A good show overall. The first 10 episodes are pretty average, but the last 10 episodes are really great and much much better than the first half.
And with the second season being confirmed, I would highly advise to see it.

I honestly, really don't know what to do with this show. They keep hitting us with plot twists and MIND-BLOWING storylines that make you yell out "Oh My God that did not just happen" at each ending of a weekly episode. It's storyline is rich, it's pinch of sense of humor is a charm, and I believe the acting could be better by Elizabeth, Tracy, Zak. Well because you never get through a scene without seeing Elizabeth crying. You never get through a scene where Zak doesn't have that "what on earth is going on?" look. And Tracy is just so ambitious which is one day going to make her fans hate her, however I really praise Billy Burke. Hands down, best NEW show of the season.… Expand

Keep watching--it gets much better.

The first half of the season for this initially promising-sounding series was, in a word, terrible. It basically had two modes--maudlin or implausible. I almost gave up on it many times, but there were hints of something lurking under all the melodrama and triteness that kept me hanging on, hoping.

Then... after the mid-season hiatus, it finally started to get its legs. It took a while--they had to kill off some characters, retool the story arc, start to concentrate on the more interesting elements while reducing the eye rolling silliness (not all gone yet, sadly, but getting there).

With the last 5 or 6 episodes its started to realize some of its potential. It's been pared down to a very violent, action packed dystopian science fiction drama that, yeah, still can't quite get past relying on silly things to move the plot along. But the bones are there--an America carved into warring territories using 19th century tech, mysterious nano-bots, rail guns, power pendents, secret military bases. And happily, a finale that implies they're switching things up--alliances have shifted, goals have changed, and a nice WTF moment at the tail end. It should be very interesting to see where it goes.

I'm glad I held on.

PS Neville's comment to Monroe about me fall off my chair. I took that as a sign the writers are having fun and getting comfortable with the characters and material. I'm hopeful that means things will only get better.… Expand

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. This seems to be a show that most people love to hate. A post-apocalyptic drama is always fascinating. This one could be great if it had great (or even decent) writers; we could even overlook the beyond bad acting if that were the case. Every episode has 1-3 attempts to kill Monroe, Miles, Rachel, and sometimes all 3 of them. It's become a running joke....do you think they'll get killed?...with the usual episodic cliffhanger until next week. They always survive. If they're not going to kill them off, and the viewers know that, it's basically a rigamarole to watch the attempts over and over, so...why not explore some storylines that don't involve trying to kill them every episode? Monroe is responsible for torturing and murdering millions of people....so why's it hard for the "good guys" to kill him? And, the rebels have had the opportunity to kill Randall, who's responsible for the deaths of around 6 billion people. But, they ran off every time and let him live....so he and Monroe can come back to try to kill them again. In the season finale, Randall goes to commit suicide, Rachel screams...No! For what purpose, to save him so he can kill another million people? And, what's the deal with Miles and Monroe? They seemed to be alluding to a homosexual love relationship in the season finale, but that's alot braver storyline than the show's writers would be willing to do. But, most of us are still drawn to the show like moths to the flame and will keep on watching.… Expand

I Generally think this show is brilliant.

Great idea & much more to come.

1 main point is that it is a very open idea for a show which may lead to all sorts of outcomes.

Graphics of this show are amazing aswell

Great story line, show, and characters. It brings happiness to an otherwise dreadful Monday. It's a great action show and a show that NBC was in need of.

This is just another example of crap network TV. I will give them credit for at least trying a show that is not another COP show that has the same story and result every episode OR another piece of junk reality show. BUT thats where I will end my positive comments. How the hell do these people look so damn clean without having power and running water. None of the main characters will ever be killed. Everything is so damn predictable. I really think cable channels are the last place to go for real entertaining TV series. Shows like LOST just wont happen anymore. Thank god for HBO, Showtime, AMC, FX etc. NETWORK TV IS DONE.… Expand

Overall the show is solid. Many of the criticisms regarding the main cast are harsh but not completely unfounded. Often times it takes the cast more than one season do develop the strong onscreen chemistry, like The X-Files. Points lost for the useless story line that centered around Danny and because I feel the writers pushed toward getting the power back too early in the story line. It leads me to believe that they did not have faith in the show beyond 1 season.… Expand

This show deserves but two words: Boring and uninspired. If you watched the first 2 episodes, end your experience there... it gets so stupid and boring after the pilot, worse than any other show I have ever seen.

Heres a glimpse of a scene in revolution: Two guys sword fighting going after each others throats. Eventually, one of them losses their sword! Oh my! Then, the guy with the sword holds it up to his enemy's neck and tells him why he is going to kill him. Then, the guy in trouble steals the sword and holds it to his enemy's neck and tells him he is going to kill him. Eventually they both get their swords back and go for each others throats again... So instead of just killing each other, they just basically dance with swords.

