Review: 'Revolution' - 'Chained Heat': A time to kill

A review of last night's "Revolution" coming up just as soon as there's a sale on heroin...

"Revolution" debuted to very strong ratings last week. Then again, so did "The Event," "FlashForward," and several other similar high-concept sci-fi shows. This is why networks like high-concept pilots: they're easier to promote than something that either takes more than a sentence to explain, or is just a well-executed version of a familiar idea. Of course, "The Event" and "FlashForward" quickly started to drop in the ratings once viewers realized the show didn't live up to the concept, and we'll have to see if "Revolution" follows the same path. (Fienberg should have a story on last night's ratings posted around noon Eastern.)

I wasn't crazy about the "Revolution" pilot, and there wasn't a lot in "Chained Heat" to make me feel better. They managed to incorporate a lot of action — nothing as sustained as last week's sword fight, but lots of little skirmishes (one of them ending with poor C. Thomas Howell getting his neck broken) — but I still find the 15 Years Later world less interesting than the 1 Week Later world could be(*), I'm not feeling drawn in by any of the big revelations (here that Elizabeth Mitchell is alive, and that there's some kind of bad guy among the people with the magic USB drives), and I still don't like anybody but Billy Burke and Giancarlo Esposito.

(*) Though this week's flashback wasn't all that specific to the blackout. Ben and his family could have been on "The Walking Dead," or "Falling Skies" or other post-apocalyptic settings where at least batteries might work.

Charlie went from dull last week to irritating Mary Sue this week: the morally upright heroine who's there to teach the bad boy hero about right and wrong. Admittedly, she screws up by not telling him to kill Howell, and she goes along with killing the prison guard, but she plays much more like a character who grew up in the pre-blackout world than someone who really only knows this more dangerous environment. A set-up where the two teenage characters are the most ruthless ones, while the adults from time to time feel the pull of morality from 20 years ago would both feel more honest to the setting and perhaps make me not wish Charlie and Danny would just go away.

I'll check back in a few weeks, probably, but nothing here filled me with more optimism about the long-term creative viability of this show.

Alan Sepinwall has been reviewing television since the mid-'90s, first for Tony Soprano's hometown paper, The Star-Ledger, and now for HitFix. His new book, "The Revolution Was Televised," about the last 15 years of TV drama, is for sale at Amazon. He can be reached at sepinwall@hitfix.com

Comments

Option 1

Option 2

Option 3

I mostly think the show is fine--it's pulpy, swashbuckling fun and fairly digestible on that level (like shows like LOST which seemed to promise HBO-quality acting and writing but were really just pulp in disguise). What I think is sorely lacking in this show is humor. Some levity would be so nice! At least just a little flirting between Uncle Pilot and Bombgirl. Takes itself a little too seriously for what it is.

I think your frustration with Flash Forward, The Event, and that show with dinosaurs is clouding your judgement a little. I think the show has a much more solid foundation than either of those three and I think you are underselling Charlie quite a bit. She isn't that annoying and very much in the Sam Winchester mold.

Charlie is being ridiculous about following her uncle everywhere and insisting on being personally involved in the rescue because it's all her fault because she wasn't there for a brief moment on a random day. It's also pretty weird how she keeps endangering this supposedly vital mission by being overly nice to the militia boy who clearly is doing everything he can to stop that mission. I thought the pilot was a really cool thought experiment into how modern Americans would be without technology but they basically ignored that aspect of the plot and instead focused on the less unique topics of Charlie's feelings and the dystopia of the Monroe republic.

Esposito is the only character I'm actually intrigued by - and the only actor worth his salt - but unfortunately he's bogged down by the awful brother character.

I felt the show actually did a little better with Charlie in this episode than they did in the pilot. Of course she had her "I'm an annoying kid who does what people explicitly tell me NOT TO DO" moments, but the fact that she actually did kill the warden, and was able to fight off her attacker - as opposed to once again being saved by the ridiculously uninteresting GQ guy - at least let me believe that she could be more than just a shrinking violet. I was also happy to see her get the best of GQ guy with her faux-sprained ankle/handcuff trick.

