED...I might want to watch other non-suck shows.  

Like I said earlier, you can slant sci-fi shows to the hardcore or to the layman.  I think we have a pretty good idea now which way they're going with this.