'Revolution' on NBC - Page 5

I third the vote for LH-it cries out to be filmed, I thought that when I read it way back when. The key though is that it doesn't stop with the comet, it goes on in a pretty plausible way to describe how the remmants of mankind would plod on at the end of the world. That would be the key to this show too I think. Let what happens happen and move forward. It doesn't really matter what causes it. The Walking Dead shows you don't have to explain the premise in order to tell the story, just focus on the aftermath. As far as explaining it in scientific terms theres always the age old concept in SF-the power outage being caused by such advance technology that it would appear to be magic to our limited knowledge of the universe. And besides, with the world turned upside down would those who survived really have the time or ability to figure out why? I find the idea interesting and am more than willing to go along with the ride as long as the story is done well. My problem with Lost was that after years of creating a world of mystery they suddenly felt the need to explain everything. There's no need for that if the story is done well. My opinion , of course.

Actually, they kind of did explain it. The problem is, you have several continuity issues with that in regards to people - even in the pilot episode - being dead and yet they aren't zombies and don't appear to have any head trauma to prevent them from turning.

The Walking Dead is actually an example of why you want to set the rules right up front so you can avoid discrepancies later and establish how limited those rules will make you.

When the original Batman comics came about, the writers actually mapped out Gotham City and established various facts about the characters in order to maintain continuity across potentially years of comics. Obviously some of the reboots have undone a bit of that, but the original rules stayed in play for decades.

In other words, to avoid issues, set your rules down and plot an overal arc that continues through the seriesonly with sub-arcs that can be completed satisfactorily at the conclusion of each season. Then leave yourself in out in the event of cancellation and room to expand if the series becomes a hit.

You never want to be caught wondering what to do in season 2 or you'll end up with another "Heroes".

Too often series creators leave too much on the table hoping that cliffhanger will get a network to renew it and that simply isn't going to work. The networks have proven time and again they don't care if a plotline gets resolved or not when the axe falls.


I wouldn't have an issue with them not being concerned with the cause and coming up with a solution if the events of the show were immediately during or following the event that causes all this.

The problem is, this takes place 12 years after it. By that point, people should be well adjusted to the limitations and be working on a solution for getting back to their ways of life before it. It's all well and good to say that people would get accustomed to the life and not want to go back to that easy lifestyle of convenience, but that's simply not the way people are. We go out of our way to develope eaiser ways to do the most mundane things.

When we come from a world with automatic pet feeders, heated mirrors and diapers that tell you when they need changing, I can guarantee the Amish life would feel a bit too medieval pretty quickly. I know people that would go into a coma if Facebook was down for more than 24 hours.

From the first time man used tools to hunt, we were on a path to continue to make things easier on ourselves. Twelve years is an eternity to work on getting it all back.

Good points. Hopefully we can meet somewheres in the middle...My main notion is, if you make the characters someone we care about and have them behave in believable ways we can relate to, then we can willingly accept to suspend belief. Good storytelling covers a multitude of sin in my opinion. BUT if they keep changing the rules and contradiciting themselves then yeah, its garbage.

I agree, but that seems to be a big failing point in a lot of these shows.

Look a Terra Nova...it had great potential (and even found a logical reason for going back to the dinosaur era), yet it suffered in my book from composite characters who did more to be annoying and stupid than draw us in and make us care about them. Right from the beginning, they are worried about the shade of yellow paint they used instead of remembering not to go outside the gate where the large meat eaters live.

Even Star Trek: TOS, which tended to focus on Kirk and Spok, still had compelling characters. We knew Kirk was from Iowa, cheated on his final exam and loved the ladies. We knew Spok was half human, loved 3D chess and had a father who was a diplomat who disaproved of him being in Starfleet. We looked forward to Scotty saying "she can't take any more captain" or Bones saying "I'm a doctor, not a...". We knew that if the guy in the red shirt didn't get it, that Chekov would be incapacitated somehow.

The show was scifi, but it was about worldly issues and a crew of people who respected and trust each other. Scifi was just a means of making commentary on our society acceptable. We hate being analyzed, but when it gets slipped into scifi or fantasy, we accept it more easily. Plus, when the stories reflect our history, our mistakes and our attitudes, we can relate to it. When the society is full of people who don't react they way we would in a given situation, we don't care about them.

Of course, I still think the best Star Trek in regards to compelling characters is still Deep Space Nine. By being a space port, they were able to bring a lot of characters, many of whom would never be abord a Federation Star Ship.

