Revolution [NBC - US] [* Spoilers *]

don ramo

it got picked up for a full season, so its doing good, averaging 9.8 million viewers over the 3 episodes

http://insidetv.ew.com/2012/10/02/revolution-the-new-normal-go-on-nbc/

i liked the flash backs, and that it was miles that was the driving force behind the mongrel republic, i do wonder though what the hell happened and how he ended up working in bar,

also whats up with that necklace, is it voice activated or what, it powered up by itself and then just died again, and there was no body so i assume randal kidnapped yerone,

touts

The idea of digging out of the basement was just plain stupid and really had the feeling of well if they are going to be down there for 20 minutes we better give them something to do. At least they had the common sense to have it collapse 2 meters and 10 minutes in.

I wouldn't be too interested in the 15 years later thread. Good looking people running around with swords. Meh. But the 6 months later setting up the militia and establishing law and order (of a type). That has potential. They should have made that the focus of the show and if they had time to develop it correctly with more grit it could be a real winner.

squonk

Episode 2 was stronger than I'd expected. The show still hasn't won me over but I don't actively hate it either. I'll have to see Ep 3 tonight which, by all accounts, isn't good.

expectationlost

whining powers the device?

the girl has all the acting abilities of an Andrex puppy

FreudianSlippers

It's mediocre to bad, but has potential if you get over flimsy premise, bad acting and silly plot holes. Acting is pretty poor, but it could improve. I will give it the season but I'm certainly not getting my hopes up or getting too attached.

touts

I'm starting to wonder if the short season format killing the quality of shows. The Newsroom has failed to live up its potential coming from the stable that produced the West Wing. Now Revolution is failing to live up to it's potential coming from the stable that produced Lost. The West Wing and Lost both had in the lot to mid 20s of Episodes for the first season. The Newstoom and Revolution have what 10-12? So they have to rattle through character development and building up an audience for instant hits.

Sure some shows like Game of Thrones have done well on the short format but I think it was exceptionally strong and could survive the format. Any weak or struggling show like Revolution just doesn't have the time to develop things properly so we have to speed through polt elements (Randall, The founding of the Militia, etc) in such a way that nothing really gets developed and therefore nothing really catches the audience imagination.

Richard Dower

^ don't understand your logic, considering Revolution is 22 episodes the reverse of what you say is true. A 22 episode season leads to lots of filler, sidelined story arcs and romances.

What should have happened based on your thoughts is Revolution would BENEFIT from a short 13 episode season, not longer.

Dazza

Liked the first two episodes but the third was a let down.I doubt a second series will he made tbh

squonk

I'd just like to see Elizabeth Mitchell in something that didn't half suck or have the stale smell of cancellation attached to it. I'd like to see her fronting her own show, and something that isn't a JJ Abrahams type of thing either.

PC CDROM

Before I rant... anyone else notice...the place that the daughter, Charlie, first meets "nate" is the same place that was used at the end in the last episode of the walking dead Series 2? The "ruins" with the waterfall/lake over flow behind it? Talk about cross overs

Or was that just me?



Anyways....

It is pretty much a disaster so far and I do tolerate some crap. I actually didn't really mind falling skies (Thought series two was better than one)
Gave up on that other time travel back to the Dinosaur age one. (Though I have a soft spot for Primevil )

It is not so much the story that is bothering me but the acting is just brutal. As is the screen writing.

BRUTAL!

That Charlie is just "devoid" of everything. Plus I would have shot her in the Face at this stage for being stupid and not listening. Probably would have shot her brother too. As for him and "Nate" they look like they might have been a couple of those werewolf blokes/extras from Twilight? (Not seen the film but have seen the trailers)

Here is hoping the new Fringe series will be good. And maybe that Last Resort one too.

Right so I am going to Give episode 3 a go... God help me...

don ramo

PC CDROM wrote: »

Before I rant... anyone else notice...the place that the daughter, Charlie, first meets "nate" is the same place that was used at the end in the last episode of the walking dead Series 2? The "ruins" with the waterfall/lake over flow behind it? Talk about cross overs

noticed that immediately but did you recognizes the Quarry at all,

don ramo

touts wrote: »

I'm starting to wonder if the short season format killing the quality of shows. The Newsroom has failed to live up its potential coming from the stable that produced the West Wing. Now Revolution is failing to live up to it's potential coming from the stable that produced Lost. The West Wing and Lost both had in the lot to mid 20s of Episodes for the first season. The Newstoom and Revolution have what 10-12? So they have to rattle through character development and building up an audience for instant hits.

