The Event: "Pilot" - Sept. 20 on NBC - Grading & Discussion

I believe the Event is something else altogether--whatever it was the President and Weaver were going to reveal to the world prior to getting so rudely interrupted.

 

He used to look more like his dad a few years ago. Not so much these days.

 

I'm not so sure about that, cause in the previews for the rest of the season we see the president asking why those people were locked up there, he wants to get to the bottom of that facility. So he must not know its purpose yet. Also, the women said that he hasn't been told everything at the end of the episode.

 

I hate flashbacks as it just ruins the flow of the story. Characters are really bland just feel this whole series will be flashbacks and jump around to much.

Why is it so hard to just start from the beginning? So i gave it a shot and its not for me.

 

I seem to remember a line from Sophie at one of the Mount WillyWonka flashbacks, the one before she met with the President, in which she referred to The Event in the past tense. I could be wrong -- considering how often the episode changed time and place I found it difficult to remain interested in little details ... but that was my impression.

 

^ She did mention an "event".

 

Apparently I was mistaken about who said it, but this (found at an "Event wiki") was from the first scene with Sophie:

Thirteen months earlier, near Mount Inostranka, Alaska, Simon is in a military facility's conference room telling a woman that he tracked down someone two days ago in Los Angeles, and the man is not thrilled about being back. Simon tells the woman that the man is going to tell them about the event, and she tells Simon that he has to change his mind—to do whatever it takes. Simon asks if they should at least warn them, that they can prepare; and that they call ask for help from newly installed President Martinez. The woman says that the President cannot help because Whitman and the others would not let him find out about this place. Simon says he would make sure the President found out. The woman says that Simon is her only conduit to the outside, and if their people out there are having doubts, she needs him to reason with them so they can protect themselves. Simon then instructs a military guard to take the woman, who is handcuffed to her chair, back to her quarters.
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Source

 

After the ending I was: But for the last few minutes I was either having a seizure or the show's cameramen were.

 

I was wondering where all the wind was coming from, and why the ground would be shaking ... I can't imagine the pressure wave ahead of the airliner was *that* powerful so far ahead of its arrival. Maybe it's a byproduct of the "air orifice" breaking wind or something ... just before it swallowed the plane.

 

Two things about the characters. First, they are meant to be ambiguous, so that we don't know who's a hero or villain. Legends about the artistic richness of ambiguity notwithstanding, ambiguity doesn't communicate. Ergo, the characters are left undefined.

Second, they tend to be dividing up between ordinary and special. Jason Ritter in particular is supposed to be ordinary. And Laura Innes in particular is supposed to be special. Ritter is convincing as a real person but lots of people don't want to see real people on screen, they want larger than life figures who may not be realistic but are at least entertaining. Personally I find the more realistic one more interesting. However, for those who do prefer larger than life, the special one, Laura Innes foremost, are still not compelling because they're just cliches.

The flashbacks are so a long backstory can be compressed into a short time, and so character development can be highlighted (as in bumbly boyfriend turns hijacker!) and so they can recycle the same scenes. I think every action scene was showed at least three times.

As to the twist, it reminded me so much of an episode of Miracles I don't think it was accidental.

As for other shows, the flashbacks have nothing to do with Lost's soap opera approach. The sketchily implicit politics have nothing to do with 24. The 4400 varied wildly in quality, from godawful to pretty good, but it's serialized story never had any resolution nor did it ever intend any, so far as I can tell. It was willfully arbitrary in its plotting, bordering on fraud. And, last, Brannon Braga's name in the credits notwithstanding, FlashForward's pilot was much more exciting.

 

Even so, did it have to be so extreme?! I think that final scene gave me motion sickness.

 

No, it didn't. I thought it was pretty ridiculous myself. Like most of the rest of the episode, it was done to drum up suspense because the story and characters were completely unable to do so on their own merits.

 

Frankly I'm tired of LOST-inspired shows--even LOST itself couldn't pull off its mythology in the end so in hindsight it comes across as nothing but distracting sound and fury that was an unnecessary burden. It was novel when LOST did it but now I just want shows to get back to basics. Enough with the non-linear storytelling. Enough with the ridiculous fast-pacing where you can't enjoy a scene or a revelation before they are moving on to something else. Enough with trying to see how many storylines you can cram into an hour. Enough with cramming so much in an hour that the writers expect the audience to fill in what should have been dramatized onscreen. Enough with building up these byzantine mythologies then dropping the ball at the end to where none of it comes together in a satisfying manner. Enough with twists or cliffhangers just to be attention-getting gimmicks that never go anywhere.

Whatever happened to serialized dramas that had a modest ensemble of characters you got to see week-in and week out and as a result came to care about and see as flesh and blood characters rather than plot devices--where did this notion of needing a ridiculously expansive cast come from. Whatever happened to introducing 3 or 4 season long arcs that were developed and given depth over the course of the year rather than throwing dozens at you and never fleshing them out. Serialized dramas got along just fine without overwhelming mythologies for years.

It seems ADHD has seized the tv medium to the point where writers think if it isn't some blur of action, plots and ten thousand characters it isn't something they want to invest in. I'd rather have a manageable and easy to follow storyline than a confusing mess just to play headgames with the audience.

Frankly it is tiresome and I find myself more and more disenchanted with current tv that I'd rather rewatch an older series I've seen before than the crap they churn out now.

 

and a very nice shape I must say....

 

I'm guessing it was whatever sucked the plane in that caused that, like a wind and seismic storm building up to the opening of the anomaly.

 

I'm going to throw time-travel and invisible jump-jets out there.

 

I'd say there's a good chance it's time travel, it fits with the flashbacks. I'm betting before long, we will see one of those time tags read something weird like "Ten Years from Now" or something.

 

Geez, people... quit watching things with expectations of hating it. There's only been one episode with a couple of characters introduced and a couple of mysteries and a twist at the end. 42 minutes of trekking around an island and trying to stop a plane crash isn't "mythology" or "Lost inspired" or "completely unwatchable."

Star Trek is over.
Leave it to Beaver is over.

If you hate every single TV show that's being put on the air nowadays, maybe it just isn't for you. There's always TV Land.

Nobody wants to watch people sitting around in a room talking for an hour except for daytime television.

 

^ You forget where you are. One poster on this board in particular is still bitching and moaning 24/7 about the last Star Trek movie, outlasting even Captain Robert April.

And a nuBSG hater wrote the longest post I've ever seen on TrekBBS... about nuBSG, which he kept on watching after proclaiming his hatred for it.

 

I watched it with good intentions, but I haven't been blown away yet. I agree there are flaws in the premier, so far the primary being the characters, I can't find any I gel with just yet, not good for a premier. In LOST, I had several characters I wanted to see more of, even if I hadn't memorized their names yet. In The Event, I can't remember any names, nor do I really feel connected or interested in any of them. Maybe that will build, but there go. I'll give it a few more episodes.