So much SciFi fails at bringing those stories and characters together. Who would have thought a series about people about a space station with nothing around it could run successfully for so long? They managed to put to rest the comments about a space station "never going anywhere".

One show that does that well, despite it's silly nature, is Warehouse 13. The characters are enjoyable to watch and they all have unique personalities and skills that they bring to the table without becoming annoying. It feels like the actors have some investment and input into the character, rather than their actions being set in stone. I tried to like Alphas, but I found all the characters to seem too invested in their quirks to keep me from being repelled by them. They didn't feel natural so much as being obviously written that way.

Tow other shows with similar feels that have great characters and excellent dialog would be The X-Files and Supernatural. While the former wasn't completely scifi and the latter isn't at all, they still show what you can do if you have good writing. Sure, both have (or did) run past their maximum seasons of freshness, but that happens with every show that becomes a particular network's flagship show. Despite that, there was (is) enough to keep things rolling.

I just think that too often, writers try to throw everything into the pilot to draw us in, while forgetting there's the whole rest of the series to think about. It all goes downhill from there.
Edited by NetworkTV - 8/4/12 at 11:32am

I noticed NBC is showing the pilots for Go On and Animal Hospital a month early. Any word if they're doing the same for this?

NBC is also starting Grimm the day after the Olympics conclude, I get the sense that NBC is starting their fall season a month or so early. Couldn't hurt to try I suppose, nothing else seems to be working for them.

The only thing that works for them apparently is The Voice, Olympics, and Sunday Night Football.

It seems so doesn't it?

From what I can find, power generation plants generate AC, not DC. The field coils are DC.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_generator

I would agree that the current state of affairs at hydroelectric plants would mean that they would be useless, but at that point, the need for power being exactly 60 is no longer necessary. Mechanical means could be set up to control the flow of water. Distribution of said power would be very local. Settlements would appear near these power plants.

But, the problem, AIUI, is that in this series is that electricity no longer functions. You can't even generate electricity with one of those simple generators attached to bikes.

Faraday's law is no longer in effect.

That is why old cars will not work, because batteries no longer work and you can't create the spark to ignite the fuel.

I should have spoken better: I meant "creates" not generates. Mechanical energy starts out as direct current and is converted to AC before it becomes usable power. That's how those spinning coils work. The problem is, that conversion is solid state, meaning it requires electronics to make it happen - especially if you need it regulated.
That was what I was getting at: running the generator is normally not the problem, though modern generators often need power to start the power generatoing process (like priming a well pump). Still, it's creating power you can use, then being able to distribute it that hard the hardest parts. If they could simply use the basic generator coils and rely on DC near the plant, they could have power. After all, lights can run off DC power and motors very often use DC, not AC. That takes care of lighting, pumping water and things like refrigeration. It also allows you to manufacture stuff with power tools.

Further, in 12 years, they ought to have been able to build replacement electronics from raw materials to get everything back to normal. 12 years isn't long enough for us to forget how to build chips and computers.

Obviously, there's something else at play here or it would have happened.
The only two ways a battery could fail to generate a spark is if fire could no longer exists or chemical reactions no longer work. A car battery works off a chemical reaction to create power. No chips, no computers...nothing but a lead core and acid. It's a similar reaction to that of a baking soda volcano.

The lack of fire working is all well and good until we see them cooking over a camp fire, using candles, etc.

The chemical reaction thing is all well and good until they decide to bake bread or preserve food.

The implication is that one or both of the above principles no longer works which would affect every single daily function in their lives and make survival nearly impossible.

Further, I'm not sure how they can come up with a realistic cause for that.

Honestly, if this event were real (likely caused by a massive EMP), the real reason cars wouldn't work is because of the electronic ignition module, which would affect cars even back into the 50's or earlier. The EMP would kill it. The iginition module is what actually tells the spark plug to fire at the top of the compression stroke. Without it, there's no timing which would result in an engine that fires at the wrong time.

The thing is, that wouldn't affect a Model T or some other vehicle from that era since it would use mechnical points and a magnito - eliminating the need for even a battery. Further, any motorcycle from the 60's or earlier would offer the same ability, though you'd have batteries in many of those models unless you backed up to the era of the classic Nortons, Triumphs and even early single cylinder Harleys.