Sure some shows like Game of Thrones have done well on the short format but I think it was exceptionally strong and could survive the format. Any weak or struggling show like Revolution just doesn't have the time to develop things properly so we have to speed through polt elements (Randall, The founding of the Militia, etc) in such a way that nothing really gets developed and therefore nothing really catches the audience imagination.

season lengths are irrelevant once you have a good enough story planned out from the get go, most shows fail cause they dont change it up enough throughout a season either, i think revolution has the possibility to do that more often than most shows,

i think the biggest problem is that networks expect to much from TV shows, and they have to hit the ground running, i do honestly think that if The Sopranos or The Wire aired on say FOX they wouldn't have made it past 4 episodes,

a show like revolution would work great under say HBO rules, they could do much darker storylines, but theyd have a problem securing funding, as most cable channels rely so much on subscriptions to finance their shows, and i doubt revolution would be cheap to make

PC CDROM

OK so I didn't mind Episode 3.

The question I am asking and I hope the series ends with is... why?

There was obviously a reason why someone or some people decided to turn of "power"

So....why?

expectationlost

it seems to me that they have these big name, creators/writers/producers but they can't possibly be writing this crap so create a scenario and then they hire some lame hurried writers to bang out eps, i mean not even middling writers just the most green writers who can't cope writing a story and week and just fall back on cliches, see falling skies too.

FreudianSlippers

Falling Skies is much better than Revolution, but Revolution is better than Terra Nova. The problem with Revolution is the acting, pacing and storytelling so far IMO. Charlie and her uncle are cringeworthy.

Compare that to even the worst character in Falling Skies.

Another issue is that the show feels like it is rushing a story, why people may feel like it is suffering from a short season. There is a sense that the writers are trying to hammer out three seasons in one.

touts

Richard Dower wrote: »

^ don't understand your logic, considering Revolution is 22 episodes the reverse of what you say is true. A 22 episode season leads to lots of filler, sidelined story arcs and romances.

What should have happened based on your thoughts is Revolution would BENEFIT from a short 13 episode season, not longer.

I read that Revolution was only going to be 13 episodes. If it is 22 episodes at the pace they are skipping over things god only knows what will be going on in the season finale. But if they have 22 then maybe they have the time to work on things.

Basq

I'm ditching this, so I'm taking the same approach as Terra Nova. If I hear it shows improvement by mid-season, I'll catch up.

Richard Dower

Basq wrote: »

I'm ditching this, so I'm taking the same approach as Terra Nova. If I hear it shows improvement by mid-season, I'll catch up.

And if it follows the Terra Nova trajectory....1 season and cancelled. I think NBC might pull a Smash on this show, renew for season 2 to save face.

Richard Dower

expectationlost wrote: »

it seems to me that they have these big name, creators/writers/producers but they can't possibly be writing this crap so create a scenario and then they hire some lame hurried writers to bang out eps, i mean not even middling writers just the most green writers who can't cope writing a story and week and just fall back on cliches, see falling skies too.

The best eps. are usually written by creators/producers/showrunners....like the two guys on Game Of Thrones or Craig Silverstein on Nikita.

Richard Dower

Would this show have the balls to kill of Charlie???.....she AIN'T going down well with viewers, i've read several forums and the actress is singled out as the worst part of the show.

Unless she's porkin' someone at NBC.....

don ramo

Richard Dower wrote: »

Would this show have the balls to kill of Charlie???.....she AIN'T going down well with viewers, i've read several forums and the actress is singled out as the worst part of the show.

Unless she's porkin' someone at NBC.....

shes to big a plot device, shes the one whos never been 5 miles outside her town, so its all new to her, and us, whereas the others have explored the world a bit more and watched it all fall apart, so charlie is our guide, granted yeah they havent really made her endearing, she has an annoying moral code like 95% of other protagonists, but its not enough to put me off, its been picked up to full series so it should be 22-24 episodes plenty of time to iron out a few flaws,

Richard Dower

lol...the preview reviews for tonights ep. are, um.......lol

FreudianSlippers

Richard Dower wrote: »

lol...the preview reviews for tonights ep. are, um.......lol

You have peaked my interest now! Lol. Do they kill that annoying cow?

VinLieger

And im done with this show, the clothes i got over, the bad science i gave a chance but the heaping of implausibility upon implausibility is just getting stupid, the coasts of most modern countries are littered with thousands of yachts of all shapes and sizes and the vast majority of them dont require electronics to sail, would it be difficult to sail across the Atlantic without electronic charts? yes but a map a compass and some basic navigational skills would make it entirely possible

Sudden Valley

I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned this before, but this series really reminds me of the Kevin Costner film the Postman- in that the bad guys are followers of one man (Monroe v Bethleham) and the rebels are those seeking the return of the United States and of course the return to more basic technology. It would surpirse me that even with the lack of technology that the wole structure of the state would just collapse and especially that militia forces would be built around one man (probably more believable if there were a council of leaders).

