Oh boy! This is one of the latest in a long line of television series that manage to meander with no particular direction for 39 minutes, only to cram in this week's cliffhanger on the last minute
or thereabouts. Ultimately, what you end up with is 20 or so weeks' of cliffhangers, prefixed by hours of complete irrelevancy.
What we have is two separate stories that are tentatively linked by creatures referred to only as 'a new species of vertebrate marine mammal'. They're threatening the eco-system, they can eat individuals or whole boats (depends how hungry they are I guess).
We have a teenage boy who has been grounded so many times that he shouldn't see sunlight for another 50 years, yet somehow manages enough autonomy that one would imagine he murdered his parents and he's keeping them in the garage. Did I mention he has one of the creatures as a pet? Or that it's named for 'mighty' Nimrod, the dude that built the Tower of Babel? We also have a mom who's abandoned her young son, and a husband/father who's abandoned his family, both in search of some magic truth to end all truths.
There are more 'characters' but I grow weary just typing this The only other I will mention is the evil corporate guy who also manages to be his own henchman in his copious spare time. We're supposed to believe something about his having unleashed the man-made monster on mankind and having some hidden agenda. Whoopee-doo, I can hardly wait. Maybe it's going to be the one about, "you people don't deserve this planet", blab, blab, yawn.
The show is based on the worst kind of scientific research possible the kind that just manages to leave the words 'scientific' and 'research' out altogether. Basically, the plot holes, which are the size of Kansas, stem from the kind of research gathered by watching uninformed news snippets from some local channel. One interesting gaffe concerns Dolly (1996 2003, R.I.P.) the famous but nobody quite understands why sheep. We have a character who supposedly works in the field of genomics research state quite smugly that "we cloned our first sheep in the 1960's", completely in ignorance of the fact that Dolly's having being cloned wasn't really such a big deal. It was how she was cloned, and from what, that made her special.
Of course, the most mind-numbing concept to be introduced to the show was that three people, with a scrap yard's worth of junk, and with three days between them, could manage to build a fully-working submersible with an emergency floatation device, cameras, lights, flashing things that don't make sense, the whole bit. Incredible. I believe that maybe the A-Team and a budget of $100,000 may have been able to manage this feat (and managed a depth of 20 feet not 5,000 feet!!!), but none of these people had an ounce of engineer in them. This woman has difficulties taking the safety off of a handgun, and the other chap can't steer a truck in a straight line for goodness' sake! This show has been on for about a hundred years, yet could so easily have been squeezed down to 3 or 5 hour-long episodes. I'm at that point where I've invested so much time that I just have to know what the inane ending is going to be (don't tell me that Godzilla will save the day). I should have known better since this is an NBC show, and NBC pay the Sci-Fi Channel's bills (under the dubious gaze of Sony Entertainment Corp. quite bizarre). Sci-Fi Channel currently has but two or three redeeming shows, yet still manages to put on some of the most ridiculous (and unintentionally funny) 'movies' every Saturday night. They call them 'Sci-Fi Originals' and I can quite honestly say that, yes, they are definitely original, but probably not in the way that is meant.
The acting in Surface is just mediocre enough to be okay. The effects, when you can see them, are somewhat passable, but you mostly don't see them I'm still completely confused as to whether we're supposed to sympathize with the creatures or loathe them.
But please just get it over with NBC!!!
What we have is two separate stories that are tentatively linked by creatures referred to only as 'a new species of vertebrate marine mammal'. They're threatening the eco-system, they can eat individuals or whole boats (depends how hungry they are I guess).
We have a teenage boy who has been grounded so many times that he shouldn't see sunlight for another 50 years, yet somehow manages enough autonomy that one would imagine he murdered his parents and he's keeping them in the garage. Did I mention he has one of the creatures as a pet? Or that it's named for 'mighty' Nimrod, the dude that built the Tower of Babel? We also have a mom who's abandoned her young son, and a husband/father who's abandoned his family, both in search of some magic truth to end all truths.
There are more 'characters' but I grow weary just typing this The only other I will mention is the evil corporate guy who also manages to be his own henchman in his copious spare time. We're supposed to believe something about his having unleashed the man-made monster on mankind and having some hidden agenda. Whoopee-doo, I can hardly wait. Maybe it's going to be the one about, "you people don't deserve this planet", blab, blab, yawn.
The show is based on the worst kind of scientific research possible the kind that just manages to leave the words 'scientific' and 'research' out altogether. Basically, the plot holes, which are the size of Kansas, stem from the kind of research gathered by watching uninformed news snippets from some local channel. One interesting gaffe concerns Dolly (1996 2003, R.I.P.) the famous but nobody quite understands why sheep. We have a character who supposedly works in the field of genomics research state quite smugly that "we cloned our first sheep in the 1960's", completely in ignorance of the fact that Dolly's having being cloned wasn't really such a big deal. It was how she was cloned, and from what, that made her special.
Of course, the most mind-numbing concept to be introduced to the show was that three people, with a scrap yard's worth of junk, and with three days between them, could manage to build a fully-working submersible with an emergency floatation device, cameras, lights, flashing things that don't make sense, the whole bit. Incredible. I believe that maybe the A-Team and a budget of $100,000 may have been able to manage this feat (and managed a depth of 20 feet not 5,000 feet!!!), but none of these people had an ounce of engineer in them. This woman has difficulties taking the safety off of a handgun, and the other chap can't steer a truck in a straight line for goodness' sake! This show has been on for about a hundred years, yet could so easily have been squeezed down to 3 or 5 hour-long episodes. I'm at that point where I've invested so much time that I just have to know what the inane ending is going to be (don't tell me that Godzilla will save the day). I should have known better since this is an NBC show, and NBC pay the Sci-Fi Channel's bills (under the dubious gaze of Sony Entertainment Corp. quite bizarre). Sci-Fi Channel currently has but two or three redeeming shows, yet still manages to put on some of the most ridiculous (and unintentionally funny) 'movies' every Saturday night. They call them 'Sci-Fi Originals' and I can quite honestly say that, yes, they are definitely original, but probably not in the way that is meant.
The acting in Surface is just mediocre enough to be okay. The effects, when you can see them, are somewhat passable, but you mostly don't see them I'm still completely confused as to whether we're supposed to sympathize with the creatures or loathe them.
But please just get it over with NBC!!!