You say you want a Revolution? Do you? Well, you know...
A few Tweets as I watched the pilot:
The premise is simple: The lights went out. All electricity all over the world shut down at the same time. "No one knows why," non-explains one of the characters. (Though at least two characters do know, one of whom is dead before the pilot ends.) Fifteen years later, the world has broken up into republics ruled by militias, the survivors of the apocalypse having learned to get by without any technology that runs on electricity.
The show as set up is two things, A Quest (The Main Characters Must Find A Missing Family Member So They Can Rescue Another Family Member) and A Mysterious Mystery (Why Did The Lights Go Out?)
There are familiar names on the credits, including Executive Producers Bryan Burk and JJ Abrams (both of Lost). Any resemblance to Lost is purely non-coincidental. The name that kind of saddens me is Jon Favreau, who produced and also directed the pilot. The guy who wrote Swingers and directed Iron Man must have had little to no input on the script, because that's where this whole shebang crumbles, at the source. The premise is enticing enough, but the script is dumb, the characters are vapid, the action is trite.
The lead girl is pretty enough but she's a dim bulb. Realistically, neither she nor her friends would survive long enough to make it to Chicago to find her missing uncle. The only guy in the whole show who tries real hard and succeeds in creating any nuance to his character is Giancarlo Esposito as a Militia Sergeant who would rather be doing other things, but this is the shit hand he was dealt.
Production-wise, Revolution is impressive enough in realizing what a world without electricity would look like after 15 years, with towns and cities flooded and nature growing over everything. The airplanes crashing in the beginning after losing power were chilling, but again, the guys behind this made Lost so they know how to make airplanes crash.
Charlie, Ben, Miles, Aaron.
Obviously, names on television get re-used and recycled all the time, but interesting how all four of those Revolution character names were also character names on Lost.
Also, Tracy Spiridakos, who plays Charlie, is apparently 16 in real life but is playing 20-21 (if Charlie was about 5 or 6 when the blackout happened 15 years ago).
I don't know, though, man. This wants to be the next Lost, but to me, it plays like the next Terra Nova.
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