:smack: I never even thought of On Demand! I rarely use it, so I didn’t even think about it.
I’ve never seen the show. But I did get amusement from it. Or, at least, from the blog posts saying that it was canceled because it was PC and America-bashing.
I love post-apocalypse movies and books and was really excited about the show. I don’t think I made it through the first season. I thought it was unrealistic and soapy, and I wasn’t confident that the writers knew where they were going. Sorta like Lost. 
I’m curious. You guys who stuck with it – do you think how it ended was what the writers intended from the beginning, or do you think the writers changed direction (for whatever reason)? Do you think if they’d revealed the conspiracy earlier, more viewers would have stuck around to see how it all shook out?
There’s a generalization that the farther away an American was from New York City, the longer it has taken them to get on with their lives after 9/11. I live in New York City, and although the first couple months were rough on us, we weren’t afraid to go about our lives (the exception being my landlord, who won’t let his family go to Manhattan just incase there’s another terrorist attack that day) and were one of the first cities to start up with ANTI-war protests. Meanwhile, people halfway across the country continue to support Bush and his party and these wars that are supposed to be killing off the world’s Muslim population and from what I’ve heard, continue to cry every day over the 9/11 attack. I didn’t think they would be able to handle having a show about another, far worse, successful terrorist attack, especially when it focuses on THEM being the direct victims. I’m actually curious about how many Kansas watchers this show got.
I wouldn’t call it America-bashing. There are companies like Haliburton and Blackwater that play a prominent sinister role, and it comments about how intertwined with government they are. (Edit: I don’t mean the actual companies Haliburton and Blackwater, but it’s pretty clear that’s what they represent - or close enough.)
There was definitely a fairly abrupt change in the last third of the season. The first 2 thirds of the season were constantly breaking into Very Special Apocalypse soap opera moments that were painful to sit through. The show was also way too clean and light for a post-apocalyptic show.
When it changed, it didn’t become perfect, but it went from pretty bad to pretty decent. The soap opera stuff was cut down about 80%, it became a bit grittier, and started focusing on the post-apocalyptic related stuff, rather than the family drama that just happened to be during the apocalypse stuff.
I’m not sure if the writers originally intended it that way, and CBS made them focus on the crappy stuff, or if the writers wanted to do the crappy stuff and CBS stepped in and said it wasn’t working.
I think people got a thrill out of being victims. I’m not quite sure what the psychology behind that is, but there’s a lot of recreational self-victimization in our society. People love that shit. Let’s build monuments to 9/11 in every city and stop by them and cry every day so we can relive that wonderful victimization!
:rolleyes:
I think Cafe Society is the wrong place to be posting that sort of political rant. I know I don’t come to this particular forum to read that sort of political rant.
I’m not trying to have a debate here. I was just commenting that I was surprised a show like this made it on the air at all, considering how sensitive some folk in this country are about such matters (i.e. every terrorist organization in the world teaming up to blow us up)
You nailed the reason I mentioned in the OP why this was not a particular favorite show of mine, although I do admit I have seen all the episodes - granted, sometimes only after noticing that I had six still on my DVR and finally got around to seeing them.
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I think the pitch to the network was, “America is attacked and nuked - what happens next?” The network bought it and off they went on writing scripts.
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No, I don’t think they had a “real” ending in mind when they started writing it.
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The conspiracy story sort of sucked. I personally was hoping for some real threat from some less-than-obvious place…I think it would have been more interesting if all of Europe and Australia and Japan got together and decided the US was the biggest threat to the world (global warming and international politics) and THEY bombed us…and after the attack, the US suddenly find China, Korea, Iran and Russia are suddenly their biggest allies. Then it would have been fun to see if the people would revolt and fight with the “new enemies” or go with the “new allies”?
To be quite honest, I am sort of glad the show is ending - I doubt I would have kept watching with this turning into a new version of a Civil War in the US. Plus, I started to care less and less about the main characters.
Still, in for the penny, in for the pound - eager to see how they wrap this up.
I am quite sure of that. But your comment was a politically loaded and politically slanted one that you should know that many people will disagree with. And you also know that we aren’t ALLOWED to debate it here, so dumping it here is a bit smarmy.
Well, I’m saddened, but not really surprised. Apparently, they tried to make everyone happy and ended up losing viewers for it. Like fusoya, I liked the soapy, survivalist stuff of the first season, especially the New Bern storyline. I would’ve much preferred Jericho banding together with other neighboring town against a common threat and building a new civilization that way, rather than the abrupt change of focus of an outside government coming in and settling things. I was happy to see a second season, and I enjoyed it, but it became a very different show. I’m glad at least the decision came in time to run the series finale version of the season finale.
That’s not the stuff we’re referring to. The stuff in the first season about New Bern running out of resources and planning an attack is exactly the sort of thing the show should’ve been about in the first place.
The soap opera stuff was like how they spent a lot of time on Mayor’s Son Whatshisface’s marriage breaking up for example.
I don’t think the writers planned this turn of events at all. They seem to have just flailed around looking for an angle on the story.
I think if they’d had a somewhat coherent approach to the story from the beginning, more people would have watched and kept watching, regardless of whether it was rebels against the evil new government, or surviving without infrastructure after a nuclear attack. Some research and a few minutes spent thinking about how real human beings might react to such situations wouldn’t have hurt either.
Honestly, I tuned in for the concept, found the show to be unbelievably bad, but in a way that was entertaining, and more recently found it to be improved, and watchable without MST3King it, but not anything thrilling.
Yeah, I liked that stuff too, which is what I was trying to say. Eric and April’s marriage troubles, Dale and Skyler’s journey from hatred to romance. Mimi and Stanley’s similar journey. The Roger/April/Jake/Heather love-quadrangle… etc…
Maybe I’m a closet soap opera junkie. Real soaps are unwatchable, but give it even the smallest sci-fi-ish twist in the backdrop and I’ll eat it up.
Well, I’m guessing for every one of you, there were 20 people who said “why are we having some generic family drama here? there’s an apocalypse out there! get to it!” which is why the ratings dropped.
I think one of the problems with the show is that people were expecting a “Mad Max” or “Living Dead” type of show, instead, they got “The Young and the Radioactive”
the Cornfield episode was my “Jumped the Shark” point as well, and the lack of Radioactive Zombies was irritating
More like “Touched By Radioactivity”…