5 ms·

Revolution is the silliest TV show ever contrived. 15 years in the power outage, they still wear clean tailored designer clothes. Resistance fights the only org

by vl 14y ago

Revolution is the silliest TV show ever contrived. 15 years in the power outage, they still wear clean tailored designer clothes. Resistance fights the only organizing and governing force, why?, just because. Electricity is out (or rather blocked), but diesel engines don't work either - surprise, many diesel engines don't depend on electricity to operate.

flexd 14y ago
Well yes, I'm not saying the show is not flawed or silly. But I found it entertaining enough simply because it made me think 'what if .. ?'
- elemeno 14y ago
  In a similar vein is S.M. Stirling's Dies the Fire series. While it requires some suspension of disbelief, especially in so much as being able to accept the premise that certain technologies suddenly cease working, it's an enjoyable 'what if' senario of a series.
  - flexd 14y ago
    I think I'm largely blind to such things when it comes to TV entertainment (and mostly movies). I never even thought of diesel engines not needing electricity, but that did not stop me from finding the show entertaining. I think I just naturally assume that since it's fiction anyway, the rules do not have to be followed. If entertainment and fiction always had to follow the rules of physics and our world, we wouldn't have anything like magic.
    - TeMPOraL 14y ago
      > If entertainment and fiction always had to follow the rules of physics and our world, we wouldn't have anything like magic. OTOH I'm surprised how much in terms of magic could be expalined given the technologies we have or can imagine right now. For instance, if we ever get our hands on working nanotech, all the elixirs and magic potions that change you in different ways could be reality (you'd just be ingesting a bunch of pre-programmed nanorobots / viruses along with a tasty juice) :).
      - flexd 14y ago
        That's true! You could explain 'magic' as simply being something your current technology could not explain. If you were able to show a person from the past a mobile phone, some video or even the time machine you would need to do so.. they would probably believe you were some kind of god or that the things you showed were magic.
        jacquesm 14y ago
        That's so clever it's a miracle nobody thought about it before. Oh, wait: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke%27s_three_laws http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke%27s_three_laws
        sea6ear 14y ago
        Also, see A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain
        flexd 14y ago
        Does that make me as clever as the guy that first said that? :-P I think I've probably read that somewhere before.
    - andreasvc 14y ago
      The science doesn't have to be technically correct but if you start waving around magic wands it's simply not sci-fi anymore, which is a shame if your interest was piqued by the 'sci.' Some amount of rules always has to be followed in narratives; e.g., 'the parrot did it' in a whodunnit is (most likely) not acceptable.
- andreasvc 14y ago
  I like the premise because exploring the ramifications is interesting and useful. Unfortunately they then turn to magical plot devices. I was very let down by that; it got steadily less entertaining after the first few episodes (just like Fringe).
  - Dylan16807 14y ago
    Yeah, I love the idea of the show, but then I read about the execution ( http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-10-dumbest-things-tv-so-far-this-season/ http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-10-dumbest-things-tv-so-far-... ) and have nothing to do but sigh.
anonymouz 14y ago
Furthermore, they seem to have spent 15 years killing each other while nobody attempted to build or rebuild any non-electric infrastructure: They mentioned not being able to produce bullets, there seems to be only one train that is restored, and so on. The industrial revolution happened before we had electricity, so you'd think they'd find a way to restore some kind of industry.
- knowaveragejoe 14y ago
  Is one of the plot points that every skilled worker was wiped out? Otherwise I have a hard time believing that in just 15 years people have forgotten the basics of electricity and thus how to rig up a simple generator(among other tools).
  - smacktoward 14y ago
    The uneven-but-mostly-OK post-apocalypse show Jeremiah (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremiah_%28TV_series%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremiah_%28TV_series%29) dealt with this problem in a better way: the Apocalypse MacGuffin was a disease that killed everyone who had been through puberty. The show was set 15 years after the "big death", so the characters were all people who had been too young to understand how these things worked when they were still working. (Some were smart enough to figure the basics out, of course, which made them highly valuable.)
  - flexd 14y ago
    The plot is that electric things to not work, at all. A perfectly working generator would just stop at the time of the incident.

