The Glade 4.0

Spoiler Alert -- Mom Is Sure to Be Alive: "Revolution," which premiered last week, is the latest big-budget prime-time attempt to capture the sci-fi /conspiracy/ apocalypse ground once held successfully by "Lost" and "Heroes." Like previous attempts to take this ground using expensive action scenes and cut-rate writing -- "Terra Nova," "The Event," "FlashForward," "V," "Jericho" -- "Revolution" has "canceled by Christmas" written all over it. Thus TMQ must mock the series while there's time.

Assume some mysterious force could stop electricity from flowing and prevent all mechanical devices from operating. To watch a "Superman" movie, you must suspend disbelief about superpowers. To watch "Revolution," you must accept its head-scratcher premise. But within the premise, action should be comprehensible.

In the pilot, we see a man hurry home to his wife and adorable children, clutching a bag of groceries. He announces that it's about to happen, and races to download a file to a flash drive. The wife knows what "it" is, and begins to fill the bathtubs and sinks with water. The man calls his brother to warn him that all technology is about to stop, forever. Then all technology stops.

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NBC/Universal/Bob Mahoney
On "Revolution" all technology has failed, and plots aren't working too well either.
Fifteen years later most of the world population is dead, cities are overgrown with vines and warlords rule what remains of the United States. We see the man running a village commune. He says his wife died because she left the protection of the commune walls. A sinister militia comes to demand the man's surrender. When he resists, the militia mortally wounds him and kidnaps a teen, who turns out to be the little boy from the beginning. The little girl turns out to have grown into a fearless Katniss knockoff with a crossbow. The file the man frantically downloaded turns out to run an amulet that restores electricity. His brother turns out to have belonged to an elite Army commando unit. Now, the brother runs a moonshine establishment in the ruins of Chicago. The brother joins Katniss/B to search for the kidnapped boy. There's the series setup.

Suppose you were a father and mother who knew all technology was about to stop working -- you'd buy more than one bag of groceries! You wouldn't wait until the last conceivable instant to draw water or copy the magic software. You'd stockpile inhalers for your asthmatic child, rather than do nothing, as is depicted. If the first two characters shown knew the blackout apocalypse was coming, why didn't they prepare?

Fifteen years later, just before expiring, the man hands the power-restoration amulet to a stranger, not explaining its purpose. Lying mortally wounded, he tells his daughter to be strong but does not reveal his knowledge of how the blackout began. Since the amulet and the knowledge were the items of value he possessed at death, why didn't he give either to his daughter?

The daughter walks to Chicago to find her uncle; what seemed like a rural village was the ruins of a suburb. The uncle declares he has not spoken to his brother since receiving the warning a moment before the blackout. At this point we must accept that the uncle, a highly trained commando, knew that his brother had vital information about whatever stopped all power on Earth from functioning -- yet over 15 years, never simply walked to his brother's nearby house to ask him what the heck was going on.

Canceled by Christmas; lucky to make it to Thanksgiving.