Game 7 of the First Round of the Entertained Organizer New Network TV Show Tournament has ABC's modern retelling of The Count of Monte Cristo in the Hamptons, Revenge, squaring off against Fox's sci-fi dinosaur epic Terra Nova.
Revenge tells the story of Emily Thorne as she gets vengeance on those responsible for framing her father for treason. I went into this show expecting not to like it, after all it is accurately described as "The Count of Monte Cristo in the Hamptons." But it was actually fun. Oh don't get me wrong, the show is ridiculous and over the top, Thorne's revenge in the first episode is exacted by stealing a waitresses uniform so she can poison a man's soup so that his wife will become suspicious that he's having an affair and socially ostracize her true target, the woman he's having an affair with (why she couldn't have just poisoned the woman directly when she had the chance I don't know). As long as the show keeps that level of Rube Goldberg-esque insane planning and melodramatic voiceover, I could certainly see Revenge being a guilty pleasure show.
Terra Nova has dinosaurs and time travel, and that's going to be a deal breaker for some viewers. Fortunately I'm not one of those viewers, and will confess that pretty much any so called 'genre' show will usually get more than it's fair chance from me (shocking I know from a guy who writes a weekly column about obscure comic book villains). That said, Fox clearly wants this show to be a hit, spending a fortune on both the show itself (shot on location in Australia) and an advertising blitz. And they may just have gotten their moneys worth. Having completely devastated our world with pollution, future humanity sees it's only hope for survival by traveling back in time 65 million years to a pristine Earth populated by dinosaurs as really looking as you'd expect for a show with Steven Spielberg as a producer. Beyond the draw of dinosaurs and absolutely gorgeous scenery, Terra Nova provides a lot of avenues for potential storyline's from a group of rebelious teenagers, a conspiracy going on about the colonies true purpose, cop drama, rival splinter colonies, and a family struggling to hold it together. I'm more interested in some of those than others, but none prove to be a drag on show. The show could of course spiral horribly out of control with all that going on or simply be too expensive to justify it's continued existence, but if it manages to keep that careful balance it could be something special.
BECAUSE THERE SHOULD BE MORE TIME TRAVEL AND DINOSAURS ON TV,
THE WINNER OF GAME 7 IS:
TERRA NOVA
 |
| Click for larger version. |
No comments:
Post a Comment