While Burke was interesting enough in the pilot, I felt he was sleepwalking through this episode. I feel like he's bound to be stuck as a boring, reluctant leader of the rebels.

I really couldn't care less about the mythology aspects the show has introduced at all, but I'll still give it a couple more episodes, as I watch nothing on Mondays.

I will say this-This is a great Eric Kripke show ( and I say this as being a fan of Supernatural) but all the JJ Abrams-y aspects of this show are ruining the show.

The pilot of this show has structurally so many things common with Supernatural:1. Both shows start of with a traumatic incident, although the incident here is far less traumatic.2. There is a long time gap where people adjust to new circumstances, only to be yanked into a new adventure by some incident (Here, death of Charlie's father. In Supernatural, Dean getting Sam from college)3. Both shows are about people looking for family while at the same time forming familial bonds with thier travel companions.

If Supernatural were to do a similar story, the entire story would have been about the chain gang and about the implications of that and it would have been exactly the type of show Kripke and Favreau wanted and would have been the better for it. But they have to Check in with Computer lady, Elizabeth Mitchell (in the past and present), and now, the newly formed group of bearded Hurley and Brit chick. Better they had kept themselves to Gus Fring and Twilight as the two parallel narratives ( Something similar to Supernatural Season 1, only there the parallel narrative of Papa Winchester was largely kept off-screen)

To be perfectly honest, the show is better viewed as an Eric Kripke series rather than as a JJ Abrams show. Because Eric Kripke (through his tenure of Supernatural)has shown that he can juggle complex mythologies while focusing on interpersonal dynamics with the heroes while providing clear coherent answers consistently for 5+ seasons. JJ Abrams shows have cool moments but they also melt down at the Macro level, when the mythology has to provide clear satisfying answers (Think island as glowing cave on Lost or all the various red herrings on Alias.

On the other hand, they clearly learned from the mistakes of Missing, and told us upfront that Elizabeth Mitchell character is still alive....

And, while I am commenting, allow me to shill for the first 5 seasons of Supernatural and say that they are amongst the best of genre TV and that Seasons 4 and 5 are among the best of the genre (comparable to Buffy Season 3, which is the gold standard for measuring such things)

You do realize that J.J. Abrams had nothing to do with Lost, other than the pilot and some shaping of the first seasons' plots? Granted, he (co-)created several of the show's lasting characters and much of the world the series would inhabit, but he had little hand in orchestrating the show's larger mythology, plot and overall tone. So I don't know what you mean by "JJ Abrams shows".

Joe-Look at Alias, Lost and Fringe. There are enough common things in them, structurally and thematically, to identify the various componenets of the JJ Abrams shows.

And while I did'nt mean to imply that JJ had anything to do with the mess that was Lost, looking over how mythologically convoluted and dense those shows became, I do think JJ prefers certain types of writers and/or backs those shows which have certain kinds of things in them. And I'm saying that as a JJ Abrams fan who is die-hard Lost apologist, but the man likes his TV to have certain things in them

The brother hasn't quite done enough for me to consider him annoying quite yet. He's just sort of there, and he's clearly not all that bright. Still, I don't find a character to be annoying because they're stupid. And in general I look forward to his scenes because Giancarlo Esposito is brilliant in this.

Charlie, on the other hand, is ruining this show. And I blame both the writing for her character and the acting. It's such a mix of contrived and willful and plain brainlessness that kind of irks me. And her lines are always so bad.

The rest of this show is on the right side of OK, and I like how the plot has been set up much more than I did in the first episode. I'm sticking with this show until it stops showing promise, and maybe they'll run out of cliche things for Charlie to say and instead make her interesting.

I am so annoyed by those two kids - Danny is so dumb and Charlie is so self righteous and has no charisma.

Billy Burke is making the best of his role. But the only other high lights for me are watching some Lost cast members show up.

I'm getting really tired of J.J. Abrams "dropping off his toddler show ideas everywhere" with no evidence of full development. (Reminds me of Terry jones playing the mother dropping her new borns in Pythons The Meaning of Life, "Would you get that Deidre?")

When will the networks demand that he stay with a show and really see it through to full development? Or just not go for any of these half baked projects.

