Flashforward, Revolution Zero
Mar. 23rd, 2010 09:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marinessOn more frivolous subjects, I got caught up on last week's Flashforward double episode, Revolution Zero, and I have to say, bleh.
The show continues to suffer from the same problem: I just don't like, or care, about the majority of characters on it. Most are either not particularly likeable (much though it pains me to say this about any Joseph Fiennes character) or very boring (Bryce, Nicole) or both.
And the other issues.
One serious, serious problem is that the show often doesn't want to follow through on its own drama. For instance, at the end of the half season, Mark Benford (the Joseph Fiennes character) had quite deservedly lost his job, after lying to his boss, disobeying a direct order and flying to Hong Kong, pulling out a weapon (and I mildly questioned how he got that into China, which I cannot think is happy with armed American citizens, FBI agents or not, wandering around inside its borders), causing a major fight, and so on. I know we were supposed to feel all sympathetic for him because he'd lost his job and NOW how was he supposed to track all the bad guys down, but, you know? I'm just surprised he wasn't in an unfriendly sort of Chinese jail. Which, come to think of it, would have made a better story.
Anyway. Mark loses his job, and in two more episodes - less than two hours - is back on the job, after some minor therapy and a few good deductions. Setting aside the unlikeliness of this for a moment, the real issue, from a story perspective, is that Mark has barely had to face the consequences of his own actions, and the story was robbed of some potentially major dramatic tension - how can a disgraced FBI agent get anyone to believe him? Crap! Several more million people are going to die because I couldn't keep my temper back in China and lied to my boss!
And then we have the problem that, in order to move forward, the plot insists that everyone just stop thinking or act completely uncharacteristically. For instance. Lloyd and the hobbit have just been kidnapped by, then rescued from, highly sophisticated kidnappers able to preset bombs to go off from very specific frequencies. In other words, very wealthy, very powerful, very smart. To add to the problem, most of the planet would love to kill both of them for very good reasons. So, why, exactly, is the hobbit continually accompanied by only ONE FBI agent after this? Because the plot needs him to be able to escape, that's why - even though we all know the FBI would be smothering the guy with multiple agents.
So, to summarize: potential, but no follow-up.
The show continues to suffer from the same problem: I just don't like, or care, about the majority of characters on it. Most are either not particularly likeable (much though it pains me to say this about any Joseph Fiennes character) or very boring (Bryce, Nicole) or both.
And the other issues.
One serious, serious problem is that the show often doesn't want to follow through on its own drama. For instance, at the end of the half season, Mark Benford (the Joseph Fiennes character) had quite deservedly lost his job, after lying to his boss, disobeying a direct order and flying to Hong Kong, pulling out a weapon (and I mildly questioned how he got that into China, which I cannot think is happy with armed American citizens, FBI agents or not, wandering around inside its borders), causing a major fight, and so on. I know we were supposed to feel all sympathetic for him because he'd lost his job and NOW how was he supposed to track all the bad guys down, but, you know? I'm just surprised he wasn't in an unfriendly sort of Chinese jail. Which, come to think of it, would have made a better story.
Anyway. Mark loses his job, and in two more episodes - less than two hours - is back on the job, after some minor therapy and a few good deductions. Setting aside the unlikeliness of this for a moment, the real issue, from a story perspective, is that Mark has barely had to face the consequences of his own actions, and the story was robbed of some potentially major dramatic tension - how can a disgraced FBI agent get anyone to believe him? Crap! Several more million people are going to die because I couldn't keep my temper back in China and lied to my boss!
And then we have the problem that, in order to move forward, the plot insists that everyone just stop thinking or act completely uncharacteristically. For instance. Lloyd and the hobbit have just been kidnapped by, then rescued from, highly sophisticated kidnappers able to preset bombs to go off from very specific frequencies. In other words, very wealthy, very powerful, very smart. To add to the problem, most of the planet would love to kill both of them for very good reasons. So, why, exactly, is the hobbit continually accompanied by only ONE FBI agent after this? Because the plot needs him to be able to escape, that's why - even though we all know the FBI would be smothering the guy with multiple agents.
So, to summarize: potential, but no follow-up.