'Revolution' on NBC - Page 2

Great, another thing that looks cool to me, but friggin' NBC has to get their cancelling hands on it.

Not really. It's just a numbers game. If enough people watch, it'll stick around. The problem is not NBC or any other network. It's the lack of appetite amongst the public for challenging fare - which usually means a complex serialized storyline that requires the viewer to pay attention and be committed enough to not skip episodes.

At one time I thought the DVR would be the salvation of such fare, since it virtually eliminates the possibility of missing episodes. Makes it easier to "keep up". I thought it might lead to a new era of high-quality programming, and to an extent, it did (at least on cable). But, as it turned out, it just led to an era of cheap reality rubbish and formulaic procedural crime dramas on the broadcast networks. That's what the American televiewer wants, apparently. And I don't see it changing as the culture continues to "dumb down" to the least common denominator. Our TV just reflects who we are.

If they get a second season I will watch. I'm done investing time in shows like this that the network yanks after a slow start.

Has a time slot been announced yet? That could give us a pretty good idea of how adult the content might be. If it turns out to be another children's show like "Terra Nova" I'll be gone before the first episode is over.

10 pm Mondays

Very similar to the Emberverse series from Sterling.

Well that's encouraging, although not good as far as the ratings game goes.

3-4 a year? Alcatraz, Person of Interest and last year one I can think of, the married spy couple and then we have to go back 4 years to Fringe? I must be missing 7 or 8 Bad Robot productions from the past 4 years and I can only think of two movies he has directed since 2008, Star Trek and Super 8. Bad Robot produced MI4 he did not direct it.

It's another reminder of how tiny some of our genre niches are. Stirling is, in the context of SF and AH, one of the handful of major hitters. He's been successful for decades, publishing several multi-book series, andconsistently selling well.

Yet not one in a thousand TV viewers will have ever heard of him, and even fewer will know the work whose premise "Revolution" directly copies. Or care if it does.

But what's disappointing is that certainly Abrams, the show's co-creators, and the people around them certainly *do* know Stirling, and certainly *are* aware of Stirling's "novels of the Change."

There are only two possibilities: the borrowing of the concept is deliberate, or it was independently arrived at but when made aware of the similarity they chose to proceed anyway.

I think "Once Upon a Time" may have opened the door to this. "Let's license Bill Willingham's 'Fables' for a TV series," said someone. "Why pay?" said someone else. "The characters are all public domain, let's just change it around a little bit and call it something else. Why get some comic book guy involved?"

What's bothersome is all the free research Stirling and his large cadre of fans, members of his listserv, and others on various alt-history boards and elsewhere who have had a lot of fun playing around in the Emberverse, have done on the topic of what happens to a world where the power stops, research now available to the writers of this series for the taking.

This would be something like making a series about a world where magic is real but hidden, and taught from generation to generation in a secret "magic school" where magicians send their kids... and basing it on Harry Potter fanfic.

And Maxwell's equations still hold or the sunlight doesn't arrive. (so radio communications would be possible as soon as you can build new electronic devices)

An EMP pulse damages devices, it doesn't change the laws of physics. If all electronic devices are damaged, there are "pull yourself up by bootstraps" steps, but in 15 years or whatever, society should be pretty much recovered. The first few months would suck terrifically, however.

I agree, I was thinking the same thing that the adoption of the DVR would be good for serial shows. It is for me, but that has not been the case for the general population. I did not get a DVR until 2005, a year after Lost started and it is unfortunate or else I would've been all over that show no doubt. But as it was, I missed out and never joined it late.


I agree to an extent that the average viewer wants easy TV. Same with movies btw. But yes, fortunately, great shows on HBO, FX, AMC, etc are there for the more astute viewers.

That said, I have had my intelligence more insulted over the last few years by this Sci-Fi genre (FlashForward, The Event, V) than any crime procedural. The non-sensical elements of Sci-Fi and the gaping holes of all 3 shows just made me cringe - repeatedly. There can be sci-fi elements but the actions of the characters should be grounded in plausibility.

These shows have a great concept but execution is just so piss poor. Some of it may be budget related where they are only focused on the micro level following a few characters around and their attempts to save the world by themselves, while there is so many great macro topics left untouched.

I'll give it a go even though I'll get involved and then it will get canceled. I think the networks recently canceled at least 5 to 6 shows that I watched, yet what are they on Season 8 of The Jersey Shore...PATHETIC!!!

