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Revolution May Fill The Sci-Fi On TV Void

Date: May 7, 2012 | Author: Josh Tyler | Category: Sci-Fi

It seems someone at NBC finally looked around and realized what we’ve known for some time: science fiction is painfully underrepresented. So they’ve given the greenlight to a new sci-fi series called Revolution.

Unfortunately the premise doesn’t sound particularly creative. It’s an action/drama about a dystopian future where all forms of energy have ceased to exist and humans must struggle to survive without technology. In case you haven’t noticed, dystopian future is just about the only sci-fi genre anyone wants to make anymore. Even Terra Nova was technically about a dystopian future where mankind has ruined the Earth, and not really about dinosaurs. The only other truly science fiction show on television now (outside of Doctor Who) is Falling Skies and that too is set in a dystopian future where humans must struggle to survive.

Here’s the Revolution cast…

What television really needs right now is a space opera, not yet another show about how much the future will suck. Stargate Universe was the last one and there’s not another on the horizon any time soon. I guess we should be happy to get any science fiction at this point, even if it stars one of the minor castmembers from Twilight.

That’s right they’ve hired Bella’s dad, Charlie Swan, played by actor Billy Burke to be one of Revolution’s leads. TV Line says they’ve also got The Cape’s David Lyons and character actor Giancarlo Esposito will also star. If they were going to hire someone from The Cape, I can’t help but wish they’d gone with Keith David instead.

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Comments

  • http://www.facebook.com/WaxIntellectual Evan Fowler

    So… Fringe isn’t a sci-fi show? What is it then?

    • http://twitter.com/Pitchy Pitchy

      Fringe isn’t on SyFy… SyFy has 13 new series coming out and 9 of them are reality based shows. It’s basically saying that SyFy is moving away from science fiction and into a bunch of crap none of us really want to watch.

      • http://www.facebook.com/WaxIntellectual Evan Fowler

        Revolution is on NBC.

  • http://www.facebook.com/briancmckinley Brian C McKinley

    This is the exact back story of “dies the fire” already done guys…

    • Echelon

      Yep, I was gonna say…. Please tell me they aren’t trying some half-assed attempt to put S. M. Sterling’s “Books of the Change” into a crappy NBC series. If there is a book series out there that deserves the “right” treatment its this one, and its less about the dystopian future and more about the survival through the initial “die out” and the amazing new societies they spawn. How much you want to bet though, these folks wont be starting any new culturally mixed society, but just flying from one disaster to the next trying to survive and not kill each other. Little to no character development, no gains made, just the basic ” we have found a spot to squat, now lets hold it, for no good reason”.

  • http://www.facebook.com/dalehoppert Dale Hoppert

    People standing around arguing, throwing rocks at each other and trying to fashion crude firearms isn’t scence fiction just because you throw the words “dystopian future” into the pitch. It’s just low-budget. Gimme a damn SPECTACLE whydon’tcha? A nice space opera. Just bring back ruttin’ Firefly!

  • http://www.facebook.com/margaret.blum Margaret Blum

    Gone are the days of Farscape and Firefly. This POS is definitely NOT either one of those.

  • http://twitter.com/Pitchy Pitchy

    The only revolution should be in the upper echelon of SyFy’s executives. They should be taken to an island and forced to fight to the death. Every executive at SyFy should be fired as they have no idea how to run the station now. It’s just a left over flap for stuff that doesn’t have times slots on NBC and USA.

  • http://www.facebook.com/GuyverRyu Jason Gonzales

    Ya’ll weren’t paying too much attention. It’s not going to be ON Syfy, it’s going to be on NBC. Yes, I know, Syfy is owned by NBC, but since they’ve filled that up with a bunch of reality crap and wrasslin, I guess they need to put it somewhere, so hey, why not actual network television where everyone can watch it for at least half a season before they cancel it. At least they’ll do it before we really get hooked in case it gets good. That’s FOX’s spiel. Either way, bleah. Space opera or nothing is my opinion.

  • Echelon

    Now I’m not sure, could you say they are ripping off “Dies the Fire” with tech suddenly stopping, or is this actually tied to that book and/or series in some way? Is the idea copyrighted? Or is this something where as long as they get nowhere near the story or characters in the book, they can use the ” no-tech” idea?

    • http://www.facebook.com/eric.kammerud Eric Kammerud

      Even the picture above is an almost identical representation of the main Portalnd Public Library. Yes we can safely say it is a heavy rip-off of Dies the Fire.

      Agree that this series needs a better treatment.

  • UnRiel

    Rip-off of Steven R Boyett’s Ariel/Elegy Beach books/world except tech is replaced by magic.

  • The Angry Jew

    Well, its nice to see that dusters will survive

  • Repo Man

    Wow. A future where they are fighting with weapons from the Iron Age. That’s sounds like cutting edge Sci-Fi. No, wait, I’m sorry…where is the actual Sci-Fi? That they wear leather boot, dirty coats, and shoot arrows? Or that they endlessly talk about how this future world should be Sci-Fi but are oppressed by the dystopian society that hordes all the Sci-Fi, and the goal of the rag-tag group with bow-and arrows is to make such tech available to all the people? There, I just gave you the first season of the show. And I’m drunk and not even getting paid. If any half-brained TV-types wanted to do a real Sci-Fi rebel-against-oppressive-government show — they’d re-brand “Blakes 7.”

  • kneesus

    Such a ripoff of “Dies the Fire”, in the book it’s called “The Change” which makes everything electrical stop working, you can’t even generate electricity, things that used to build pressure now do it but very slowly, so guns and engines don’t work. Very good series of books, sad to see they ripped it off and refer to “The Change” as “The Event”. The book is very well written and entertaining.