Wrapped Up Like a Blog

Revolution was perhaps the new show I was most excited about this fall season. It has a great pedigree: Jon Favreau (you know, the guy from Swingers) directed the pilot. It was written by Eric Kripke, creator of Supernatural, and some guy named JJ Abrams was involved. That lineup along made me interested.

So, unfairly or not, I am going to compare it to other shows by these creators. I have said before that the Alias pilot was the best pilot I had ever seen... until I saw the pilot of LOST. On the other hand, it took me a couple seasons of watching Supernatural on DVD to get into that show. Now, the pilot for Revolution was only an hour (as opposed to 2-hour debuts for the to Abrams shows that set the benchmark), so that is limiting. The program has to set up the world, introduce us to the characters and their relationships, give us the themes of the series, and tell a strong story. Did it succeed?

Before I get to my opinion, I'd like to share some thoughts from a close friend. She is a big fan of "post-apocalyptic" type shows (everything from the British Survivors to AMC's The Walking Dead (though she prefers the comic)). Her assessment? Boring. She felt that it borrowed TOO heavily from other similar shows and didn't bring enough originality to the table. She plans to give it a few more episodes, but is not sold on it yet.

Do I agree? Not entirely. I wouldn't say I was bored, per se, but there was an air of... familiarity to everything. For example, we got Kripke's favorite theme of the importance of family (whenever Charlie brought that up, I imagined her words coming out of Dean Winchester's mouth). We also got a few stock characters. The tough but vulnerable young woman (many will compare Charlie to Katniss, I imagine, since she is prominent in our minds. Fair or not, Charlie needs to be her own woman); we got the nerdy, bespectacled comic relief (is he supposed to be the sex appeal, too? Don't women see the nerdy, bespectacled comic relief and want to "hit that?"); we got the badass swordsman whose heart may melt from the influence of family.

We also got a JJ Abrams staple -- the flashback. I am not sure it worked as well here as on LOST. We jumped from the set-up to the main time period, then we got to see some other moments (the ice cream one was nice, but perhaps unnecessary). The main thrust of these seemed to be to set up the "Monroe" reveal toward the end.

Still, there are some things to like. Miles, the crazy dad from season two of 24, is kind of a badass, and he is pretty charming. Charlie, too, seems like she has the potential to be interesting, as does Aaron, the Google millionaire. They just need a chance to move beyond what we have seen so far. But it's the insurance adjuster turned militiaman that is poised to steal the show. Everyone loves a proper villain, yeah?

As for the plot, well, the immediate action seems to be centered around finding Charlie's brother. That seems fin in the short term, but I am curious to see where it goes after that. It seems that the questions about the nature and cause of the blackout will linger, so I am curious to see how the creators handle those. I am most interested in the character relationships, though, so I look forward to seeing Miles and Monroe reunite.

I'll give this bad boy a few more episodes. Check back here to see whether my opinion goes up or down.