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daveonBack in the 1970s, the BBC ran a childrens series called The Changes which started with people going insane and destroying technology. A couple of kids solved the mystery, it turned out to be a rock somewhere in the West Country, or Wales or something and after a good stage school speaking to, everything went back to normal. At least that's how I remember it. There were some striking bits including an early hit on racism with a family of Sikhs.
Last night the first episode of JJ Abrams and Eric Kripke's new potboiler aired. Abrams, of course, brought us Lost, Alias and Alcatraz; Kripke did Supernatural. I'm sure the network thought; these guys? What could possibly go wrong? Well, there was Alcatraz, and the last season of Alias, and pretty much everything after episode 10 of Lost.
So, Revolution:
One night, harassed scientist type with kind face arrives home in a panic and starts playing with his computer. His wife asks if it's happening, he says yes. He tries to call his brother. At which point the lights flicker and then die, planes spiral out of the air, the world goes dark.
So, first thing. PLANES DON'T SPIRAL OUT OF THE SKY IF THEY LOSE POWER. There are planes that will, the Eurofighter Typhoon is one of them... actually, they don't spiral either, they just blow up.
Fast forward 15 years after the country has devolved into Republics run by militias... harassed scientist with his kind face is living the suburban dream in a McMansion Farm somewhere. Fat geeky guy is trying to teach kids by explaining that physics has gone crazy. Batteries don't work, electricity doesn't flow, jet turbines don't work.... Ignoring the ridiculous portrayal of the farming they're doing. Whata what now?
I'm going to give you a perturbation in the laws of physics that alters the conductive capacities of conductors and semi-conductors. Alaistair Reynolds touches on this in Terminal World. But turbines? Eh? They really don't do more than burn crap and compress it. If Bernoulis and Boyles are out of the window then the human body is going to have a shit more to worry about than a lack of electricity.
Anyway back to the plot... nasty people arrive to take Kind Faced Scientist, so KFS gives Fat Geek (so, their calorific load is pretty constrained, where does he get the extra food?) a locket containing a USB drive that we saw briefly before the lights went out. He tells them to find his brother, not seen since the teaser at the beginning and to get him to help them turn the lights back on...
Shit happens, KFS dies, his son is taken by "General Monroe's Men" it turns out guns work. SO NOW GUNS FUCKING WORK? Except everybody has swords and arrows. Ignoring that having a decent quality bow and crossbow is a tad more complicated than gutting a cat. Some of the guns are revolvers, some are muzzle loading muskets. Oh come on! I'm no expert on guns but I know enough people who make their own amo and have done military service to know that a) an AK47 is practically indestrucable, has almost no moving parts, is easy to replicate and b) will fire pretty much anything that kinda fits. They're not as accurate as they could be, but they have the benefit of being easy to hit people with. There is NO change in physics that would stop a semi-automatic weapon from working as long as the gunpowder explodes and creates gases. None.
Anyway, preamble over, KFS's daughter Katniss, er... that's not right, can't remember her name but she looks a bit like Jennifer Lawrence and can use a bow and arrow, Fat Geek (who turns out to have been a former Google millionaire) and inexplicable Aussie Doc head to Chicago where they find that about a century and a half of plant growth have occured. More sword and bow/arrow fights and they find the kick ass brother of KFS and set off on the quest.
At the end we discover two things that are meant to hook us. Firstly, evil General Monroe who was after KFS and his brother turns out to have been an old army buddy of Kick Ass Brother; secondly, kindly sympathetic woman character has another locket and, when she presses a button on the side, her DOS computer starts working and she can talk to somebody over a VS220 Green Screen Terminal...
Apparently that is meant to pull us in.
As somebody on Twitter wondered along with me. They've no medicine, they've no steam engines or diesal engines, their fences are made of wood. But there seems to be enough Shampoo, Conditioner and Razor Blades for everybody in what's left of the USA, and the Nordstrom stores of Illinois appears to have had a near infinite supply of designer clothes.
I currently don't see this making it passed the November Sweeps.
Last night the first episode of JJ Abrams and Eric Kripke's new potboiler aired. Abrams, of course, brought us Lost, Alias and Alcatraz; Kripke did Supernatural. I'm sure the network thought; these guys? What could possibly go wrong? Well, there was Alcatraz, and the last season of Alias, and pretty much everything after episode 10 of Lost.
So, Revolution:
One night, harassed scientist type with kind face arrives home in a panic and starts playing with his computer. His wife asks if it's happening, he says yes. He tries to call his brother. At which point the lights flicker and then die, planes spiral out of the air, the world goes dark.
So, first thing. PLANES DON'T SPIRAL OUT OF THE SKY IF THEY LOSE POWER. There are planes that will, the Eurofighter Typhoon is one of them... actually, they don't spiral either, they just blow up.
Fast forward 15 years after the country has devolved into Republics run by militias... harassed scientist with his kind face is living the suburban dream in a McMansion Farm somewhere. Fat geeky guy is trying to teach kids by explaining that physics has gone crazy. Batteries don't work, electricity doesn't flow, jet turbines don't work.... Ignoring the ridiculous portrayal of the farming they're doing. Whata what now?
I'm going to give you a perturbation in the laws of physics that alters the conductive capacities of conductors and semi-conductors. Alaistair Reynolds touches on this in Terminal World. But turbines? Eh? They really don't do more than burn crap and compress it. If Bernoulis and Boyles are out of the window then the human body is going to have a shit more to worry about than a lack of electricity.
Anyway back to the plot... nasty people arrive to take Kind Faced Scientist, so KFS gives Fat Geek (so, their calorific load is pretty constrained, where does he get the extra food?) a locket containing a USB drive that we saw briefly before the lights went out. He tells them to find his brother, not seen since the teaser at the beginning and to get him to help them turn the lights back on...
Shit happens, KFS dies, his son is taken by "General Monroe's Men" it turns out guns work. SO NOW GUNS FUCKING WORK? Except everybody has swords and arrows. Ignoring that having a decent quality bow and crossbow is a tad more complicated than gutting a cat. Some of the guns are revolvers, some are muzzle loading muskets. Oh come on! I'm no expert on guns but I know enough people who make their own amo and have done military service to know that a) an AK47 is practically indestrucable, has almost no moving parts, is easy to replicate and b) will fire pretty much anything that kinda fits. They're not as accurate as they could be, but they have the benefit of being easy to hit people with. There is NO change in physics that would stop a semi-automatic weapon from working as long as the gunpowder explodes and creates gases. None.
Anyway, preamble over, KFS's daughter Katniss, er... that's not right, can't remember her name but she looks a bit like Jennifer Lawrence and can use a bow and arrow, Fat Geek (who turns out to have been a former Google millionaire) and inexplicable Aussie Doc head to Chicago where they find that about a century and a half of plant growth have occured. More sword and bow/arrow fights and they find the kick ass brother of KFS and set off on the quest.
At the end we discover two things that are meant to hook us. Firstly, evil General Monroe who was after KFS and his brother turns out to have been an old army buddy of Kick Ass Brother; secondly, kindly sympathetic woman character has another locket and, when she presses a button on the side, her DOS computer starts working and she can talk to somebody over a VS220 Green Screen Terminal...
Apparently that is meant to pull us in.
As somebody on Twitter wondered along with me. They've no medicine, they've no steam engines or diesal engines, their fences are made of wood. But there seems to be enough Shampoo, Conditioner and Razor Blades for everybody in what's left of the USA, and the Nordstrom stores of Illinois appears to have had a near infinite supply of designer clothes.
I currently don't see this making it passed the November Sweeps.
