The Revolution pilot is online now...

[Dream]

What's with the stupid annoying teen couple? Why do all recent Sci Fi shows need to have this crap?

[AvBaur]

I tried to watch it today, but couldn't get myself to care about any of it. The premise is utterly silly and the characters are boring as hell. Turned it off after 25 minutes or so. J.J. Abrams' pilots just keep getting worse and worse, don't they? I mean, Alias and Lost had fantastic pilots, but between Undercovers, Alcatraz, and this, I don't think he's got it any more. Or maybe he just has too much on his plate these days to care about tv? I would have expected more from Jon Favreau, as well.

I guess it's not fair to judge a show based on half a pilot, but I just couldn't see it getting much better any time soon. I mean, the Lost and Alias pilots had me hooked after the first 5 minutes, while this one didn't introduce a single major plot point or character that didn't have me shaking my head at the half-baked clichés.

Oh well, I might give it another shot if I hear it improves a lot after a couple of episodes, but so far I'm a bit disappointed.

[Guy Gardener]

There's a sword fight near the end that rivals Wesley vs. Inigo in the Princess Bride.

[sojourner]

No, that sword fight was more "Kill Bill" than "Princess Bride". No panache.

[Anwar]

I saw the pilot at the Toronto Fan-Expo about 2 weeks ago, Billy Burke himself was a surprise guest.

It was better than I thought. They're all too good looking and well-dressed but that's a conceit of TV. And I wasn't expecting General Munroe to be Charlies' Uncles' partner from before the blackout, or the twist with the convenient medicine woman. I'll keep up because there's a bit of interest.

[Guy Gardener]

sojourner wrote:

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No, that sword fight was more "Kill Bill" than "Princess Bride". No panache.

It's just the lack of English accents.

Well.

There was one English Accent.

But that's neither here nor there.

The cinematography lost track of what was going on now and then, but the stunt coordinator is first rate. though what's the answer to this problem? Tell the stuntmen to be less amazing so that the cameramen can keep up?

And what's wrong with Kill Bill?

With all this post apocalypicsism talk, I started reading Y the last man this morning.

Revolution is heads and shoulders above Elementary, which isn't actually it's competition, but two new shows come out on the same day and we will make comparisons.

[aelius]

Lindley wrote:

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Is there a justification for that? Loss of electrical power wouldn't cause a plane to crash.

What...
Virtually all airliners today are fly-by-wire. Without electricity they have no controls. They would fall out of the sky like so many rocks.

[Mister Fandango]

aelius wrote:

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What...
Virtually all airliners today are fly-by-wire. Without electricity they have no controls. They would fall out of the sky like so many rocks.

No, it won't fall like a rock. It will not magically lose all forward momentum and fall straight down. Not in a dive or an incline or anything. But literally straight down. Like someone lifted it up and then let go. Since, you know, that's exactly what happened in the show.

And where are all the simple mechanical machines in this setting? They clearly work, as made evident with the crossbows and modern firearms. Chemical systems still work, too, courtesy of seeing gunpowder and stills in action. So, where exactly is all the industrial revolution-esque technology? And how did entire cities, in which people are clearly still living, get overgrown with vegetation in only 15 years time?

Assuming that this magical field is being created by a satellite network (which is the only possibly way it could be, short of "magic"), then why wouldn't electrical systems work underground or inside certain types of buildings or rooms? Especially when we see that it is clearly possibly to have a field that protects against the effect (but which, for whatever reason, requires a makeshift computer rather than, you know, a real one, of which there would be tons to pick and choose from)?

It's infuriating.

[Gotham Central]

Did anyone else get a Jericho feeling from watching this? The overought family drama was clearly there....but the woman with the computer that seems to know things definately made me think of Lenny James in Jericho.

[Gotham Central]

Mister Fandango wrote:

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No, it won't fall like a rock. It will not magically lose all forward momentum and fall straight down. Not in a dive or an incline or anything. But literally straight down. Like someone lifted it up and then let go. Since, you know, that's exactly what happened in the show.

And where are all the simple mechanical machines in this setting? They clearly work, as made evident with the crossbows and modern firearms. Chemical systems still work, too, courtesy of seeing gunpowder and stills in action. So, where exactly is all the industrial revolution-esque technology? And how did entire cities, in which people are clearly still living, get overgrown with vegetation in only 15 years time?

Assuming that this magical field is being created by a satellite network (which is the only possibly way it could be, short of "magic"), then why wouldn't electrical systems work underground or inside certain types of buildings or rooms? Especially when we see that it is clearly possibly to have a field that protects against the effect (but which, for whatever reason, requires a makeshift computer rather than, you know, a real one, of which there would be tons to pick and choose from)?

It's infuriating.