Headshot

So

that's one dead, a few more to go now hopefully

Richard Dower

VinLieger wrote: »

And im done with this show, the clothes i got over, the bad science i gave a chance but the heaping of implausibility upon implausibility is just getting stupid, the coasts of most modern countries are littered with thousands of yachts of all shapes and sizes and the vast majority of them dont require electronics to sail, would it be difficult to sail across the Atlantic without electronic charts? yes but a map a compass and some basic navigational skills would make it entirely possible

After 15 years....no one has bad teeth

PC CDROM

Ok so I will watch the new episode but for the record I have just started watching Strike Back Season 2 and the awesomeness of even the Title sound track, never mind the show, has astounded me.

So far pure quality.

/faints

VinLieger

Richard Dower wrote: »

After 15 years....no one has bad teeth

Someone should really start a website

don ramo

Sudden Valley wrote: »

especially that militia forces would be built around one man (probably more believable if there were a council of leaders).

its not built around one man, there is always a top guy in any military, and most of the country is still at war, the mongrel republic while looking large only controls a small portion of the country, there are a lot more groups and organizations controlling other parts of the country,

monroe is gathering as much military hardware as he can, so that when the power does come back on he will have the resources to take control of a large chuck of the USA, or whatever its gonna be called, as weve seen alreay he has a military helicopter, and he probably has a few tanks and missiles also at his disposal, and god knows what else, and for some reason he seems to be saving the good guns for something, them muskets are fairly bad like,

it should be interesting to see what rachel knows next week, and why exactly did miles ask her to come and then lock her up, but not his brother,

don ramo

Richard Dower wrote: »

After 15 years....no one has bad teeth

and where the hell have all the elephants gone, ridiculous like:rolleyes:

meoklmrk91

I watched the pilot the other night and was very underwhelmed. Is it worth going on?

Richard Dower

meoklmrk91 wrote: »

I watched the pilot the other night and was very underwhelmed. Is it worth going on?

Plenty of reviews/opinions here.....general consensus is: it's pants

meoklmrk91

Richard Dower wrote: »

Plenty of reviews/opinions here.....general consensus is: it's pants

Thanks, didn't want to read through the whole thread for fear of spoilers, in case it did a miraculous turn around. I'll knock it off the list so.

touts

I wasn't as disappointed with the 4th episode as a lot of people seemed to be.

Sure the "present day" story is pants. A group of naive people head off from their sheltered homes with swords and bows carrying a magical object. They meet up with a strange shady character with a backstory of being a leader, potentially a national leader. They are trying to rescue someone who has been captured by a group of marauding thugs sent out to find the magical object. Along the way one of their number dies in an emotional scene for the central young character. It will be interesting to see who plays Gandalff and how they do the battle of Helms Deep.

Meanwhile the 15 years ago story seems far more interesting but they are rattling through it far too fast. What caused the blackout? How did they survive the collapse of society? How were the militia set up? What are the wars that were mentioned as consuming all the bullets. What other groups/countries/republics are out there. Why did Myles leave it all behind? Why did Monroe turn to the dark side when he seemed to be the one holding Myles back? They could do a lot with that even some complete episodes but they seem to be determined to leave it as brief flashbacks.

FreudianSlippers

I read the reviews before watching the episode this week, so perhaps my expectations were already way low,but I didn't think it was that bad. It certainly wasn't amazing, but probably the best episode of the show thus far (which is not saying much). Other than the huge plot-holes, my only major problem is the acting of Charlie and her uncle whatshisname. It's like they're trying to out-ham eachother.

As a whole, however, this was the first week that I actually started to get interested in where they're going with the overall story.

touts

Just remembered a good scene/line that help summ up my thoughts on the show.

"I'm Myles Mathison and Yes the Stories are True"

Then show us the bloody stories!

youcancallmeal

I just hope they have written with the highly likely chance of getting cancelled after one series in mind.

Conor108

Myles would be a far more interesting main character than Charlie.

don ramo

Conor108 wrote: »

Myles would be a far more interesting main character than Charlie.

he is a main character, i dont understand why you would say hes not, charlies is probably slightly more central cause her purpose in the show is for us to get to know this world better, cause everyone with her already knows the world inside out, and like us this is all new to charlie,

the show will revolve more around miles than charlie, noting so far has intrigued me about her, shes driven to rescue her brother, she know how to hunt and has never been more than 5 miles from her village, and thats about it, there is no further background to uncover about her, whereas miles is a far more interesting character, he got around after the blackout and he was a founding father for the mongrel republic, hell weve only seen charlies mother for about 5 minutes and shes even more interesting than her,

squonk

Are people still watching this? It's the first show this year to get onto my drop list. I'm thinking it might be almost the stage to call time on this after the last episode.