The networks love his half-baked ideas. They just pay to put his name all over the marketing and give him an "Executive Producer" credit and people tune in for that alone. They assume (and they're probably right) that if you throw enough JJ Abrams at the wall, eventually some of it is going to stick.

1. One of my biggest beefs with post-Apocalyptic shows are ones where people don't kill people in situations where any normal human being would. When I'm literally screaming at the TV for a character to shoot someone, I get really frustrated. Thank goodness Charlie's mom actually has some sense.

2. If Charlie doesn't grow the heck up over the next 2 episodes, I'm out. I really cannot stand characters who have the brutality of the world they live in proved to them over and over, and having their heart-of-gold actions almost get them or their companions killed multiple times STILL think that they can walk through the world trusting everyone and thinking they can negotiate with the bad guys. Especially when you have bad guys who are drawn as starkly as Revolution's bad guys are. I understand that viewers typically want to watch people they can root for, but the way to do that is not to turn your lead female character into a simpering idiot.

3. So, you've got this super-dooper magical USB necklace that was entrusted to you and could possibly turn the power back on. So instead of showing it to your buddy and then very quickly shoving it back into the best hiding place you can find, you walk through an open field twirling it around? WTH people? I was just waiting for somebody to ambush them and steal the thing, and they would've totally deserved that.

Plus a host of other minor complaints. I still like Miles (especially when he calls Charlie on her BS) and I still like Esposito (I actually found his scene with Danny pretty good), and I still have residual love for Elizabeth Mitchell, who rewarded by that by doing something logical. I am, despite myself, curious to know what those magical USB devices can do and who taser-guy is. And enough people have praised Kripke and Supernatural that I'm willing to keep going along for the ride. With some strong reservations.

Robin-Supernatural, while it became a good show, had its own growing pains in Season 1. And they figured that show out. So I have hope for this. But I do agree with you that Tracy Spiridakos is BLAND and her interactions with the generic tall dark and wooden militia guy makes me throw things at my TV screen

My problem with that is that Charlie has seen first hand what the militia guys are going to do, she has seen they aren't going to give up trying to find/capture Miles and presumably her, and that they are ruthless. She had her father brutally murdered practically in front of her, and her brother stolen from her. I can understand flinching at watching your brand-new uncle cold bloodedly kill someone, but c'mon, she had to know the guy was going to just come back and try to kill them again, this time with a bigger army.

I'm totally more interested in the flashback than I am in what's happening in the present. It kind of reminds me of The Nine where what happened in the bank flashbacks was interesting, but the present day stuff was awful.

I'm exactly the opposite, at least with the flashbacks they have shown thus far. I'd rather them concentrate on the present and make me care about the characters. Not to continually compare to Lost, but it was who the characters were and what their actions were on the island that made me interested in their flashbacks (speaking strictly of S1).

Charlie is SOOOO bad. My girlfriend (didn't watch pilot) commented over and over about how annoying her character is. She wanted to switch 20 min in. I tend to agree, I care nothing about the kids.

Not ready to give up yet. I do enjoy the post apocalyptic world. Scenes like the overgrown highways and such are interesting enough to keep me watching for a while with even poor characters and story.

I do take issue with the flashback where the guy tries to steal the food. They make it appear like they leave the city only a day or two post blackout yet people are already starving and threatening people for food?!? I see that months into this but within the first week I don't buy it.

I think they said it was a week after the blackout when that happened. But I agree. While I don't find it at all unbelievable that someone would try to steal from them like that, I don't think enough time had passed for a guy in a suit to use "starving" as an excuse.

Along those lines, I think everything is a bit too sped up for it to have only been 15 years since the blackout. The overgrowth and decay is more like what would happen 30-40 years after we lost electric, not 15. This really bugs my nerdy geologist BF :-)

Why is the x-soldier taking orders from his naïve teenaged niece in the first place? Shouldn’t an experienced soldier be in command of this mission? My wife and I were ripping on this show last night as we watched which is never a good sign. Intriguing premise, poor execution will likely be the death of this show same as Flash Forward and all the others. You’d think TV execs would learn.

