The Televangelists: An Apocalypse You Can Believe In

Last updated on: October 4, 2012 at 8:29 pm by Jason Morehead

The Televangelists: An Apocalypse You Can Believe In 2012-10-04T20:29:45-06:00 Jason Morehead

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Each Friday in The Televangelists, one of our writers examines the met and missed potential of television.

Last week, Slate‘s Torie Bosch posted a rather unorthodox critique of NBC’s new sci-fi series, Revolution. She didn’t seem to actively dislike the show, but something about it bugged her… the fact that the women in the show’s post-apocalyptic society still had perfect hair.

The daughter of Revolution, Charlie (played by Tracy Spiridakos), wears carefully tousled waves with a hint of highlights. (OK, her character spends time in the sun, but come on.) Her Revolution hair doesn’t seem all that different from the glamour shot on her IMDB profile. And in the pilot, it is always loose, falling prettily over her shoulders, in the go-to style for post-apocalyptic TV shows and films. But if you’re hunting with a bow (or fighting with a sword), would you really want to risk the wind blowing strands in front of your eyes or getting tangled up in your equipment? At least Katniss kept her locks secured in that trademark braid.

Another Revolution character, Maggie, boasts the kind of springy curls that, in the wild, are usually found only on young children. Most of us with curly hair have to engage in lengthy morning rituals to look so presentable. Maggie, who apparently disappears from the show after a couple of episodes, certainly doesn’t have a diffuser. She probably doesn’t have a good deep conditioner, gel, or a microfiber towel, either. Just one female character we’re introduced to in the pilot — Grace, played by Maria Howell — wears her hair very short, close to the scalp. So where’s the frizz? The Road-s tyle grime?

It is, as Bosch admits, “an utterly petty complaint”. And yet, I had my own issues with the series’ pilot episode, which aired on Hulu last week. Revolution is set 15 years after a mysterious event shut down the world’s electricity. Survivors now live in small, agrarian communities watched over by roving bands of militia. One man holds the key to potentially rebooting the world, but when he’s killed — don’t worry, that’s not a spoiler if you’ve seen any trailers for the show — it’s up to his children to protect that key from those who would use it for selfish reasons.

Produced by J.J. Abrams (Lost, Fringe) and Jon Favreau (Iron Man), Revolution is a well-made show with a concept that has potential — and room for lots of mysteries. (J.J. Abrams is involved, after all.) And yet, I found myself constantly taken out of the series’ post-apocalyptic setting. Perhaps it was the too-perfect little towns, which looked almost Rockwell-ish, or the fact that somehow people still managed to get their white shirts perfectly pressed and cleaned, or that characters spoke and dressed in a sort of colloquial western manner akin to something you’d find in a Firefly episode, or that soldiers were shooting honest-to-goodness muzzle-loading rifles. What, are 9MM pistols, shotguns, and semi-automatic rifles in short supply after the blackout?

These may seem like petty issues, but the devil’s in the details, as it were. Indeed, the bigger the scope, the more the little details matter, because they are what help the world to tick. They’re what make the world believable, that help it ring with truth. This is especially important with the post-apocalyptic genre, because it’s so well-suited to asking poignant questions about humanity. How do humans react when pushed to the edge of existence, when everything is taken away from them? Do they devolve into “survival of the fittest” mode, or do they rise above, and still exhibit love, mercy, and grace? These are powerful questions, and they require high stakes to ask them effectively, stakes that require truth in the details more than perfect hair or clean shirts.

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