Created by Supernatural’s Eric Kripke, produced by J.J. Abrams, and even having Iron Man’s Jon Favreau direct the pilot, NBC’s new series Revolution has an extremely strong pedigree. Like most shows Abrams is involved in, it has a high concept, being set in a future where all electricity (and seemingly other forms of fuel, since we haven’t yet seen any steam or otherwise powered vehicles) suddenly and mysteriously disappears. Humanity is forced to adapt and evolve to continue to survive in this new world. The pilot introduces us to a family consisting of a father, son, daughter, and step mom. The audience is quickly let in, via flashback, on the fact that the father is the only one who may know what happened to the electricity, but that doesn’t remain a secret for much of the runtime, as he is killed and his son kidnapped by the government militia by the end of the second act. What will probably become the shows structure is then revealed as the daughter, step mom, and dad’s friend (an ex-Google employee friend who probably knows about the cause of the blackout as well) set out to rescue the son.
The pilot was well written and directed, and I think the concept has a lot of potential. The daughter is set up to be the lead character, however, which could be a problem. She’s a mostly unlikeable, whiny character, who is already being set up with a potential romantic interest. That really could be the show’s downfall. It hasn’t yet introduced any particularly likeable or even interesting characters, and yet it seems to want to hang a good portion of its plot on family and relationship issues.
Stay, Skip, or Give it 4: I’m going to have to go with Give it 4 for Revolution. It has a lot of potential, so hopefully the writers will find the correct balance over the next four or so episodes. It won’t take a lot to make this a really good series, just some likable traits to the main characters and a little bit of forward momentum.
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