Revolution S01E01 (NBC, 2012)

Besides the usual face-checking - "It's the investigator from The Good Wife!" and "Gus!  We've missed you!" - a post-apocalyptic show seemed a nice idea to try.

After a concise prologue of pre-Black Out life (y'know, life as we know it in, like, real life), the show cuts mercifully to fifteen years later and a bucolic life on a farm.

Beside me, a voice wondered, "Their clothes are quite tidy and fashionable for fifteen years without machines."  I ignored the voice.

A little further into the story - the journey of our heroine and friends to Chicago - the voice piped up again:  "So, wow:  a day and night's walk to the city of Chicago.  Were they in the 'burbs the whole time?"  I silently counted to ten in Latin and focussed on the cathode ray tube.

After a face-off and not-exactly-all-that-swashbuckling fight, the voice began, "This is -"

I turned on the voice's owner:  "Boring?  I agree.  For a guy who's got a rep for being really good at killing he's taking an awfully long time.  Is it supposed to show that he's a little out of practice?  Or that killing takes effort?  I don't know."

"And what's with -"

"The Black Out?  Does it affect only electrical appliances/machinery?  It would appear so.  Then what about diesel engines?  And steam-powered engines?"

"And -"

"And what about all the candles they have going?  I strongly suspect the lighting department needed it."

Those and many more questions and answers excuses point to what I found so wanting in this show:  it's network television.  Our band of heroes are incredibly telegenic - the lead keeps making me flash on Twilight and Hunger Games, and there's a NOT TAYLOR LAUTNER in there for good measure.  The dystopian world is awfully friendly- maybe I've just taken on board far too much of the hopelessness of The Walking Dead and The Road.  And those clothes - they're so stylish.  And the questions about the apparent inconsistencies of the Black Out - which I presume will be very Lost in it's ambiguity and mythical mysterious unknowability.

It's network television.  I... don't think I'll watch any more.