It sounds like the writers room conversation went something like this:

"OK, all technology is dead, so even cars won't work."
"What about vintage cars with no electronics? Those might."
"Yeah, but we don't have the budget to pull in vintage vehicles."
"OK, so let's come up with something that invalidates every law regarding electricity and the way electrons flow."
"What about people? Aren't we electrical? Wouldn't such a thing kill us?"
"Now you're just being picky..."
.
Edited by NetworkTV - 8/5/12 at 7:23am

Reviews of the pilot from people who saw it at Comic Con:

http://insidetv.ew.com/2012/07/12/comic-con-revolution/

Interesting comments on the series after people viewed the pilot, looks mixed:

Edited by pappy97 - 8/5/12 at 8:49am

Energy is neither created or destroyed.

Energy can be transformed from one form to another. In this case, the motion of the falling water is converted to mechanical energy that results in the spinning of the generator shaft. The generator field coils are DC powered, but the output of the generator, an alternator genrator, is DC. There is not DC to AC conversion of the generator output.

While generator plants of today are heavily controled by computers, etc. when Hoover damn first started generating power, it was all mechanical control. They could return to that state.

Yes, as stated, the premise is that Faraday's Law no longer works. Electricity is no longer available. No batteries, to nothing. Try as you might, electricity no longer flows. Build all the semiconductors that you want. With no electricity to run through them, they aren't going to work.

As stated, the premise is no electricity. From what I read here on AVS is that they came up with an explanation that is viable as to why electricity doesn't exist. We won't know that that reason is until later in the series.

I've not heard that fire isn't available. Initially it was reported that all energy was gone. But that was erroneous.

I don't remember the cars I drove in the 60's having any electronics, or sold state devices, to time the spark. It was all mechanical. I remember setting the points with my old man, who was a mechanic. If that were the case, the cars they used in War of the Worlds wouldn't have worked either after the EMF pulse.

You know I meant electricity when I said engery. The power company calls it energy.

Further, you seem to be misunderstanding that the point I'm making is that no matter where the conversion takes place, electricity starts out DC and has to be coverted to AC, whether it's at the coil or at the output of the whole generator. Since that now uses a chip at major power stations, we can all accept that this process could likely make many power plants unusable until they could be converted to fully mechanical systems or new electronic components could be built.

But, I question whether a nuclear power plant could just be kicked off like that without a major disaster occurring. Power plants need power to regulate the rods. That's what the issue was in Japan. My understanding is, you can't "just turn" off a nuclear power plant. It takes weeks or longer for the roads to cool enough to fully shut the plant down. No power, no water = meltdown.
These show creators always tout how accurate their science, medical terminology, police procedures and other things are. They seldom are accurate.

I have no doubt the explaination will be hogwash.

Further, if electricity can't flow, I would hesitate to think that flow could be interrupted without it affecting the flow of electricity through our bodies. Every function of our being relies on electrical properties. Everything from thinking to breathing to digesting food requires it. Trees need it to live. Animals, too. I just question how this could truly work and not kill us.

Now, whether they a) make it sound good and b) stick to it consistantly and not bring in exceptions purely as the plot needs them or not remains to be seen. I can accept that it somehow doesn't kill us for the sake of the show. I just want them to stick to the rules.
I'm assuming that based on what appears to be a rather large lack of guns. Guns should work and there would be plenty of people able to make bullets for them. We have way too many guns in this country for everyone to suddenly need to switch to swords, crowsbows and bows and arrows. Unlike with guns, those other methods require you to recover your ammo or you'll run out if you have to defend yourself from more than a few people. Making bullets is far quicker and easier than making crossbow bolts or arrows.

It's one thing to use arrows for stealth - it's a far different thing to be living in your old housing development without hiding and not packing heat.
What kind of car? Electronic ignitions started hitting cars around 1963. Before that, mechanical distributers where used (possibly what you're thinking of), however there was a capacitor after the ignition coil to regulate the power. Without that, you'd still be sunk since electronic killing tech would destroy the capacitor. You might be able to rig up a rectifier to burn off excess power, but it would be iffy with the amount of juice a car battery produces. Motorcycles are able to do that due to the lower load.

You would defintiely not be able to use anything 1970's and later, though. Even without computers, the diodes in the alternators would be rendered useless, plus the aforementioned problem with the iginition systems. That means, you're right about the van in War of the Worlds. The coils would be the least of the issue. By the era that van was built, it would have had computer controlled ignition and fuel injection systems - all wiped clean. It would have been more realistic if they headed out in a 57 Chevy or something like that.

