I'm wondering if this is going to be a good show. Even though Noah Wylie played an Indy type hero in those "Librarian" shows, we'll see if he can carry this.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
I think this show has cancelled written all over it. It looks way too expensive to make it to a second series.
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
I caught the second hour. Doesn't really have anything that grabs me.
Posted by WizArtist II (Member # 1425) on :
I kind of agree with Rev and MNW, I just got through watching it start to finish and there is not one single character that I could care less about. I probably will watch the next episode to see if it improves but beyond that, I won't give it more chances.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
Don't get me wrong, I do like what I've seen so far (Will Patton alone is usually worth watching regardless) and it has the potential to go either way. However, in the past, shows that have involved this kind of constant location shooting have been done in by a combination of shooting costs and mediocre viewing figures. Earth 2 springs to mind, as does Jeremiah, Jerico and I think Dark Angel (never watched that one so I'm not 100% sure.) Lost managed to get away with it because it managed to become a huge phenomenon and drew in a lot of advertising revenue. Even still I'm fairly certain the last two seasons had to take a bit of a budget cut.
Given that my expectations were fairly low to begin with, it's probably not saying much to say it was better than expected. But bottom line; I don't expect it to be around very long.
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
And there's something tired about the show, like the actors don't really care. That just pulls me out of the story. There's no sense of urgency or dread.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
^I think that's pretty much a given with any post-apocalyptic or occupation/resistance type war story and this is both, so it's obviously a double dose.
As for urgency, well most of the really bad stuff has already happened and I think that's for the good. I mean would we really have wanted a retread of 'V'?
I liked that they're actually bothering to question what the aliens are about and the anatomical inconsistencies between the skitters and the mechs are a nice touch. Not much of a mystery though since anyone who's familiar with sci-fi can make a pretty good guess that neither are the actual bad guys but what's left of some other races they've already conquered. Hence the children in the control harnesses.
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
I don't mean that I wanted to see the invasion. I just want the sense that the Mass. 2nd and presumably other resistant fighters are in dire straits. I didn't get that feeling.
Posted by WizArtist II (Member # 1425) on :
Yeah, the whole "Let's march in the open with a couple hundred whining civilians completely in view of the DARK TOWER" kind of irked me. I have the feeling the harnessed are going to be Mech-drivers like those that ended up in the shadow-ships of B5.
I think the thing that probably turned me off the most is that Noah's youngest sun with his Bieber haircut whining about how he wants a party and everything like it was.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
I think there was a line in there somewhere that explained that the aliens were now targeting groups of three hundred and bigger (or was it six?) Given their level of technology, I don't think day or night makes any difference and it's fair to say that these resistance fighters aren't the only people moving in large groups. There's likely a massive number of refugees constantly on the move so they're starting with the larger groups first and whittling them down.
As they said, all the world's military forces have been wiped out and the motherships have left, leaving only garrisons behind. So it's a fair bet that as far as the aliens see it, the war is over and this is just a mop-up operation. There was also talk of orders to stick to small arms only so as not to draw undue attention (as we saw at the start of the first episode.)
As for the mechs. My impression was that they're unmanned robots. They look too small to fit a skitter inside and if there was something other than one of them inside I'm sure someone would have noticed by now.
I'm thinking the invaders are a bit like the Combine from Half-Life 2. An empire that invades worlds and makes use of it's assets, bio-logical and otherwise. That means they can adapt the local species to serve their needs, even turn them into fighters for they next invasion. That's why I think the mech and skitters look different and why they're harnessing children and rounding them up.