Don't quote me on this, but I'm pretty sure being dead makes insurrections a tad difficult.

[taste_is_sweet]

Say you want a Revolution, one that decimates civilization as we know it but without the pesky piles of corpses or shambling dead. How would you do it, if you were, for example, a television producer with perhaps more enthusiasm than interest in logic or scientific accuracy?

(Please be advised that below are spoilers for the pilot episode of The Walking Dead and the Big Reason for the lack of electricity on Revolution.)

Why, you'd create a action/adventure/drama/wholesale carnage series with the premise that once upon a time 15 years or so before the action starts, some science people did the usual Well Meant but Very Bad Sciencey things (because reasons) and created wee little nanobots with the sole purpose of eating electricity and reproducing themselves.

"You'll be cool if I leave you here for a few weeks. Right, buddy?"

I'll let you think about the inherent problem of that while I chew on (ha!) that other show where civilization's been decimated, this time by The Walking Dead. (See what I did there?) This show bothers me for many reasons, not least of which is how animated corpses could rot so damn slowly in a warm climate. But the thing that bugs me the most is how our hero, Rick, misses the chaos of the outbreak because he's in a coma.

This isn't the first time this trope has been used (I know it was part of the premise for 28 Days Later), but it still makes me crazy. Being in a coma ≠ being in suspended animation. Being left unattended in a coma for weeks = certain and rapid death. It only takes three days to die of dehydration, regardless of how inactive your brain might be at the time. Not to mention infections, edema, starvation--if you even last that long--and blood clots.

Needless to say, when the entire premise of a show makes me crazy, I'm not going to be a big fan. And few shows make me crazier than Revolution.

No matter how badass everyone looks with the old-timey weapons.

Remember those nanobots that eat electricity? Well, they were designed to eat all electricity. Everywhere. And it's been mentioned many times that the nanobots are inside everyone's bodies, too.

The thing is, human brains need electricity to function Hell, as far as I can understand it, so does all life on Earth. Electricity-absorbing nanobots wouldn't just kill our smart phones, they would kill everything. Our planet would be a static-free, sterile ball of dirt.

If I had to choose, I'd rather have a ball of dirt covered with lurching cadavers and the desperate remnants of humanity. But really, I'd rather sleep through both of them. ;)

(Pictures courtesy of Screencapped.net and Google Images.)

Comments

[iadorespike]

Thanks for the link to Revolution because I'd never even heard of it. Yes, I'm on top of things...sure. LOL Anyway, I see it's actually the second season. Huh. Doesn't sound like a world I'd want to live in, that's the truth. And the lack of decay on The Walking Dead is quite frankly puzzling. Also, (my husband watched this for a while) at first it seemed you had to be infected, and then it turned out that everyone was infected? Even my husband was totally over it at that point. I'm all for sleeping through it...or reading fanfic! Fanfic FTW! *snicker*

[taste-is-sweet.livejournal.com]

I don't think I would've heard of it, if my wonderful husband didn't watch a lot of television, and read Entertainment Weekly magazine. :) The premise seemed interesting initially, but when it turned out that the lack of electricity wasn't caused by massive solar flares or nuclear war or some such, I got a sinking feeling that it would be too implausible for me to buy. Turned out I was right.

Yeah, with TWD, everyone is infected now, so being bitten or not bitten only changes the amount of pain and suffering. At least you can ostensibly live a long and happy life before croaking and then having to be shot through the head. I'm sure that in the coming centuries people will have no idea where the quaint custom of staking the newly dead person through the eye came from.

Personally, I just hate the violence and gore of TWD, not to mention the lack of agency among the female characters and the rather appalling story lines for any people of color.

Of course, even if I loved everything else about it, the illogic of the zombies really annoys me. If they're dead enough to rot, how do they eat? Do they breathe? Though if the virus is moving the bodies, then they'd have to breathe and eat, because otherwise the body would have no energy with which to move. Well, they do eat--ostensibly--but then why are they rotting? And what does it take for the damn things to finally rot enough to no longer be a threat? It's been at least a year, right? Most bodies above ground would have at least exploded and fallen apart after a year, even if there were no animals to tear the corpse apart.

And how can you only be infected by a bite? If it's a virus, then any contamination would be potentially zombifying, yet the heroes get splattered with zombie bits all the time. It just bugs me. :)

Dumb-da-dumb-dumb

[brumeier.livejournal.com]

I wasn't able to get into Revolution, though my hubby enjoys it. It just didn't move me. I preferred Jericho for end-of-civilization-as-we-know-it. I agree that the nanobot thing wasn't very well thought out.

As far as Walking Dead goes, your harsh words have now put you on my hubby's list. And not the good one. LOL! Not a huge fan of zombies myself, but I have to agree about the coma thing. That seems silly. Hubby said he was hooked up to an IV, but was it an everlasting, bottomless IV?

I'm sure House would have a few things to say about that. ::grins::

As always, I find your rants smart yet hilarious. Ha!

Re: Dumb-da-dumb-dumb

[taste-is-sweet.livejournal.com]

And as usual, I love the fact that you read and comment. :D

I'm sorry that my truth and wisdom has put me on your husband's shit list, but seriously--there is no such thing as a bottomless IV (as you pointed out), and as far as I understood it, Rick was left by himself for several days, if not weeks, given the state of things when he finally woke up. There is simply no way he could have survived that without someone looking in on him and freshening his IV and (urk) changing out his catheter and such.

Not to mention that after that long in bed Rick would likely not even be able to walk, let alone bike, run and crawl under tanks. :) Poor guy.