Revolution is NBC’s newest mythology based drama from creators J.J. Abrams (Lost) and Eric Kripke (Supernatural). Set 15 years in the future after all electricity has gone mysteriously down, the story centers around a young woman who is sent on a quest to find her Uncle after her father has been killed.
To be honest, I wasn’t that impressed with the pilot episode. This is probably due to the typical hype that is generated before a new show begins and all of the rave reviews it received so my expectations were set just a little high. I wouldn’t say that I hated the episode either; just that I thought the pilot had too many fits and starts and didn’t really have much cohesion.
And this is where the spoiler alert comes into play. If you haven’t watched the pilot episode yet, you may still view it free on the internet via imdb.com or hulu.com and then come back to finish reading my review where I will discuss certain key plot items. Just remember that I warned you!
Ok…so the story starts off with the electricity on and we are introduced to a few key players: a little girl is watching cartoons on TV, her brother is playing on an iPad, mom is talking on the cell phone and is working on the computer…A typical family life surrounding technology. Father, Ben, comes home frantic and tells mom to start filling the bathtub with water. She stops him and asks “It’s happening…isn’t it?”
Cut to a car and we meet Miles as he and a friend are driving back to base. He receives a phone call on his cell and it is his brother Ben. Ben warns him that “it is all going to turn off” and “never come back on”. As the connection is lost, we are taken back to see Ben as he finishes downloading a file from his computer. He snaps the USB back into a teardrop shaped necklace before the lights go out. Everywhere. It is as though a massive EMP has gone off around the globe and planes fall out of the sky as everything electronic is immediately turned off.
Cut to 15 years after the blackout.
We are first taken on a tour of city streets and suburbs where bridges have collapsed, water has flooded, vegetation grows over everything, deer roam city streets and we have a monologue about how on top of it all, chaos ensued governments collapsed and physics no longer applies to the world. Enter our main players in an upscale suburban cul de sac turned quaint little village/farm. Kids are bored while learning from the rants of the author of our monologue, adults are tending sheep, and corn is almost ready to pick. We see a woman tending a garden grown in the chassis of a rusted out car and the homes look perfectly painted and bright. A perfectly good morning for all.
Next up, our teenage duo: the brother and sister from the very beginning all grown up, nicely dressed, exploring the neighboring woods instead of hunting. Charlie, the little girl from the beginning and our heroine for the series, likes to explore all things from the fallen civilization and totes her younger brother along with her. This is where we also find out he is asthmatic. Solution: when younger brother is having an asthma attack, the best course of action is for the two of them to run home. Huh?
Ok so I am sounding a little cynical here. But this is also the best way to introduce us to dad’s new wife who is the town’s herbalist. As Ben chastens his daughter for being reckless we hear of bandits on the roads and roaming militia in the area. We also find out she is a typical teenager who wants to make her own mistakes and thinks her father is being over protective. While she sulks in her favorite brooding spot outside of town looking at her collection of postcards (stashed in a metal lunchbox that is in amazingly good condition considering it is hidden outdoors), said militia comes to town in search of her father.
Before revealing himself to the militia, Ben passes the tear drop shaped necklace from the beginning to his friend Aaron and tells him that no one must find it. The militia wants to take Ben into custody. Ben’s son, Danny, has another idea and pulls a crossbow. Other townspeople are also angered, guns are drawn, shooting starts and Ben is shot while trying to protect Danny. Many other villagers are beaten and/or killed and the boy is taken into custody instead of Ben. Charlie hears the gunshot from her hiding spot and races back to town just in time to see her father die and be placed on her quest to find her Uncle Miles.
Pretty cut and dry for any typical fantasy adventure story. Our heroine sets off on her adventure with two unlikely companions, Aaron and Maggie (the herbalist).
Their hike to the big city is pretty uneventful at first. Charlie meets a cute boy who is near the local watering hole and it is love at first sight for her. The trio’s night is interrupted by bandits and we get to see that Maggie is not just a shy bashful healer but pretty resourceful and quite wicked when cornered. Our heroine is rescued from the big bad bandits by the cute archer boy and now we have a party of four to the big city.
Cut to Danny and the militia and we learn of General Monroe and how displeased he will be that it is Danny and not Ben being brought back to headquarters. Danny escapes that night and runs away in the darkness.
Back to our main party as they enter the City of Chicago. We find that Chicago is partially underwater; the streets are crowded with vendors and miscellaneous riff raff. They find The Grand Hotel and meet Uncle Miles tending bar. Charlie pulls the family card and Miles speaks to her in private. He refuses to help her find and rescue Danny and tells her that Danny is merely bait. He further explains that General Monroe must believe that Miles knows how to turn the power back on and wants that knowledge for global domination. Miles also exposes the pretty boy archer as militia and sends the rest of the party packing.
Back to Danny who passes out from an asthma attack on a farm and is rescued by the owner. She gives him medication (an inhaler) and when Danny tells her he is being hunted by militia she tells him he can stay for a while. The militia eventually comes to the door and takes Danny back into custody.
Back to Miles at the hotel…Nate (pretty boy archer) returns to The Grand with a group of armed militia. Miles engages in battle and we see that he is skilled with a sword and systematically takes them all out. At one point he is surrounded and receives assistance from Charlie who fires once and flees with some militia chasing after her. She falls to the ground and tries to reload her crossbow when a militia man starts hacking at her with a sword. She defends herself weakly by blocking blows with the crossbow and is rescued again by Nate who runs off after saving her. Miles finishes off the militia and agrees to go with Charlie.
At the end of the episode we are shown a few short shots: Danny is brought to headquarters and we find that General Monroe is none other than the friend of Miles we saw in the car at the very beginning. The woman at the farm who helped Danny goes to a locked attic room. She also owns a tear drop shaped necklace similar to Ben’s and presses the center. This turns on a makeshift computer and light in the room. She begins communicating with someone and tells them of the militia. They ask if “it” was found and she replies no. We are left with a parting response: “So…what now?”
The premise of this show really isn’t new. At many times while I was watching it I was reminded of Jericho (yet without the nuclear explosion): the isolation of towns due to the lack of communication, the growth of local militia, the country splitting into republics...confusion, chaos and the overall desire to maintain some semblance of community and order. Granted, Revolution is set 15 years after the fact and the power is still not back on. But it is hard to believe that somehow everyone has forgotten their history and wouldn’t know how to adapt without it.
Scratch that…I am forgetting today’s generation that couldn’t live for 5 mins without their cell phone or cable TV. I’m sure all of the teenagers would have been catatonic for years…Ok…I‘m sold on that note.
Joking aside, even if you strip all of that away and are left just looking at the characters themselves it is hard to find even one that you can either relate to or want to know more about. Charlie is our lead and we are supposed to share her dream of ‘yesterday’ with the bright city lights and all the ice cream you can eat, yet, somehow, she is the most cardboard character of them all. None of the characters have any dimension and most are just plain boring. Even Miles with his fancy sword fighting and well choreographed fight scenes is just…meh.
I am really hoping that the second episode improves dramatically or this is one viewer that will save my time for something else.
As my parting thought, I leave you with this: am I the only one who had flashbacks to Lost and the Dharma Initiative with the archaic computer and dos prompt communication from Grace at the end? Hmmm…
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