What you would need is a car with a magnito system, which is fully mechical. You'd have to live with turning the crank on the font, though. Just remember to fold your thumb in or you'll lose it if it kicks back...
Edited by NetworkTV - 8/5/12 at 12:36pm

According to the article (I think it is in Hot off the Press), they went to various scientists to find out if their premise was viable. Supposedly the premise is. We'll find out.

We'll find out if they can explain their way around that one. If they even bother.

Exactly.

Ya, I need to hear why the no guns. Having not seen the pilot yet, I have no clue how they are explaining that one.

63 Chevy. Don't remember the model. Ya, I do remember the cap, now that you mention it. But, those caps can be remade. Moot point though, since there is no electricity to use with them.

Moot point, according to the show's premise

I stand by my original statement that I do not need to know why the electricity doesn't work. That the premise for the show is that we need to accept the suspension of disbelief that electricity simply does not exist anymore. Where I think the show will ultimately be doomed is by providing too real of an explanation, and that explanation will fall flat on its face. It's better off to just ignore the subject entirely, or to blame it on some kind of Unobtanium or Phlebotinum, wave your hands, and be done with it.

Like I said, I'm an Electrical Engineer. While I found all the above discussion of generators, Faraday's Law, wind turbines, and semiconductors extremely entertaining, it is ultimately not important to the show. I can look past it.

Like I said, shows have consultants they use all the time and still get things terribly wrong. Show runners often seem to not the know the difference between accuracy and "based on real procedures or theory".

Showing proper police procedure is one thing where they can be pitch perfect in how the actors portray officers. There's the potential for accuracy there.

With hypothetical science, there's no such thing as accuracy until the science is proven accurate. Warp drives could be perfectly accurate, but we won't know until we get to the point of interstellar travel. The theory may be sound, but may fail in real world tests.
The problem is, they started us off with being so inclusive as to include the very properties of electricity itself. They seem to feel it's very important that electricity itself fails to exist, not just failure of technology.

If that's the case, they need to have a suitable explanation for it. This isn't something like ghosts where we don't need to know why these people with the ability to see them aren't being bothered by every ghost under the sun (which was actually well done in the case of "Ghost") or why more people don't see them. This isn't like vampires where we don't need to know why these guys can't go out in the sun, but things like florescent lights (which generate enough UV light to grow plants with), aren't an issue and why their flesh doesn't rot and rigor doesn't set in from lack of a beating heart to circulate blood.

This is a technology they have pronounced as being possible. It needs to work without a lot of, "but wait.." statements. It's sloppy if your theory is half-baked. The beauty of Star Trek was they not only used plausible science in most cases, they actually predicted things like the floppy disc, the optical disc, solid state media, push to talk cell phones, invisible fences and even CAT scanners, AEDs and MRIs. In fact, many of those devices came about from people who watched the show and decided to try to build them.

Good SciFi provides more answers than questions.

They need to be able to have an answer for:

1) Why can't people protect themselves from this force, field, shield or ray with a lead lined bunker or a copper cage? If it can penetrate that stuff, they need to answer why after 12 years everyone isn't carrying around watermelon -sized tumors as backpacks. High intensity stuff like gamma radiation would be the only thing that could get through that and that is fatal under continuous exposure. That's why Chernobyl is only safe to visit for short periods of time and only in certain areas.

2) Why the flow of electricity can be stopped, apparently, wirelessly but it doesn't kill people or plant life. Even something like the above wouldn't stop electricity from working. It would erase data on magnetic media and chips, but only if fatal levels of exposure are maintained. The fact that vehicles can drive in and out of the harmful areas of Chernobyl shows that even the data on a vehicle computers, recordable media (there are several video tours of the area out there) and solid state electronics (like in rechargeable batteries) would be safe, at least in the short term.

3) Why you apparently can flip on another device the size of a garage door opener to block the affects of something that can go through cement or other barriers. This then allows a computer to activate and send a message to someone at another location. How is the data being sent? With wired networking, a small amount of electricity is required to transfer data through a cable. Does that little device protect the entire run, end to end? With wireless, you'd normally need a way to run some sort of transmitter even to communicate across town. I suppose it might be possible to use an old school ham setup as a wireless data transfer node (which would have excellent reach at low power), though most of those are now IP based somewhere in the chain at this point due to lack of frequency spectrum. In short, newer Ham setups require a working internet.