Network TV = pathetic

But...but...how else could they find a way to include the Lost computer into yet another show (I know it's not the same in Fringe, but it is a similar mechanic)?

Good science fiction requires both the science and the fiction to work. Good story arcs and characters will bring an audience whether they're scifi geeks or not.
My question is why NBC tries so hard to bring scifi to network tv and has all but abandoned the SCIFI network.

I'm in for the first season, just like I was for the event. And Flashforward. And Terra Nova... wait I dropped that after the third episode.... Oh well I'm a sucker for Sci-Fi that isn't on SyFy so in a year's time I'll feel the heartbreak

yes, Mega Shark v Giant Octopus .. great TV ..

After browsing this thread, I started wondering if there is much of anything anyone on here likes .. at all .. to read the thread, for the most part, would discourage watching most Sci Fi and related

And NBC does not have a lock on shows cancelled before conclusion ..

Although I'm sure it's considered blasphemy, I actually liked Terra Nova, V, Falling Skies, The Event etc , .. but what do I know, I'm 65 and have read and watched Sci Fi since the late 1950's ..

I'm with you, enjoyed them all, glad to have had them. Well, maybe not 'V'. 'Flash Forward' was my favorite of the recent sci-fi sacrificial lambs. Looking forward to the return of 'Falling Skies', sort of the Little S.F. Show That Could.

I'd watch anything Morena is in .. and like it ..

Well, I thought all of those shows were pretty awful. I'm 29 if that makes a difference.

As for scifi on tv that I do/did like (in order I suppose)...BSG (remake of course), Fringe, Firefly, Journeyman, The X-Files, Lost and Sarah Connor Chronicles. And maybe Caprica. If we include animated shows, then you can add Futurama and Cowboy Bebop to that list as well. I know there's a lot of scifi not on that list that would be on most others, but I'm pretty particular I guess.

Cowboy Bebop was inspired! Great soundtrack too. Good list; loved 'em all.

If i were only going to include shows that I loved though, I'd have to take SCC and Caprica off that list. lol Maybe Lost as well, though The Constant is one of my favorite episodes of any show ever, so I dunno...

Hey, I could be wrong and Revolution could be fantastic. I thought Veronica Mars would be cutesy crap and that ended up being one of my all-time favorites, so you never know.

Jersey Shore is on cable. Completely different set of viewing and cancellation rules.

Forget JJ Abrams. The thread title gives him more prominence than deserved. This a Kripke effort more than Abrams.

If Supernatural is anything to go by, Kripke pays solid attention to details and continuity. Something sadly lacking from that show since he left. He also has a good grasp of an arc and knows how to make an episode that's both standalone and part of the larger mythos.

So forget Abrams. I'm sure he will phone in some suggestions now and then before going on to slap his producer credit on some other show.

Indeed, to me, the fact that Abrams is involved is of very minor significance, Kripke is the one who is important to this show.

Here you go, one of syfy's newest additions to their Saturday schlock-fest of films, Piranhaconda!. I can't wait.

(If anyone ever catches me watching something like this you have my permission to just go ahead and shoot me!)

Brought to you by the Let's Combine Two Dangerous Animals And Make A Movie Around It Channel.

Hope they do Rhinocroc next.

This sums up the problems I've seen on network TV - good concepts, poor execution usually done in an attempt to appeal to the broader audience. I'm sick and tired of shows with holes big enough to drive trucks through, along with some meandering plotline that doesn't grab you because it's not going anywhere that you care about. Or it has very little to do with the premise of the show just to drag things out, and devolves into soapy schlock.

Terra Nova was the perfect example of that this season, it was one of the few sci-fi attempts that I bailed on halfway through because it was obvious that it was more about interpersonal feel-gooditness than the premise.

I liked the premise so much I got past that. It was just cool to see well rendered dinosaurs on prime time TV. If it could have gotten an NCIS type of rating, I'm sure they would have been able to pump more money into those effects and make it even better from that standpoint.

And I think they would have gotten the message about some of the cutesy stuff being a little too much and dialed that back and the action/mystery quotient up. They should have made it more adult from the get-go, just right up to the edge where mommy&daddy wouldn't prevent their 12 year old from watching, but the 16 and 17 year olds would be into it enough to create a real buzz. Aiming at 12 year olds hurt them.

To do all that while still making it compelling for serious sci-fi fans and other adults is not easy, I guess. All hindsight now, anyways. How long will it be before anyone is willing to take that big a swing again? And TN even had "Spielberg" attached to it.

In any event, I'd rather have it than not.