The overgrown vegetation did not really bother me. If Life After People has tought me anything its that plants would take over farly quickly without people to maintain the structures. (of course the shot of Wrigley Field seemed odd since it was TOO overgrown especially given that its located in a densely packed part of the city).

The airplanes suddenly falling made no sense. Airplanes are perfectly capable of gliding unless the pilots suddenly fell asleep.

What no one seems to have addressed is the fact that there are quite a few nuclear power plants in Illinois. If power suddenly stopped working there would be nothing to prevent them (or any of the hundreds of plants around the world) from going into meltdown.

[Shurik]

The overgrown vegetation did not really bother me. If Life After People has tought me anything its that plants would take over farly quickly without people to maintain the structures. (of course the shot of Wrigley Field seemed odd since it was TOO overgrown especially given that its located in a densely packed part of the city).

You can always look at the pictures of Pripyat (a town near Chernobyl nuclear power plant) if you want to see what a fairly large town would look like if it were abandoned and not maintained. For example - apartment buildings 24 years after the Chernobyl disaster:
http://www.phoronix.com/image-viewer...nobyl_p_10_lrg
http://www.phoronix.com/image-viewer...nobyl_p_06_lrg

I've seen the trailer for this and the premise looked like it wasn't fully thought through. Since it's another JJ Abrams mystery series, I'll wait for it to get at least to the second season.

[Lindley]

aelius wrote:

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What...
Virtually all airliners today are fly-by-wire. Without electricity they have no controls. They would fall out of the sky like so many rocks.

Most Airbuses use fly-by-wire, but the only Boeing planes to use it so far are the 777 and 787. All the rest still use conventional hydraulics. Also, I don't know for sure but I would be very surprised if there wasn't a backup system; there's a backup for just about everything else, after all.

There have been cases of complete loss of control surfaces in the past. While they usually lead to crashes, it is not an immediate thing. Some control can be maintained by varying the differential engine power. That's not a great solution but it would be something.

Smaller planes such as Gulfstreams, Pipers, Cessnas, etc generally do not use fly-by-wire at all.

There are a few small planes still flying today which do not even have an electrical system. I wonder if those would still work?

[aelius]

But the engines stopped working too. And an airliners glide ratio is only a little better than a rock under the best of circumstances. And hydraulic systems in airliners are power assisted. Without the power they are extremely hard to maneuver. And if the plane was not flying straight and level when it happened the loss of engines and loss or serious degradation of control surfaces would probably put it into a flat spin, which is what was depicted on screen. Most airliners in around cities are in some kind of holding pattern waiting for or maneuvering to follow landing instructions or maneuvering to reach flight corridors for those leaving.
My dad is a pilot and had a chance to fly a restored B-17 that was flying around the country. He said it was a beast to maneuver with the old style simple hydraulics. That matches with what I have read about those old bombers and even early airliners.
And, WW II movies aside, the glide ratio's of most large aircraft suck. Hell, even the F4U Corsair, one of the best FIGHTERS of the war had only a 1 to 1 ratio. Most modern fighters and bombers have no better. And airliners glide really no better than a bomber, usually not as well.
Light aircraft would do better. They are lighter with more relative lifting surface than most larger craft. Many of them would be able to glide to a landing if they could find a flat empty spot.
As someone who has been around pilots and airports his whole life, as well as someone who has been fascinated by the history of flight and aircraft, I would say that the falling planes were probably the most realistic part of the show.
It was just a lot of the other stuff that was kinda questionable.

[Gotham Central]

Shurik wrote:

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You can always look at the pictures of Pripyat (a town near Chernobyl nuclear power plant) if you want to see what a fairly large town would look like if it were abandoned and not maintained. For example - apartment buildings 24 years after the Chernobyl disaster:
http://www.phoronix.com/image-viewer...nobyl_p_10_lrg
http://www.phoronix.com/image-viewer...nobyl_p_06_lrg

I've seen the trailer for this and the premise looked like it wasn't fully thought through. Since it's another JJ Abrams mystery series, I'll wait for it to get at least to the second season.

The area around Chernobyl is interesting for a lot of reason. In tis case though its not immediately refelctive of normal plant over growth since a large chunk of the plantlife in the immediate area was killed off by the radiation. The plants do eventually return and thrive, but they were initially hindered.

[Mister Fandango]

aelius wrote:

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But the engines stopped working too.

Ignoring the fact that mechanical and chemical systems are still working just fine and dandy based upon this episode and that it's expressly stated that electricity is the only thing that stopped working, even a 300-ton cube of steel traveling at 500mph before losing its propulsion isn't going to just stop in mid-air and fall straight down.

Again: Straight down. No forward movement whatsoever. And it wasn't even a dive down. It was belly-first.

What's even dumber is that when these planes fell, their lights were still working.