They made the assertion that this technology is "very possible". They need to prove it.

If they do, then I'll give them the credit they deserve - after I read the wiki page on the theory, of course....
Edited by NetworkTV - 8/5/12 at 2:40pm

I'm starting to wonder if they may have rewritten the pilot of this show.

In the first video we saw, the mother was different and then non-existant after the blackout part (I assumed dead by then) . Then they showed the father dying and telling the daughter to go find his brother. Now, all the new commercials have her voice saying she needs to find her mother and father.

Silly me. I totally forgot that I had the Revolution video that was shown at the NBC upfronts. It is 4:10 in length and might be a little different than what will finally get aired, based on the above posting.

According to the preview, it is 15 years later and at least one person knew that the lights were going to go out. But, it was not an outage that caused electronic devices to not ever work. Just that electricity is no longer available. Any existing electronic device will work, if electricity was available.

There is fire, there are guns, swords and crossbows. No idea why automatic weapons are not available. At least in the preview, fancy guns are not seen.

I can understand the Jericho reference from the one Comic-Con reviewer.

I would imagine that guns require bullets, and with no electricity it would be difficult to mold bullets for automatic weapons. Even with today's manufacturing ability, bullets for automatic weapons are still relatively expensive per bullet, in the $1-$2 range. If you're going to be unloading a magazine-worth of bullets into the guy trying to steal your crops, you might think twice and conserve your bullets.

With Esposito and Mitchell in... I'm already hooked...

Yes. there is that issue. But, in 15 years would those who are left used up all of the ammo that has already been manufactured?

Oh and another error in what happens when electricity is "turned off":

In the promo and preview, you'll see a plane fall out of the sky, at night, with all of its navigation lights still working. Oops!

They could easily make more, even if they did.

Go down to any gun shop and you can get simple devices and raw materials to make bullets, pack shotgun shells and other ammunition. It's a bit tedious to do, but even one person could turn out a good number of shotgun shells .38 bullets in a couple of hours.

Now, as time passes, you would need to be able to cast the actual bullets, shell casings and brass, but even that isn't terribly hard if you're patient and have a really hot fire. You can actually buy a casting kit for under $70, but those are usually electric. I'm sure you could adapt that to more primitive use, though.

Now, it's likely most people aren't going to making bullets for automatic weapons due to volume, but certainly shotguns and most hand guns would be doable.

But, of course, the above quote brings up a question: wouldn't everyone still be around, aside from those that were in a situation that might be fatal if the power failed (such as in an airplane)? Wouldn't that mean there'd be just as much demand for resources as ever before - or even more so?

Heck, populations tend to spike during long term storms or power failures. Imagine how much reproduction would be taking place after 15 years of the lights being off...
Someone already mentioned that a couple pages back.
Edited by NetworkTV - 8/6/12 at 3:25pm

Maybe not all the ammo, but maybe someone will have stockpiled ammo. Farmer Joe down the street probably didn't have an armory in his basement, so he's going to have a limited amount of bullets. He can't acquire more bullets without trading for them, and the people with all the bullets probably aren't in the business of trading. I'm sure we'll see some people with guns at some point in the series, but it would be silly for them to have a limitless supply.

That's hard to imagine given how much this country spends on arms every year.

As a teenager in the 60s, I used to reload 30-06 with my old man. We'd collect used cases, inspect them for damage, remove the old primer, ream them, measure the powder and them press in the bullet. All mechanical, no electricity required. Yes, it was tedious. Since 30-06 rifles, at least the ones we had, were bolt action, so one would not waste ammo.

Somehow I manged to miss the comment about the falling plane.

Right after an event like that, you can pretty much bet that there would be a run on gun shops. The guns shops would be cleaned out of guns and ammo.

So, for a while I would expect hand guns and bolt action rifles to be common. 15 years later, who knows. We'll see for sure with the first few episodes how they deal with that.

Gee, and I made a joke and everything after the post...

Exactly. Lots of gun shops and the places that manufacture ammo will get overrun.

I'm no novice when it comes to using a bolt action rifle, especially with a scope

Obviously, the purpose of the show is to examine human nature in the face of a loss of technology, for whatever reason.

Unfortunately, that means I personally have no interest in it - another post-apocalyptic, low technology, dark human drama.