Revolution

This is well-produced, but it could just as well be Mission:Colonial. [1 Oct 2012, p.38]

On the bright side, no one is in danger of having to watch this inert action show.

It's not quite so bad that you lose all hope, some of the images and performances are memorable, and it's not inconceivable that future episodes could pique my interest again. But for now I'd put it in the "wait and see" column, without enthusiasm.

A cool premise can only take a show so far, and there's some work to do on the character front to make the show worthy of using all available technology not to miss.

Ambitious setups like this don't always hold up, but Revolution has the potential to be a more disciplined "Lost"--not necessarily more plausible but with any luck less preposterous and pretentious.

Revolution is just all right, no better, no worse.

As a professionally discerning adult, I could not help but notice that the characters are fairly stock, the situations familiar and, some nifty digital backgrounds notwithstanding, the production continually felt more like an elaborate game of let's pretend than it did a window into some real other world. I didn't buy a second of it.

Revolution is big, bold and brassy adventure, a cowboys-and-Indians story for end times.

While I'm intrigued, I'd prefer to be carrying something stronger than a candle before I head too far down this particular rabbit hole.

The pilot is a pretty solid hour of television, setting up the show's premise and in several instances defying TV norms with plot twists viewers won't see coming.

Revolution takes a high-stakes, specific premise--the end of the world through a total collapse of technology--and makes it as dull and generic as possible.

The pilot of Revolution comes across better than either of the aforementioned shows [FlashForward and The Event], but there are still too many forgettable characters, stock scenes and flat patches of dialogue.

There are worse ideas. And far worse shows this fall.

The pilot, directed by co--executive producer Jon Favreau ("Iron Man"), poses numerous questions, and to the credit of everyone involved, delivers some surprising payoffs that other shows would hold for weeks, if not seasons.

Though Esposito and Burke are both excellent--and Kripke and Favreau stage a classic swashbuckling swordfight for Miles that's easily the highlight of the first hour--far too much time is spent on the boring (Charlie) or annoying (Danny) teenagers.

It relies less on mystery and more on physical action, like a video game-style scene where Miles, Charlie and their small band wipe out what looks like about a hundred bad guys.

If you loved Spielberg's "Terra Nova," you'll love Revolution.

While this is a lot of plot to deliver in one episode, Revolution manages it efficiently. But still, it doesn't feel very special.

It's worth giving Revolution a shot for its surprising imagery (wait till you see what's become of the Gateway Arch in an early scene), strong adult characters and fascinating possibilities.

The less you think about Revolution the more apt you are to like it.

There's an almost overwhelming been-there-seen-that feel to the pilot, which doesn't really offer any suggestion of "well, you haven't seen this."

If you like dark action-adventure with a deep mythology, you may enjoy this suspenseful hour, intended to perplex as it entertains. For some viewers, however, the questions will get in the way.

Yes, Revolution is a good adventure yarn, but the other reason we're likely to watch future episodes is that it grounds the action in thought-provoking themes.

It's already clear, however, that the writing can be a bit corny, the action sequences a tad ridiculous and the plot prone to nit-picking.

For every arresting image, there's a lot of wandering around in the overgrown woods, and reason for skepticism as to whether audiences will patiently stick with the show.

If the quality of this one, so irresistible in its vitality and suspense, does fail to hold up, its creators will have delivered, at the least, one remarkably fine hour.

The mind reels with possibility, and even hope, which is why we keep coming back to stories like these.

You get sort of an odd, been-there-done-that feeling when watching the pilot, which contains, to varying degrees, traces of "The Hunger Games," "The Walking Dead," "FlashForward," "Jericho," "Lost" (Elizabeth Mitchell is in the cast) and other dystopian fare.

The clash between the callow and the compelling set off an ongoing debate between the hopeful part of my brain, which wants to like a sci-fi-ish show dreamed up by executive producers J.J. Abrams and Eric Kripke, and the scarred part of my brain, which has been burned dozens of times by genre-flavoroed shows that had interesting elements or cast members but also disappointing executions and annoying younger characters.

Revolution, which has the overall look and feel of a big budget feature, delivers some consistently terrific action scenes.