Guest post by Sebastian Breit.
Full disclosure: I'm a sucker for post apocalyptic TV series. I loved
JMS's Jeremiah when I was younger, and I very much liked CBS'
Jericho despite its flaws. Ignoring the politics of
the people behind it I found William R. Forstchen's One Second After a quite compelling read. S.M. Stirling's Dies the Fire series also ranges rather high on my 'have to
finish reading it' list. So you can probably imagine my delight when I stumbled
across NBC's new project called Revolution earlier this year. The two
men behind the project also made me prick up my ears. Erik Kripke of Supernatrural
fame and Jon Favreau, the man behind the Iron Man movies are two titans
of recent scifi and fantasy entertainment. Ever since the announcement that it
had been picked up in spring I was excited about it, even though the promo
videos offered reason
for concern. Here's what its
all about:
Revolution takes place in a post-apocalyptic future. Fifteen years
earlier, an unknown phenomenon permanently disabled all electricity on the
planet, ranging from computers and electronics to car engines, jet engines, and
batteries. People were forced to adapt to a world without technology, and due
to the collapse of public order, many areas are ruled by warlords and militias.
The series focuses on the Matheson family, who possess an item that is the key
to not only finding out what happened fifteen years ago, but also a possible
way to reverse its effects.
Is it any good? Well, they pre-aired the show's pilot a few weeks and I
was able to watch it. And what can I say? I'm a jaded bastard. You see, the
problem is if you like post-apocalyptic fiction and consume your fair share of
the genre you not only become somewhat genre-savvy but also become very
observant regarding the small things that can make or break a setting. And Revolution?
Well, in my opinion it's not off to a good start in that regard.
But lets do this point by point.
The Visuals
The visuals are both the highlight and the bane of
Revolution so
far. While it's clear that you're dealing with copious amounts of CGI the show
uses it rather effectively, from deserted airports to suburbs that have been
torn down and turned into farmland. Production values are really high for a TV
series. The world
looks great, if a generally too overgrown, and you get
the idea that with Kripke and Favreau you've got two guys orchestrating this
who have a good eye for the visual side of things. The Matheson family lives in
a small village surrounded by a high, makeshift wooden palisade with animals
and gardens inside and everybody working the land. Kripke and Favreau don't
pull any punches when it comes to showing what little is left of what used to
be Illinois even though I think they should've gone for more signs of actual
destruction within the cities and less 'the jungle conquered it all back'.
Because Chicago is way too green in places it shouldn't be. Even rural roads
won't be fully overgrown after fifteen years of barely any use, and large
cities bristling with concrete and steel are a whole other league to begin
with.
That's a problem, but it's basically nitpicking and doesn't
substantially undermine my suspension of disbelief. If overgrowth is the way
they've chosen to show the abandonment of the larger cities that's something I
can live with. What follows, however, does undermine my suspension of
disbelief.
Everything and everybody is way too clean. In fact they look as if they had
just walked out of an shampoo commercial rather than spending fifteen years
without electricity, new clothes, healthy food or running water, let alone an
abundance of haircare products and cosmetics. Clothes barely look worn. People
are extremely healthy, given the ordeals they must've gone through: they're
muscular, not set on by illnesses, some even carry quite impressive girths
around with them. Ironically it's the extras visible in the background who
probably are clothed the most reasonably.
Yes, I know the common rebuttal here would be “but surely there's an
overabundance of clothes in all those shops and malls etc.”. No, I'm sorry,
that point doesn't fly. Even if we assume that most malls etc weren't looted
and partially destroyed once society turned into the great cannibal battle
royale it probably would turn into you get clothes that have been
exposed to the elements for one and a half decades in environments without AC
or heating. 99% of what you had there would have rotted and be totally unusable
by now.
What makes this all the more problematic from a perspective of
in-universe plausibility is that especially our “starting group”, the community
our story begins in, are former suburbanites with a supposed white collar
background. Aaron, the slightly overweight neighbor, was a former
multi-millionaire working for Google. There are no known farming backgrounds,
there's no prior knowledge regarding raising cattle, cultivating crops (without
pesticides and fertilizer!) and there's no knowledge in construction that we
are shown. Nothing against accountants and Poli Sci majors, but how likely are
they to survive as farmers lacking equipment, useful soil and, most
importantly, available seeds?!
