"Revolution" - new JJ Abrams & Jon Favreau TV series

[Alkaloid]

Alias and Fringe both did it. It seems to be after a few seasons he just gets bored and starts working on another project leaving less competent people to take over the reins and it all goes to pot.

[Zaune]

Saw the trailer via the Arch-Rival. Looks like it started life as a not terribly good Dies the Fire/Hunger Games[/i] crossover fanfiction that got rewritten just barely enough to satisfy the IP lawyers.

[jollyreaper]

Looks like another show about drama between attractive people. You expect people to look at least like a central asian farmer living in such conditions instead of models.

Yeah. They look too clean, too perfect. One of the things I liked with Lord of the Rings is that the actors looked like they were living in the dirt. The only one of the main actors who looked clean with salon hair even after three weeks tromping through the muck was Legolas and he's got metrosexual elf magic to explain it. Dark Skies felt the same way. I only made it through half of the first episode. The problem with that show is that humanity was so uber-fucked, they couldn't even explain how the actors were still breathing.

My primary concern with an Abrams show is that it's setup to be a mystery and it's by someone who never plots anything out in advance. Assuming it doesn't get canceled in the first season, it's going to be like Lost or the new BSG -- they're going to make shit up as they go and it won't make any goddamn sense by the end of it. Complete fucking waste of time. Also worth mentioning, that other show about the people colonizing the planet through the portal that got canceled in the first season. I only read the reviews of the first few episodes and realized it was a writing clusterfuck. If it had found an audience, it still would have ended up like X-Files, not making any goddamn sense.

[jollyreaper]

The preview for this show raises all sorts of nerd rage for me. Electricity seems to stop working for 15 years. Not just some kind of EMP event but the preview said that even batteries can't generate electricity. Which means that the fundamental laws of EM have changed... great.

Yeah. You wonder why neurons still work. Do they have lightning?

if they want to do a severe tech collapse show, a godsdamned large solar flare could do it handily. It would take decades and decades to recover from that.

[Sarevok]

Solar flares would only affect the power grid and transformer equipment. Individual generators and possibly most electrical devices would be unaffected.

[amigocabal]

Solar flares would only affect the power grid and transformer equipment. Individual generators and possibly most electrical devices would be unaffected.

But even so, as jollyreaper points out

It would take decades and decades to recover from that.

[CaptainChewbacca]

I don't understand how you would have a COMPLETE breakdown of society. There should still be military installations with tons of diesel engines, fuel, munitions, and men-with-guns who will follow orders. You could still, in short order, have a network of dispatch riders or signal towers set up to maintain communications with different parts of the country.

[Sarevok]

Solar flares would only affect the power grid and transformer equipment. Individual generators and possibly most electrical devices would be unaffected.

But even so, as jollyreaper points out

It would take decades and decades to recover from that.

Well the shows premise is different. This is not a worse case scenario of what a particularly bad once in a million year solar flare could produce. But instead electricity simply does not work. Yes it's illogical but thats the story. Supposedly the real reason would be revealed but given how they said similar things about Lost I would not hold my breath. Like the Island why electricity does not work is just a plot device to make the drama happen.

[amigocabal]

I don't understand how you would have a COMPLETE breakdown of society. There should still be military installations with tons of diesel engines, fuel, munitions, and men-with-guns who will follow orders. You could still, in short order, have a network of dispatch riders or signal towers set up to maintain communications with different parts of the country.

To the show's credit, we only see a sliver of society. Iowa and Nebraska could have survived as states, for the reasons explained here.