Post-Apocalypse TV

[nacho]

I wonder if Michael Bay's true genius will finally shine through on TV... Last Ship, episode two, was good!

Now, it's all simple idiot stuff. Basically we're watching a new take on gritty space opera a la the BSG reboot and Stargate: Universe, except it's starring the US Navy and there's a distinct mission driving them all.

The space opera rules, though, are very much in place with a cast of likable yet, generally, expendable characters who are all salt of the Earth types. The strong marine, the focused captain, the human-element XO, the tough as nails engineer chick, etc... And I mean every character trope is in there. We have the conflicted doctor, the reluctant spy, and, as of episode two, the unpredictable wise-cracking rogue. All we need is a cute alien and a princess!

The mission is to raid enough places to get enough equipment to slowly build Rhona Mitra's lab so she can develop a vaccine for... Well, the crew of the ship. There's this whole "we need to save the world" thing going on but Rhona told us that 80% of the world had the disease and, if they had it, they're dead. Radio contact from America is only static-filled shortwave pleas for help. So clearly there's very little left to save but themselves.

Meanwhile, the Big Bad was introduced late in episode two --  the rule of character tropes remains. The Big Bad is a very Bond-ian Russian navy captain, complete with a comically put-on accent and we even almost verged into Cold War-era Russian music cues when we switched to the bridge of the Russian cruiser.

So throw in all of this stuff along with a tremendous budget and...well..."boom"...and there we go. The perfect formula. Every character trope, patriotism, and precision shooting from deck cannons that shreds terrorists into their basic chemical compounds while our blue-eyed, blond-haired boys watch on with unflinching resolve.   

Metal shrapnel ravages the chief Engineer's leg?  You gonna be okay, Annie?

Right as rain, cap! Yee-haaaaa!!!!

[nacho]

The latest from the Abrams-verse (Lindelof) is a post-Rapture series from HBO:

Switching this to the PA thread...

Utter shite. I'll probably watch because I love PA shit...but, Jesus, this was terrible.

[nacho]

Episode three is when The Last Ship utterly falls apart. Making the Russian admiral a bad guy is easy, right? Because it's like he and his crew have walked out of a Cold War paranoia movie. And we know they're bad! They mine the harbor, they say bad things...

But, no, we have to illustrate it with the Russian showing his resolve by inexplicably executing his XO during a tense stand off with our heroes.

And then the good guys hole the Russian ship and make an improbable escape.

What's driving me nuts is that 80% of the world had the superflu, and you're dead in three days, and they keep saying "every day costs half a million lives." No...  It's over. 80% of the world is dead from the flu. The only people left to inoculate are the people on your ship. Where the fuck are you going to deliver the cure once it's done? Atomic Fallout France? Dead, radio-silent America? Dead, radio-silent Russia?

This, of course, extends to the Russians. Why don't they want to work together? Their first response -- as, basically, the last people on Earth -- is to antagonize the US Naval vessel and go on murdering sprees? There's nothing left to fight for, guys. And the whole "we'll become masters of the Earth" thing is sort of a big "huh?" for me.

Also, they fucked up the Russian ship pretty well. There's no way they can repair that. Yet... Looks like they're going to stay on as the Big Bads.

But they'll keep copying BSG, I think (and shooting your XO for no good reason is how they made sure we all knew Cain was bad in BSG, remember?) and be light on the external bad guys and heavy on the emotional stress among the crew.

That sorta kinda worked for BSG for a couple seasons... But this is BOOM Michael BLAMMO Bay. Character development is on page four of his to-do list right under "remember that the Destroyer can't fly in space."

[Sirharles]

Oh good...you just saved me $.  I was thinking about buying the season on Amazon.

[nacho]

Haha! Spend money for this? Are you crazy?

Give me the money instead and, in return, I'll slowly drill holes in your kneecap. It'll be much more fun.

[nacho]

It might be because the subliminal advertising is everywhere, but I'm starting to look forward to The Strain.

[nacho]

So, basically, I'm just watching Dominion at this point because we I know Lucifer's going to show up in the finale and it'll be like an episode of Buffy when he does. I can't actually make sense or care about anything else in this show.

[nacho]

Jeez... I haven't read this series since 1985... And am not quite inspired to do so again. I do know, however, that the post-apocalyptic future Earth stuff is something that only entered the series recently.

Terry Brooks' beloved Shannara series has been on the table for adaptation for years now, but MTV have picked up the gauntlet, green-lighting a 10 episode first season. I can only assume the decision to finally invest in the sprawling post-apocalyptic/Fantasy series is due to the popularity of HBO's Game of Thones, but who cares, I honestly never thought we'd see this day.

Shannara is unique to epic fantasy in that it's still earth as we know it, but the world is a post-nuclear future version of Earth where humans have mutated into elves and dwarves and the land mass of the planet is all swapped around.

Jonathan Liebesman (Battle: LA, Wrath of the Titans, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) has been tapped to direct the first two episodes while Iron Man's John Favreau will produce.

[Reginald McGraw]

Ah yes. I have most of these books. Very interesting how he's connected all his trilogies. There's not more than a hint of post apocalyism in the original trilogy.

[Reginald McGraw]

My thought is this gets the Game of Thrones style treatment (I know themes are much different), over some PA view.

[nacho]

The Strain!

The books are so poorly done that the TV show has no choice but to flash things out for the sake of a narrative. All ably done... Though the two hour premiere may have been a bit much. I was bored for much of the second act.

[nacho]

The latest screw-up in The Last Ship is the episode where they need water but their engines are dead... Which is alot like that BSG episode where they needed water! In fact the same sort of thing happens (where the sea = cylon saboteurs).

So in their moment of desperation they broadcast a distress call to anyone and everyone who's listening.

Okay, first -- IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD EVERYONE IS DEAD NOBODY IS GOING TO BE OUT THERE!!!! There's even a scene that establishes that they know that -- the captain listening to ham radio messages from the last lonely outposts of humanity. They even talk about how there appears to be no organized anything left! Then, 10 minutes later, they're calling for help and depressed that there's no answer?

Also -- the damage that happened that got them into the situation is because THEY'RE HIDING FROM RUSSIAN BAD GUYS WHO ARE RIGHT BEHIND THEM AND SEARCHING FOR THEM!!! So, yes, there ARE people listening. The nuclear destroyer full of mass-murdering sociopaths who want to kill you. But the show already seems to have forgotten about them.

[nacho]

The first trailer for Continuum Lost American Doctor Who Children of Men I Am Legend 12 Monkeys:

[nacho]

In the latest episode of The Last Ship, they take two rafts 30 miles up a river to a monkey reserve. Their most important member, the doctor, goes along because only she can ID the right kind of monkeys. As soon as they run into trouble, they send her back, the captain and XO go in the opposite direction, have a ridiculous adventure, and get the monkeys anyway as if they knew all along which ones to get...so there was no point in bringing the doctor along to begin with!

[RottingCorpse]

Did you talk to Missus RC about The Last Ship? She still claims to want to watch it.