jeremiah

JEREMIAH
Today is Nevada Day where we celebrate the day we turned from a territory to a state. At the time it must have seemed like a wonderful idea. I think it sucks right about now, but no one ever asks me. So, I like to look at it as a celebration of how we are a much better place to live than any of the other suck ass states. Look at Alaska. Eighty degrees below? Leave it for the natives. Texas, I think you have to be born there. That was one weird place. Florida has been colonized and taken over by New Jersians. Enough said about that. But, hey, I don’t have time to insult every state we have. I’ll just say, you suck. We rock. Please don’t move here. But my point is that I don’t have to work today, so I’m posting this ahead of time. Enjoy.
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I looked forward to watching Jeremiah, the series on DVD. From cable, perhaps HBO. It wasn’t a bad show, there was nudity. But from a survivalist perspective it kind of blew chunks. A disease wipes out everyone over the age of puberty. Okay, not horribly original, but any disaster will do. We need all the doom and gloom we can get ( and all the nudity, but I’ll leave that for a guys night out while we stay busy drinking beer and scratching ourselves ). But by the end of the hour and a half first disc, I simply wasn’t sold on the concept. There was too much wrong with the story. Take the original collapse. In six months, six billion adults die. That leaves all the kids. So, how do they eat? Are you seriously trying to tell me that with a global Just-In-Time delivery system, there is enough stored food there for the taking? Were the kids able to take over the tractors and semis to haul food around? And even if there was enough food initially, enough for fifteen years? I don’t think so. The only food production seen was an indoor hydroponics set up and that itself was a bit unrealistic ( they had enough nutrients for fifteen years? A closed loop system breaks down with entropy, you need continual fresh inputs ). How was everyone eating all this time?
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Next up, we have a town with a swap mart. Our guys go there and there is a scene where an attempted hijack is met with security forces blasting away. Fifteen years after the collapse and folks are still blasting away with semi-autos. That fantasy alone probably made the show popular enough for another season. Whatever you do, don’t skimp on firepower or boobs! Hey, like I said, it was a pretty good show if you ignore the reality behind these things. But I’m not paid the big bucks to ignore the collapse. Another thing about that swap meet. One guy is selling charged batteries. No way dude! No one has batteries anymore! So says one character. A half hour later in the show, another character is using a flashlight ( and, no, it wasn’t the guy with the batteries ). Does anybody do fact checking here? Or are movies becoming like the airline industry which cuts back on manpower enough that serious oversights happen? And speaking of fact checks, later in the movie, our two characters get a vehicle ( the two guys are Luke Perry and the Cosby kid Malcolm Something Hyphenated Something- good actors, good chemistry together ), and simply drive away into the night. Hints have been dropping left and right about how scarce resources are ( except, evidently, batteries, food and ammo ) and a car is a wonderful thing. Yet the guy just hops in and drives, easy as pie. The dude is like eight years old at the collapse, and driving is natural. Go to a High School driving class and tell me how natural that is.
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The evil bitch in the show was a smidge over the top. Okay, we’re just following in the footsteps of James Bond villains here ( which, by the way, seem to be rather weak and pathetic since the end of the Cold War-coincidence? ) and playing it Super Psycho. But it didn’t fit, she was insane and power hungry rather than just trying to steal resources as is the historic norm. Insanity might come later, with extreme paranoia and fear as a lifestyle, but not before. And another thing. Most characters didn’t seem to be doing much except living a Slackers type life. Hang out in night clubs. If the world has ended and everyone is dying, there are night clubs? But then we are back to never ending cans of food and plenty of non-rotting clothes and everlasting ammo. No one is suffering much, just hanging out and chillin, yo! Not a huge disappointment. Perhaps in the same vein of the Jericho series. Not realistic on most levels, but not a bad show overall.
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