I am probably the last person in the world to review
this show but hey-ho I’ve only recently just seen it as I don’t have all the
fancy channels as everyone else.
If you have not seen Revolution, you can probably
hazard from the trailers that it is about people trying to survive a brutal and
unforgiving future after the power goes off. Set fifteen years after the
blackout, no one is still sure why it did. It is quickly established that it
was not a case of someone simply switching the lights off or running out of
fossil fuels but rather, something much more complex. If you build a battery in
this world, for example, or a car, it will simply not work, regardless of having
all the correct parts and a power source.
The series starts off about a young woman, Charlie,
who gives chase to a local police force after they kill her dad and kidnap her
brother, Danny. I use the word police loosely, the men in question are soldiers
working for the Monroe Republic - a man who has power over that particular part
of America. It is explained later in the series that the US has broken into
several minor countries, all living in varying degrees of prosperity.
Going back to Charlie trying to find her brother,
she enlists the help of her estranged uncle, Miles. Together they go off in
search of him. However, half way through the series this original plot is
replaced by an entirely different one about rebels fighting the Monroe
Republic.
While the change in gear keeps the story fresh it
does feel quickly like you are watching an entirely different show, and with
the death of a major character it leaves you wondering if the first fourteen
episodes were just a complete waste of time.
Its saving grace is this though: you never know what
is going to happen next, which is what kept me interested. The characters (most
of them) are complex and interesting, whose performances are spoiled by the
likes of whiny Charlie. Also, I understand double-crossing is a plot device in
a lot of shows but in Revolution everyone does it several times an episode. I
lost count of how many times it happened. If I had a pound for every time
something changed sides or their agenda I would be stinking rich by the end of
this review.
But I digress, plot wise there are a lot of subplot
threads going on in Revolution, especially in the second half of the series,
which keeps you guessing. However, that’s not to say the plot doesn’t have its
problems. Some episodes, which have self contained stories feel like they were
written by five-year-olds; a secret town of children who have eluded trained
and armed soldiers for years being one of them (what?).
That’s not to say I did not like the first series of
Revolution, I thoroughly did. Yet as it went on I felt like the story began to
get a little too confusing with so much going on and a little too fanciful for
its own good. I’ve not seen the second season yet but I’m told it’s more of the
same and awful. We’ll see…
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