You know, I actually thought it was maybe a bit better than the pilot. I didn't find Charlie to be particularly annoying, but I guess other people may disagree. I do think they have jumped to her killing people in cold blood pretty quickly, though. In addition to the always excellent Giancarlo Esposito, there was a lot more Elizabeth Mitchell this week, which only helps. I thought the action was pretty well done, and I'm interested to meet some more of these revolutionaries (especially if they look like Nora does). All in all, it was good enough (especially since there's zero competition on Mondays right now--at least for me) that I'll continue to watch for a little while. I just hope they have some idea how to make the magic USB plot work because it strikes me as really stupid.

I can't handle Charlie. Terrible character. Terrible actress. What a disastrous presence on a show with a great premise. I knew a few minutes into this week that I was done with the show unless Charlie died by the end of the episode.

I don't even get how that character makes sense on paper. I feel like the construction of the character went something like this:

Writer 1: "Let's take the annoying teenager on Terra Nova. Flip the gender. Make them even more annoying. Now we have the central focus of our show."Writer 2: "I'm not sure that will work."Writer 1: "It will if we find the most unlikable, unskilled, and uncharismatic actress we can to play her."Writer 2: "Brilliant! But can we also include a potential love interest whose character and acting resemble a block of wood?"Writer 1: "Brilliant!"Writer 2: "Brilliant!"

Charlie is the biggest liability on this show by far. The writing is terrible and the actress has sunk every emotional scene she's had. The brother could be just as bad but he hasn't gotten that many lines and the chance to prove he can't act. Stay tuned, I guess.

I need a few more weeks. The pilot was o.k. But for the most part it is a very generic show. I would like to think NBC can find something a more stimulating for a 10 PM time slot. The show is watchable.

What annoyed me in the pilot didn't get much better in this episode, and that's the magical figthting powers that Miles seems to have. The fight scene you liked so much, Alan, I found to be so over-the-top as to be comical. Maybe it's meant to be more of a comic book than a gritty drama, but every time one of the militia just stood there dumbly waiting to be hit by one of Miles's magical arms or legs I wanted to laugh.

And, sorry to backtrack to the pilot, but how does a guy who is on the run/in hiding from the military government manage to live alone in a luxury hotel without anyone bothering him? (Oh, right, he's magic fighting dude.)

The show
Has very little to make it different than many others. The uncle is fine and how great it is to see Gustavo Esposito. The other actors are doing nothing I could see grow into meaningful characters.

Why do Hollywood types get to refer to something as "high-concept" when what they actually mean is low-concept, or simplistic or simple-minded? I don't think that people who know better should aid and abet them in their down-is-up make-it-sound-important distortion of the truth. Call it how it is - crap.

Yeah, count me out. There's a gazillion other things I can watch instead of this. I wanted to give it at least six episodes, but after last night, it's not worth it.

It's Charlie, mainly. I can't stand the character. Huge misfire. I like Esposito and Burke, but now it's not enough to make me stick around.

And here's the sad part: like most of you, I find the flashbacks interesting too. I just read THE ZOMBIE SURVIVAL GUIDE and am almost done with WORLD WAR Z, and the idea of a post-apocalyptic world where humanity has to rebuild society and adapt to a new environment can make for such a good show . . .

Just not one where you're supposed to be cheering for an annoying brat.

Let me know if it pulls a PARKS AND REC and becomes exponentially better.

What irritated me in this episode was Miles saying "I'm good at swords but I got nothing for sniper-rifle dude." So we have to MacGuyver a spud gun and a plan to get Tyler (oops, I meant Charlie) close enough to shoot sniper-rifle dude... when Tyler (Charlie. Sorry, I keep getting them confused) HAS A CROSSBOW. Took me right out of the rest of the episode.

If this was "The Walking Dead" world, at least Darryl wouldn't treat his crossbow as nothing more than a fashion accessory.

The problem with this show is they are jumping into the action. 15 years later would work just fine IMO... but lets have season 1 play out with the group surviving in the village. Lets tell a story about these people, charlie and her dad, her brother, and the town folk being harrased by the militia. Really build a world around these characters... then lets start to dissect the mysterious power slowly. The show started a midst action when they really should have started showing us how the people live day by day...