Chuckro found an old tape of Nickelodeon's The Tomorrow People from the early 90's when we were visiting his folks over the weekend. We watched the pilot, which was half decent and also had a bunch of amusingly retro commercials, a few days ago. Since I needed to do some ironing last night, we decided to watch the next miniseries (about five episodes in total for the story arc).
Wow. That sucked. Seriously. By the end of episode three, Emily (the aforementioned houseguest) and I were begging for the next episode to be the last one. It wasn't. The entire thing was what Ebert calls an Idiot Plot - the plot only works if every one is an idiot. If they talked to each other or behaved logically, the entire thing would have been over in less than two episodes. Also, every adult in the series is evil and totally crazy, unless they're a parent, in which case they're just incompetent. I mean, I understand that in a kids' show you have to make it so the adults can't help the kids and the kids have to solve their own problems. But that can be done without making supposedly capable adults totally clueless. Like one father, who's supposed to be this high powered scientist general espionage guy. Who holds a top secret briefing in a room full of windows, and totally ignores the window washer dressed like a painter who sticks a two inch bug in the center of the window and is sitting there with a visible headset and a tape recorder in the bucket, wiping the window with a dry sponge. And then when someone finally notices her, they chase her through the heart of intelligence headquarters, where she gets away by hiding behind a potted fern. Wow. Impressive security there.
In short - we had hoped to discover that we had been clever children who had enjoyed a tv show of quality. We were wrong. Oh so wrong.
Wow. That sucked. Seriously. By the end of episode three, Emily (the aforementioned houseguest) and I were begging for the next episode to be the last one. It wasn't. The entire thing was what Ebert calls an Idiot Plot - the plot only works if every one is an idiot. If they talked to each other or behaved logically, the entire thing would have been over in less than two episodes. Also, every adult in the series is evil and totally crazy, unless they're a parent, in which case they're just incompetent. I mean, I understand that in a kids' show you have to make it so the adults can't help the kids and the kids have to solve their own problems. But that can be done without making supposedly capable adults totally clueless. Like one father, who's supposed to be this high powered scientist general espionage guy. Who holds a top secret briefing in a room full of windows, and totally ignores the window washer dressed like a painter who sticks a two inch bug in the center of the window and is sitting there with a visible headset and a tape recorder in the bucket, wiping the window with a dry sponge. And then when someone finally notices her, they chase her through the heart of intelligence headquarters, where she gets away by hiding behind a potted fern. Wow. Impressive security there.
In short - we had hoped to discover that we had been clever children who had enjoyed a tv show of quality. We were wrong. Oh so wrong.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-04 02:16 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2006-04-04 02:20 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2006-04-04 03:04 pm (UTC)From:At least this makes it easier to convince you to watch The Flash with me.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-04 03:08 pm (UTC)From:I'll watch the Flash with you, I'm just not going to refrain making fun of it if the rest is as bad as the Mark Hammill episode. I'm sorry, sweetie.