Save yourself... This show is utterly and completely pointless.… Expand

Stunningly bad, considering Eric Kripke is at the helm. I don't have the words to describe how poorly written Revolution is. And the acting? Burke and Esposito are doing what they can with terrible material, but Spiridakos is like a robot an annoying little pouting robot. I gave it most of a season before weighing in, to see if it found itself along the way. But it is as bad as ever sixteen episodes in. What a shame. I really wanted to like this show.… Expand

One of the terrible TV series lead actress is so mediocre and make her self look like a zombie.Effects and fights are so primitive. Also so the story is lame.

Really wanted to like this show, but I can't. Bad acting and awful dialog is a bad combination. Add in some fairly generically cheesy action scenes and the whole thing is painful to watch. I guess since the lead has really pretty eyes we are supposed to forgive the drivel coming out of her mouth?

Everyone in this show looks like they just stepped out of a mail order catalog. How is that possible if there is no power and no modern machinery? In 15 years not one person got a rip or tear in a piece of clothing? Nobody had a hole in their shoes? Ever? Not one person is wearing anything that looks home made.

Where did all the swords come from? Blacksmithing is a fairly rare profession in 21st century America. Someone managed to setup a forge and make beautiful swords? Where is the steel coming from? Who is teaching all these people to fight with swords? Swords were always the weapon of the aristocracy. They are expensive and difficult to make, and learning to fight with one takes a lot of time and effort. Spears and makeshift pole-arms would be much more common weapons. They are much easier to make, and much, much, much easier to learn to defend yourself with.

Even if there is no electricity why are there no internal combustion engines? Ok, gasoline is a problem in the long term, but if 99+% of the devices using gasoline are out of commission the existing supply should last a little while. There are plenty of pieces lying around that someone should be able to cobble together a few working automobiles for any community.

Even if you are going to wave your magic plot-device wand and say internal combustion engines don't work for some reason, you want me to believe not one person has managed to build a working steam engine? A boiler and some moving parts is somehow rendered impossible by whatever catastrophe happened?

Too many problems with this show, and not one thing I can think of to keep me watching. Sad effort by everyone involved.… Expand

I naively hoped for something reminiscent of a Joss Whedon romp. Instead I got watered down cliches delivered by a heroine with a limited range of facial expressions: Determined and angry, determined and frightened, determined and plucky. I gave it three episodes before I couldn't stomach the twaddle anymore. I should have known it would be bad just from the preview clip of our not-so-fascinating heroine whining "Because we're family!" Family safe, maybe. If your granny and your eight year-old church-going precious need something to watch, this show is probably it. For the rest of us, best to go on hoping Joss Whedon gets another series soon.… Expand

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. La idea posapocaliptica esta trillada hoy por hoy, si a esto sumamos guiones flojos si es que no improvisan) decorados inexistentes siempre en el bosque) y malas actuaciones ,con actores que no transmiten en absoluto la desesperacion que deberia significar vivir al filo de la navaja entre mercenarios y bandidos nos encontramos con la peor serie creada en el ultimo año. Vestuario de zara en un mundo que por 15 años no ha tenido electricidad, acompañados de espadas al estilo epoca feudal,,,,,
En fin HORRIBLE… Expand

One of the most gripping American TV shows in Britain. But I really struggle with the characters, due to the shifts in different character plots. But overall the show is brilliant. Definitely worth watching.

I am in the uk and have been watching this series on sky, I was looking forward to this excellent story idea !
but i couldn't believe how terrible the realisation is. The acting, plot, dialogue and characters are amateur and bewildering this is drivel better to listen to a podcast with a dystopian theme.

Viewed Episodes 1-4 and Revolution is going to have to do more to get a second season. In a post-electric society members of the Matheson family wonder around America beating up people as they try and find their kidnapped brother. Revolution suffers from the same 'boring' old characters' as many series. You have the weak asthma ridden bother who needs his big sister, the hard case fighter, the computer geek who can't say boo to a goose that it just get all a bit the same. The there are the errors, surely 3 people are more speedy than a group of men traveling with their captive. They never seem to be able to catch up but can find everyone else they need like sweeties in sweetshop. Not as good as Failing Skies (season 2) and I fear it will get the chop, very soon!… Expand

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Ok i have read many many many of the reviews that people have posted and i want you to think about this, you compare a gun to an engine, most engines are more than just simply controlled explosions unless you are talking about the first initial style of engines like steam, which if you would watch more than 1 or 2 episodes you would see they use and obviously work, they are not so simple. Modern day engines have computers controlling every function carefully regulating the impute and output and that aside you still need to generate a spark, and your battery gives you that initial spark and alternator keeps the power flowing without that you have nothing. Now look at a gun there is NOTHING electronic in it, a bullet contains a primer powder and bullet as simply as can be put, all guns operate on the same premise a hammer strikes a firing pin that strikes the primer and that ignites the powder. Nothing electronic at all.