As an addendum to this, I know this is the first episode and everything,
but has there been any mention about steam engines or diesel engines? Neither
one of those engines utilize electricity to function, the technology is over a
century old and every first year university engineering student can probably
MacGuyver something together in just a few weeks/months time, so after 15 years
I would imagine that there should be hundreds of such engines in existence
across the country driving local commerce.
A propos local
commerce. Chicago with its position at the Great Lakes and opposite of Canada
should be a trade hub crawling with people and ships and should have its own
ruler and authorities. The way it was presented in it's basically a lawless pit
where everybody does what he wants. Because we know that the Monroe Militia –
the bad guys – aren't in control of it since it took them hours to get a
squad there. That's not how power dynamics work. It would have been plausible
in the first few years after the collapse, but fifteen years later? There
should be someone in charge, a General, a Duke, or something. Secondly, trade
should exist again. If you can make a profit of something by getting goods
moved around people will do that. If the potential profit is high enough
they'll equip armed trade caravans to do so. This isn't some arcane principle.
Greed is a basic part if human nature. Especially along the Great Lakes you
would probably have something like the Hansa develop after fifteen years.
The Music
The musical score really is something that's just good. It's not corny,
it's not bombastic, and it helps to underline the feeling of mystery of
exploring a world we know and yet no longer know at the same time. Those who
wrote and performed it did a good job.
The Pacing
I wish I could linger longer on some good aspects of the show but, well,
there really aren't too many of them so far. Yes, I'm unabashedly critical, but
this is a multi-million dollar production for which they had plenty of time to
sit down and figure out plot and setting liabilities. If a bunch of geeks can point
out the flaws on first sight you as a producer and director are doing something
wrong. And what
Revolution primarily
does wrong with its first
episode – and this may factor in with the other problems I had watching this -
is that it attempts to force two to three episodes worth of content into a
43-minute running time.
What, in a more confident show, would have been the first multi-episode
story arc - Charly's search for her Uncle Miles - or at least a ninety minute
opener is instead forced into a severely limited space first with the opening
prologue establishing the “blackout” that shuts down all technology, the
establishment of the basics of the post-apocalyptic setting fifteen years
later, the introduction of characters, the establishment of relationships and
dynamics among the main cast, the introduction of even more characters
and new locations as the show rapidly expands, a major action scene with swords
and muskets, hints to the broader mystery and major conflict that will likely
dominate the rest of the season, etc. There's so much jockeying for attention
from the start with this show that none of it is effective, none of it is
involving, none of it actually works. What feels like it could have been a good
climax to a first episode, the abduction of Charly's (let's call her
Not-Katniss from here on) brother and the death of her father which serve as
her “call to adventure”, instead happens after only fifteen minutes. The show
then could have taken us with the characters on their journey into the unknown
reality of a world fifteen years after a total collapse, through ruined towns,
abandoned suburbias, streets still littered with abandoned and rusted cars,
trade caravans and small fortified villages with distrustful inhabitants to
culminate with the scenes in a ruined Chicago.
Instead we got three woefully unprepared characters (even those who should
have been prepared!) and a scene of attempted rape.
The Characters
Which brings us to a central weakness of the show so far. Yes, it's a
bit unfair to call it that way after only forty-five minutes, but it needs to
be said since it concerns the centerpieces of
Revolution. With a few
exceptions the characters are mediocre at best, obnoxious at worst. Billy Burke
(Moustache Dad from the
Twilight movies) is a bad-ass. Giancarlo
Esposito of
Breaking Bad fame seems, all things considered, like a
reasonable guy.
Not-Katniss, the female main protagonist, is a cliché rebellious
teenager more suited for a contemporary teenage drama than Revolution,
too curious for her – and her asthmatic brother's good – despite having grown
up in the very post-apocalyptica that caused her mother's death through the
same lack of caution. And the first thing she does after leaving to get her
stupid brother back is chat up the first random good looking guy – Not-Jacob -
she comes across...because, caution, you know. Of course he's a militia plant
who rats them out. She is supposed to be our main character, but unlike Katniss
Everdeen she isn't a composed individual aware of the world she's living in; in
fact, I found her to be neither compelling nor sympathetic.
Not-Katniss' brother Danny is barely any better. In fact, given that his
stupidity causes the death of their father I don't see how this is a character
I could relate to.