by vl 14y ago

flexd 14y ago

Well yes, I'm not saying the show is not flawed or silly. But I found it entertaining enough simply because it made me think 'what if .. ?'

elemeno 14y ago
In a similar vein is S.M. Stirling's Dies the Fire series. While it requires some suspension of disbelief, especially in so much as being able to accept the premise that certain technologies suddenly cease working, it's an enjoyable 'what if' senario of a series.
- flexd 14y ago
  I think I'm largely blind to such things when it comes to TV entertainment (and mostly movies). I never even thought of diesel engines not needing electricity, but that did not stop me from finding the show entertaining. I think I just naturally assume that since it's fiction anyway, the rules do not have to be followed. If entertainment and fiction always had to follow the rules of physics and our world, we wouldn't have anything like magic.
  - TeMPOraL 14y ago
    > If entertainment and fiction always had to follow the rules of physics and our world, we wouldn't have anything like magic. OTOH I'm surprised how much in terms of magic could be expalined given the technologies we have or can imagine right now. For instance, if we ever get our hands on working nanotech, all the elixirs and magic potions that change you in different ways could be reality (you'd just be ingesting a bunch of pre-programmed nanorobots / viruses along with a tasty juice) :).
    - flexd 14y ago
      That's true! You could explain 'magic' as simply being something your current technology could not explain. If you were able to show a person from the past a mobile phone, some video or even the time machine you would need to do so.. they would probably believe you were some kind of god or that the things you showed were magic.
      - jacquesm 14y ago
        That's so clever it's a miracle nobody thought about it before. Oh, wait: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke%27s_three_laws http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke%27s_three_laws
        sea6ear 14y ago
        Also, see A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain
        flexd 14y ago
        Does that make me as clever as the guy that first said that? :-P I think I've probably read that somewhere before.
  - andreasvc 14y ago
    The science doesn't have to be technically correct but if you start waving around magic wands it's simply not sci-fi anymore, which is a shame if your interest was piqued by the 'sci.' Some amount of rules always has to be followed in narratives; e.g., 'the parrot did it' in a whodunnit is (most likely) not acceptable.
andreasvc 14y ago
I like the premise because exploring the ramifications is interesting and useful. Unfortunately they then turn to magical plot devices. I was very let down by that; it got steadily less entertaining after the first few episodes (just like Fringe).
- Dylan16807 14y ago
  Yeah, I love the idea of the show, but then I read about the execution ( http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-10-dumbest-things-tv-so-far-this-season/ http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-10-dumbest-things-tv-so-far-... ) and have nothing to do but sigh.

anonymouz 14y ago

Furthermore, they seem to have spent 15 years killing each other while nobody attempted to build or rebuild any non-electric infrastructure: They mentioned not being able to produce bullets, there seems to be only one train that is restored, and so on. The industrial revolution happened before we had electricity, so you'd think they'd find a way to restore some kind of industry.

knowaveragejoe 14y ago
Is one of the plot points that every skilled worker was wiped out? Otherwise I have a hard time believing that in just 15 years people have forgotten the basics of electricity and thus how to rig up a simple generator(among other tools).
- smacktoward 14y ago
  The uneven-but-mostly-OK post-apocalypse show Jeremiah (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremiah_%28TV_series%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremiah_%28TV_series%29) dealt with this problem in a better way: the Apocalypse MacGuffin was a disease that killed everyone who had been through puberty. The show was set 15 years after the "big death", so the characters were all people who had been too young to understand how these things worked when they were still working. (Some were smart enough to figure the basics out, of course, which made them highly valuable.)
- flexd 14y ago
  The plot is that electric things to not work, at all. A perfectly working generator would just stop at the time of the incident.