As for the one militia controlling the entire united states, yet again if you would watch more than one episode you would see that there are many militias and the Monroe militia is only controlling part of the country.

"Physics went mad" that was not an explanation this was someone who didnt understand what went wrong and was trying to put some meaning to it. The more of the show you watch the more is revealed.

So please before you try and bash a show think about what you are saying and if you gave it a fair shake, one episode maybe two not enough shows have to develop, things that are said at the start that may not make sense to you, but later on you understand, without these plot developments there would be no buildup and without buildup and actual conflict and resolutions you cannot have a functioning form of entertainment… Expand

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. “The show started out amazing. Technology is gone, refrigerators, computers, cars with onboard computers, etc. The typical EM pulse effect. ------------

Then the show featured other technology not working, like anything without an integrated circuit such as just about any car before the mid sixties (roughly), older tube radios, and so on.----------

You figure out before the enormous break in programming between December and March that the whole crisis was manmade. What would affect things not normally taken out by a EM pulse, or maintain that effect I and many others I talked to were growing more and more curious. Not so much a scientific "Hmmm" but more of a "Ok, there had better be a good explanation for this!" And even in the story the computer geek even alludes to how the older technology SHOULD be working.----------

So in the meantime mankind spend their time civil war re-enacting. No seriously! The American taxpayer (and other countries) have spent trillions to stockpile the support for a military support for several hundred thousand soldiers, but apparently warehouses and warehouses full of military surplus is nothing compared to Civil War era tents and equipment.--------

Of course semi-automatic weapons are seen to be available. Even a Helicopter that they later get working. Some have theorized giving the soldiers black powder guns is to keep some of the better tech from falling into rebellion hands. That is plausible.--------

They got a train working. That was cool. In that episode they also showed a working printing press. To matter the fact they show a working town, and at the end of the train ride, a working train station. Later we see a family in a comfy house with candles. If they had really thought about it they would have had music playing on a record player that was purely mechanical.--------

And this part of the story I'm good with. LIFE WOULD GO ON WITHOUT ELECTRICITY. Peocomplain about new clothes, about the people looking like they are bathed but I believe fifteen years later commerce would resume. All we would need to do is go into a library (written published books on paper) and there is enormous information on how to do everyday life activities without electricity. Soap can be easily made, and textiles and sewing machines operated on steam or hand crank for a lot longer than they have with electricity.--------

And here is another thing, government collapsing is the wishful thinking of those that are deeply in debt. "Oh life sucks, but when the zombie apocalypse happens..." Not that simple. I saw the attitude at Y2K, and other times since. What do I believe? Government would find a way to operate. One thing is for sure, just like in colonial times they would start with the capital and work to get information out from there. Might take a while to get lines of communication open from the east to west coast, but it would happen.--------

What did we have before electricity and computers? Paper and manual typewriters. Would telegraph be tool complex in this crisis? Don't know. Failing that, pony express? Train? We have a railway system that feeds all of America and I know other countries have that as well.--------

The whole concept of no ships continuing commerce across the Atlantic is a crock. More ships could be built. There are plenty of blueprints on how to build sailing ships. Again, life would go on. You would have commerce, you would have business, and people trying to make a buck in whatever currency existed.-------

As you can see, I am fascinated by this show, but only gave this show a three? Yeh, sadly, I got tired of seeing the heroes LOOSE EVERY EPISODE. Billy Burk was the main saving throw in the Twilight Movies for me, and he is in this series as well. He knows what to do. The other characters counters what he knows he has to do, and I hate to say they have rarely been right.-------

With every episode I would say to my wife with less and less enthusiasm "let's see how the heroes loose tonight."-------

Then the show had their final episode in December. The bad guys, despite Burk's character ideas and every objection, got the medallion that negates the "B.S. Anti-Tech/Anti-Intelligence field". But we were given flashes that the good guys build this power too. But if both factions have the same power, aren't they back to where they were before? And the heroes were not doing too well before.-------

However, as a consolation prize, the brother was rescued.-------

Actually never mind, they came back in March, and the brother is killed. And the possible romantic interest for the blond also killed. AND SO THE HEROES CONTINUE TO LOOSE.-------

Ugg... and that is where my wife and I got off this train.--------

Someday I will do what I always do when I am curious about a movie or show but don't care to watch it. I'll read the spoilers on the internet later.… Expand

The comeback of the show was great and the episodes are getting better and bloodier, I think the show needs another great tv actor to attracts more viewers.Idea is fantastic and i just hope the show will be with us at least a few more years!