Maybe worse, the man I could muster up the most sympathy for was
Giancarlo Esposito's character who just wants to get the job done and get back
to his wife and family – and he's the bad guy!
Aaron (fat neighbor dude) is the comic relief, who of course goes on the
journey to get their brother back unarmed. As does the medicine lady who had
gotten together with the elder Matheson after his wife's death.
The point is this: these people have grown up in what should have been
hell on Earth. They should be intimately accustomed to this new world's dangers
and to its do's and don't's. That especially the teenagers the
most ingrained with this knowledge act the most recklessly is quite the turn
off. If a platoon of trained and somewhat armed - more on that later -
militiamen rides into your village the smart thing isn't to oppose them with a
single crossbow and a fat guy with a gun.
Guns, Swords & the Monroe Militia
The militia itself and the “other republics” mentioned are just as
baffling. The latter because we know nothing of them except for their supposed
existence. The militia, on the other hand, is a crowd worse equipped than the
Union Army of 1861. If this really was a
Dies the Fire scenario - and
they've just put enough space between themselves and S.M. Stirling to avoid a
law suit - I could somewhat understand this (well, after 15 years that'd
stretch things...).
What we have to ask ourselves is how a supposedly potent military force
like the Monroe Militia is primarily armed with melee weapons, flintlocks
and crossbows. This is not a small question. We're talking about a US
population reduced from above 300 million to maybe a tenth of that, and an
amount of firearms in public and private ownership probably equaling the
pre-collapse population numbers. Add to this literally billions of rounds of
ammunition and scores of protective gear in circulation with the armed forces,
militias and law enforcement and it makes it hard to believe that the single
most powerful military force in the Chicago area doesn't use Kevlar, helmets or
modern firearms whatsoever.
One thing that bothered me is also this, because it directly plays into
the complete lack of modern equipment bit: Esposito's character mentions that
owning a firearm is an offense punishable by death. Now, leaving aside the
obvious problems of trying to disarm a post-apocalyptic, entrenched society,
shouldn't this mean that the ones doing the confiscating - the Militia - ought
to be swimming in gear and guns? I don't expect them to all wear pristine M4s,
but given the amount of guns compared to the relative scarcity of people they
should at least all be equipped with modern firearms and a modicum of actual
(para)-military gear. A bit like Daniel's army in Jeremiah, for example.
This is all even more absurd considering that the guy behind the Monroe
Militia isn't some kind of doofus but a former NCO with - at least the
in-episode dialogue makes it sound like that - some special forces background.
Why would he, of all people, ditch the advantage that modern gear, guns and
armor have to offer? Hell, you could have horse-drawn modern artillery, mortars
and what not, and the only vestiges of modern arms (let alone modern kit)
we see are the two dudes posted outside of General Monroe's tent. And the fact
that at some point he's going to have a big mano-a-mano fight with Billy Burke
at some point is so phoned in its not even funny.
Secondly, swords. They wouldn't be using swords. Period. Like every
non-gunpowder army before them they would use polearms. They are easy to make
and require way less training. That's something I really don't get. There's
basically nobody who can make a good sword these days, especially in America.
Or even an adequate one. There's at least thousands of people out there who can
make a decent enough gun, and millions who can reload ammunition. Machine tools
don't *really* need electricity, in fact, much of the gun "cottage
industry" relies on venerable old machines dating back to WW2, which are
powered by belts that run up to the ceiling. They'll run on anything that can
spin the pulleys. Water wheels, steam or diesel engines, bunch of dudes turning
a capstan, etc.
That, and very few people know how to fight with a sword these days.
Even fewer than did so in the past, naturally.
Conclusion
I'm sorry if this came across as wholly negative but given what the show
aims to be I was greatly underwhelmed by what I saw. I'm sure you can find even
more points to nitpick if you analyze it more. You might also say they want
drama between attractive people. Not rugged survivors in tattered clothes,
armored fighting men and return to sheer medieval brutality. My answer to this
is: Then do a different premise. If you're going to ignore a bunch of the
implications, the show has no depth and looks like cheese despite costing much
more than a "modern" show to produce. You give people swords, give
them armor. Apart from making you fight a lot better, it's very advisable in a
world where medical care & availability will be poor.
Sorry, the more I think about it the less the story and its characters
make sense. But I'll keep watching it. Maybe it'll get better. The
series
does have potential. But from here on it's treading a thin line.
I just hope they won't waste it.
* * *
