Abridged Verdict
Look this isn't new. It's fairly clichéd and on occasion
narmy, but if you aren't a sci-fan who has seen this kind of thing a bazillion
times you might get a kick out of it.
Plot Summary
So the basic backstory is your basic "After The End".
Something caused most of the world's technolgy not to work and as a result society
broke down into a bunch of factionalized "republics". One of the
leaders of these republics thinks the protagonist's father knows why and tries
to kidnap him. Everything goes to hell and dad. The protagonist's brothers is kidnapped.
Her father with his dying breath charges her with finding her uncle and
rescuing her brother.
After The End
First off, let me say I love a good after the end story, or
at least the concept of a good after then end story. We like to take the basic
rules for granted and after the end is the obliteration of those rules. That said there are only a few of them I
really like. Most of them wind up being brainless action cliche ridden
nightmares. But the few that are smart can be really enticing speculative
fiction.
Jeremiah
The Tribe
The Tribe Official Promo Trailer by TribalMadonna
Children of Men
And now to make the really dark speech.
Jeremiah
The Tribe
The Tribe Official Promo Trailer by TribalMadonna
Children of Men
And now to make the really dark speech.
Mmmmahach
You like to believe that civilization is static. Fools! Governments
rise and fall like the tides on a beach. The Aztecs, the Romans, The other Romans.
All knew they were the shining light of their worlds yet they all collapsed.
Latin is a dead language. What makes you think English will be any different in
a millennium. The long night is an inevitability. Yet dispite all of that we are evolved to be social. We kling to
the fact that our primary defense against that which would do us harm is our
tendency to travel in packs. After the
fall there is always a rise. And the
story of that rise can be rather interesting. But be not fooled. We are but the mites on the ant and through the eyes of eternity no one will know our names.
The Verdict
Now that I've done my Dr. Manhattan thing, let's get to the
actual review. As I kind of alluded to the "After the End" story
allows you to do some cool stuff, and I just feel that this does nothing with
that. Now it's a fist episode and it
might get interesting later, but so far it seems like your standard survival
primetime television, and I've seen this before.
The Walking Dead
The Walking Dead
The pilot doesn't really answer or really even pose the
questions that make after the end so interesting to me. What could cause
society to collapse? How do people cope? How does the fall change the human
condition? After said change in the human condition what do people want in
whatever comes next? When resources are so strained that even the basics can't
be taken for granted what are people willing to give up on, or work towards?
Ultimately my problem is that I walked into it hoping for a
show revolving around those questions and what I got was a plot that could be
told without them, entirely wasting their interesting setting.
Almost everything that happens in the pilot you could set up
without "The blackout" and it would mostly stay the same. A son
accidentally kills his father during a botched kidnappping attempt on the
father. In hope of making a bad situation better the kidnappers nab the son.
With his dying breath, the father tells the rest of his family to contact his
brother in hopes he'll know what to do.
While it's a bit of a thriller, plot you don't need an apocalypse
to tell that story.
Also I don't like what I call the drama button. Now it's not
just this show that does it. I've seen a lot of other series do it and I find
it lazy writing in them too. I'm looking at you Breaking Bad. The writers give
a character some affliction so that whenever they want they can make it seem as
though the character is seconds away from death. By the way I love Breaking Bad
and they learned their lesson. By the second season Walt's cancer is no longer
a thing. But I get the feeling on this show every other week the asthma ridden
character is going to have an attack. It's cheap, manipulative, and the show has
far too much potential to rely on it.
Goddamn it now that I think on it even my Galactica did it.
My point is at least be subtle about it.
All that said I really do like the concept., but I've seen the concept. I've seen the concept done better, though it is a bit early to judge.
All that said I really do like the concept., but I've seen the concept. I've seen the concept done better, though it is a bit early to judge.
No comments:
Post a Comment