This show has me conflicted, I'm intrigued by the idea of a post apocalyptic world that doesn't require mass extinction or a nuclear wasteland. It allows for a less bleak setting away from the radioactive smog and roaming bands of cannibalistic marauders you expect from films like "Book of Eli". It allows for a more reasonable society and one that can accommodate a broader range of characters and provide a lighter tone from time to time. BUT there are a number of examples of bad story telling, cheap set design and horrible direction that really bring it down

1. The Premise: I love the idea of a heavily populated post apocalyptia that avoids all the horrifying stereotypes but asking the viewer to simply accept that "Physics went crazy" is more than a little unreasonable, particularly as an explanation would have to address why engines and generators and other small bits of machinery don't work but yet firearms do.

2. Inconsistency: We're lead to believe that firearms have been stockpiled by the militia and we have seen proof that they remain unaffected by the "event" and yet the militia roams around with swords and flint lock rifles. Let's ignore for a second the idea that a 350 year old firearm is not only still functioning but is in fact the weapon of choice in 2028 and go straight to the fact that as I mentioned the Militia is said to ruthlessly stockpile guns yet they outfit their soldiers tasked with the most important mission of all with a sword each and two guys carrying guns that last saw action against the red coats....

3. Art Direction
This is perhaps my biggest complaint because it stops you from becoming immersed in the world they have created. A fictional world HAS to draw you in, a perfect example of doing this right is Walking Dead where everyone looks grubby and sweaty and unclean in keeping with their environment. In Revolution everything is too bright and beautiful and clean. The men all walk around in pristine fitted shirts that look like they have just been ironed and the main girl is still sporting the salon quality curls in her hair that have survived 3 or 4 nights sleeping rough. These are simply bad decisions and really mar the experience. Someone chose beauty over realism in a programme about a bleak and scary future, it is a stupid marketing choice aimed at drawing in the simple masses who like to stare at pretty things and it makes it impossible to engage with the environment in any real way. Beyond that the sets themselves look rushed as though a couple of shoots of ivy will depict 15 years of neglect.

DESPITE all that, it is somehow entertaining to watch and if you can get past the glaring reminders that you are watching actors in a studio and forgive the logical absurdities and the cliches then there might just be enough here to justify your time.… Expand

The idea of the show had a great deal of promise. However after watching 2 and a half excruciatingly embarrassing episodes, I've had to turn off as it is so, so bad. Terrible acting, woeful script, unbelievably poor storyline and to top it off mushy patriotic US of A sentiment thrown in! How does absolute tosh like this ever get the funding to see the light of day? It's totally beyond me! Avoid, it's absolute drivel of the highest order!!!!!… Expand

So much wasted potential!!! God awful acting, mediocre script and irritatingly melodramatic soundtrack. Don't waste your time on this one folks, total and utter let down.

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I really like this show and am a bit surprised by all of the negativity I'm seeing in these comments. I'm a sucker for dystopian-type stories, though, so maybe my overall excitement for a dystopian TV show allows me to overlook plot inconsistencies, not the greatest but definitely not the worst acting, etc. Also, I watched Lost and that show was had enough confusing plot lines and unanswered questions to write a full-length book (and someone probably has, I'd wager). Anyway, if you're into dystopian settings and can overlook some inconsistencies to see the overarching story (the forest through the trees kind of deal), then I think Revolution is worth taking a good look at. I know I'll be tuning in each week and hopefully for a while longer! Though, I have to say (HERE COMES THE SPOILER), I wish they hadn't killed Danny. That didn't seem entirely necessary to me. Though I guess Rachel (aka Juliet, one of my favorite Losties) needed to dig whatever that device was out of his stomach.....… Expand

Revolution is a really an under rated show, it's one of the best shows there is. J.J. Abrams is one of best producers for Science fiction shows in the world.

I don't love the show, just because the plot seems rushed and there's too much stuff going on at the same time. Random power sources can sometimes seem to be a little bit more common than they should be in a world without power. I have to give it credit though for having an interesting concept with a realistic post apocalyptic setting.

The whole premise of this show is a joke. The idea is interesting, but the premise of the "lights going out" is just stupid. You could tell from the previews this was a stinker. Crossbows? really? No ammo around for guns? Crossbows are so readily available too. No power and all the stars look freshly showered and dressed. They must live near a mall eh? There are alternate power sources like generators, solar, wind, hydro, etc. Are people too stupid to figure this out? Now they should have done something like this where a solar storm knocked out all the power on earth or an EMP maybe....but I'm not suspending my disbelief for crap like this.… Collapse

Just as I started thinking episode 1 was going to be a great show then it happened. In walks the leader of some army unit pulls up with the good old african american leader. Anybody ever notice how tv shows movies and even commercials always have him as the boss or the general or manager, etc?
Sorry but if all help broke lose there would be no such authority in this circumstance.
Any way, I will not be watching this show.… Expand