I recently saw the trailers for the new NBC Sci-Fi series “Revolution” where the loss of all electrical power world-wide thrust the earth back to the dark ages.
Sort of.
My initial thoughts? Wow! A Sci-Fi series based on the phenomenal work of S.M. Stirling ala “Dies the Fire”. Can’t wait!
Then I watched the pilot episode. Not satisfied that I had been completely betrayed, I watched the second show.
Yep. Betrayed.
Whereas S.M. Stirling gave us a world where an unknown event fundamentally changed the laws of physics – Fuel didn’t burn like it did before the change, gunpowder didn’t work like it did before the change, batteries didn’t work like they did before the change, Revolution gave us what appears to have been a worldwide EMP event and all we’ve lost is electrical generation and existing electrical systems.
Wait, what?
Did Hollywood forget that the world chugged along just fine without electricity for nearly as long as this television show seemed to drag on?
The Civil War was fought without electricity.
The West was won without electricity.
Steam Locomotives, heck – even Diesel Engines don’t “need” electrical systems per se.
And even if existing electrical systems failed, why couldn’t someone make a new wet cell battery? Why didn’t someone rewire the local Hydro-electric plants?
Obviously the potential to transmit and utilize electricity still exists in this world, at the end of the first show, and periodically throughout the second, the woman Grace shows us that her little secret pendant is capable of producing sufficient electrical current to run a BBS type computer communication system.
If electricity can still be produced and transmitted, why are people running around with cross bows and muskets instead of rebuilding local power production facilities?
Rather than give us a premise where the earth was literally forced into the dark ages as S.M. Stirling did, JJ Abrams has given us a TV show with a premise stolen from S.M. Stirling, but done in a manner of the recent teen-fest “The Hunger Games” .
The show is set in its current state 15 years after the loss of electrical power, and yet everyone on the show is wearing fashionable, clean, new looking clothes. Almost everyone is clean shaven. The first thing those guys must have gone in search of was Gillette Cartridge blades.
Yes, Hollywood has once again presented us with a mindless series with no imagination, and no criteria for the suspension of belief. Much like the recent “Terra Nova” failure, they have taken a wonderful premise and drowned it in smarmy glurge.
(glurge – n - Stories, often sent by e-mail, that are supposed to be true and uplifting, but which are exaggerated, sickeningly sweet, and sentimental)
This show will certainly appeal to the G.E.D. or lower crowd. School kids will likely be enamored of the wheezy asthmatic hero who is so stupid that even though he knows he has life threatening asthma, willingly tromps through an abandoned RV, opening dusty cabinets and tearing up deteriorating foam cushions. They will likely love his sister too, who having watched her father die at the hands of a cruel local enforcer still has the human decency to want to spare the life of a bounty hunter intent upon destroying her only hope of reunion with her silly brother and carrying out the death bed request of dear old dad.
All I can say is, if you have a pre or early teen age girl in your house, you better bet that a really cool cross bow will be on Santas list this year.
Sort of.
My initial thoughts? Wow! A Sci-Fi series based on the phenomenal work of S.M. Stirling ala “Dies the Fire”. Can’t wait!
Then I watched the pilot episode. Not satisfied that I had been completely betrayed, I watched the second show.
Yep. Betrayed.
Whereas S.M. Stirling gave us a world where an unknown event fundamentally changed the laws of physics – Fuel didn’t burn like it did before the change, gunpowder didn’t work like it did before the change, batteries didn’t work like they did before the change, Revolution gave us what appears to have been a worldwide EMP event and all we’ve lost is electrical generation and existing electrical systems.
Wait, what?
Did Hollywood forget that the world chugged along just fine without electricity for nearly as long as this television show seemed to drag on?
The Civil War was fought without electricity.
The West was won without electricity.
Steam Locomotives, heck – even Diesel Engines don’t “need” electrical systems per se.
And even if existing electrical systems failed, why couldn’t someone make a new wet cell battery? Why didn’t someone rewire the local Hydro-electric plants?
Obviously the potential to transmit and utilize electricity still exists in this world, at the end of the first show, and periodically throughout the second, the woman Grace shows us that her little secret pendant is capable of producing sufficient electrical current to run a BBS type computer communication system.
If electricity can still be produced and transmitted, why are people running around with cross bows and muskets instead of rebuilding local power production facilities?
Rather than give us a premise where the earth was literally forced into the dark ages as S.M. Stirling did, JJ Abrams has given us a TV show with a premise stolen from S.M. Stirling, but done in a manner of the recent teen-fest “The Hunger Games” .
The show is set in its current state 15 years after the loss of electrical power, and yet everyone on the show is wearing fashionable, clean, new looking clothes. Almost everyone is clean shaven. The first thing those guys must have gone in search of was Gillette Cartridge blades.
Yes, Hollywood has once again presented us with a mindless series with no imagination, and no criteria for the suspension of belief. Much like the recent “Terra Nova” failure, they have taken a wonderful premise and drowned it in smarmy glurge.
(glurge – n - Stories, often sent by e-mail, that are supposed to be true and uplifting, but which are exaggerated, sickeningly sweet, and sentimental)
This show will certainly appeal to the G.E.D. or lower crowd. School kids will likely be enamored of the wheezy asthmatic hero who is so stupid that even though he knows he has life threatening asthma, willingly tromps through an abandoned RV, opening dusty cabinets and tearing up deteriorating foam cushions. They will likely love his sister too, who having watched her father die at the hands of a cruel local enforcer still has the human decency to want to spare the life of a bounty hunter intent upon destroying her only hope of reunion with her silly brother and carrying out the death bed request of dear old dad.
All I can say is, if you have a pre or early teen age girl in your house, you better bet that a really cool cross bow will be on Santas list this year.
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