Talkin’ ’bout a Revolution

It is called Revolution. The pilot episode of the new post-power grid collapse television series is now available at the NBC web site, and on Hulu.com. The series will begin airing on September 17, 2012. It will air on Monday evenings at 10 PM in most time zones and 9 PM Central Time.
Missing a huge opportunity to instruct preparedness, self-sufficiency, and survival skills, the show skips over the first 15 years of the blackout. And like a Kevin Costner flashback, they of course portray militias as bad guys… From the little that I’ve seen of it, I can predict that those who carry guns will be portrayed as the Bad Guys, while those with archery gear will be the Good Guys. (It is noteworthy that the leftward-leaning mass media rarely misses an opportunity to belittle or even demonize conservatives, gun owners, Christians, advocates of secure borders, and those who hold to a moral code and traditional values.) At first glance, Revolution looks like it will be a network television “Lite” drama re-mix of familiar memes from movies like The Postman, The Patriot, The Book of Eli, The Lord of the Rings and The Hunger Games, but without the edginess of a television series like Lost. One oddity is that this show mirrors the Dies the Fire sci-fi novel series by S.M. Stirling, in that an underlying premise is that the very physics of the world seem to have changed. Not only do the power grids go down, but even batteries no longer function.

The series will have plenty of the disappointments and inaccuracies that we are accustomed to with American network television, such as: sloppy gun handling, tactical ineptitude, unrealistic lighting, guns that never need to be reloaded, inexplicable coincidences, and death by various trauma but without much blood. Predictably, the distaff members of the cast seem to have discovered a secret cache of L’Oreal, Maybelline, Revlon, and Max Factor, some 15 years into a complete societal collapse. And at night-time houses are lit with dozens of candles. Another aggravating thing about the show is typical of television screenwriting: the Good Guys leave behind a trail of useful weapons after subduing or slaying Bad Guys. I can’t count the times in my life when I have urged (without any effect, of course): “Pick up the gun, you idiot!”

The show may yet surprise us and display some redeeming value. But regardless of what I (your Neanderthal Editor) think of it, the show’s chances for multi-season renewal success are good, given the high “perky teenage girl with compound crossbow” quotient.