What a feckin mess. It was very unengaging. Things took a turn for the worse though after they

put the bomb on the train. I could see the logic in disarming the bomb for a small while but after spending enough time discussing the idea to let the train chug off into the distance I thought they might have decided to let it blow and take on the men after that happened. Obviously that might have actually been reasonably sensible under the circumstances but, no, let's grab two horses and chase after the train. Highly surprisingly the horses catch the train and both manage to make their way on board. Somehow there aren't enough guards in that area of the train to see any of this happening. Bratley notices his sister and decides to have a go at Gus while Uncie VP heads off to beat up the engineer and grab the bomb out of the furnace. Uncie VP fecks the bomb out of the engine where it hits the ground and goes off with a fairly weak looking explosion that would have fecked the engine but probably wouldn't have done much to the metal carriage Gus and Bratley were in. Infact, had the train derailed, they'd likely have survived but had injuries (which is just ideal for capturing an army head honcho for, say, a hostage). Anyway, gosh golly, just in the nick of time, Gus Jr and some guys show up to sort out the standoff in the carriage between Bratley, Sis and Gus.

At this rate the show makes Terra Nova look good. There was something inherently more interesting about TN for all the shtick we gave it at the time. Revolution is just starting to look pretty dumb overall. I'm not so sure I can take much more.

FreudianSlippers

It was the best episode of the series to be honest, but I have to agree it was a train wreck (pun intended). It's pretty hard to see whe they're going with this or how it can possibly last more than 1 season. Surprising considering the relatively good casting from big name shows

I could see this being the first episode of a mini-reboot though. Lets hope.

ejmaztec

This week's episode seems to be another "dragging of the heels", achieving nothing

except Aaron finally growing a pair and shooting a villain dead

and getting nowhere.

I did expect a big shoot-out between an Irish-American family of ex-cops and the local drug-baron and his gang, but it just didn't happen and fizzled out before it got anywhere near starting.

I'm rapidly losing what little interest I have left in this crap.

stevenmu

ejmaztec wrote: »

This week's episode seems to be another "dragging of the heels", achieving nothing

except Aaron finally growing a pair and shooting a villain dead

and getting nowhere.

Yeah, that was the only thing of any real interest. That and his back story which showed that

he just walked out on his wife and the group they were with. That was a complete dick move and has kinda spoiled the one almost likeable character in the show.

I defended this show a little for the first few episodes, but it's just getting worse and worse, week after week.

Richard Dower

WTF???.....when the show goes off the air in Nov., it won't be back until.....March 25th!!!!???

http://www.tvguide.com/News/Community-Season4-Premiere-Date-NBC-Midseason-Schedule-1055299.aspx

Headshot

Richard Dower wrote: »

WTF???.....when the show goes off the air in Dec., it won't be back until.....March 25th!!!!???

http://www.tvguide.com/News/Community-Season4-Premiere-Date-NBC-Midseason-Schedule-1055299.aspx

Even that is to short....

Richard Dower

Headshot wrote: »

Even that is to short....

It's Flashforward and The event all over again... :rolleyes:
NBC are afraid the ratings would collapse without The voice as lead in....and it would!!

ejmaztec

Richard Dower wrote: »

WTF???.....when the show goes off the air in Nov., it won't be back until.....March 25th!!!!???

http://www.tvguide.com/News/Community-Season4-Premiere-Date-NBC-Midseason-Schedule-1055299.aspx

The last two weeks at least are the same as a break cos feckall's happened.

This means they might have one semi-interesting (cliff-hanger) episode this side of Christmas before descending into more weekly non-events from March onwards (if it ever comes back at all).

tvnutz

Jaysus, yer one who plays Charlie is just god-awful, seriously, despite the bad writing and storyline, a main lead can sometimes help people ignore that but she is horrible. Miles is somewhat ok, everyone else...bleh.

And then this week, one of perhaps the more likeable characters, leaves his wife because he can't protect her...what??? How stupid is that? Sure perhaps he is not a fighter but how is leaving her going to help anything? What an idiot, makes no sense what so ever.

FreudianSlippers

Oh. My. God. Worst show ever. This week just sealed the deal; colony of Peter Pan kids and lots of awful acting from the main girl.