9

"Drink Every Last ... Oops" (Revolution)

Captain Neville is the Revolution writers' attempt at creating a complex bad guy character who carries out evil deeds but has his own rationalization for them and shows flashes of humanity. How it actually plays out is that he seems to have severe emotional stability problems, switching from rambling, homespun short stories to flashes of anger apparently at random, like Nomi Malone in another character development masterpiece, Showgirls.

8

Charlie's Completely Absorbing Flashbacks (Revolution)

In Revolution, you can always tell that someone is having a flashback because they stop right where they are standing and drift off.

Remembering something, the writers imply, is pretty much like going into a coma. Previously, Charlie had been walking through the woods when she somehow realized that an expert tracker was on her tail and was able to get the jump on him by luring him into a trap.

7

"I'm Ashamed of Saving Our Lives" (Revolution)

At one point in the masterpiece serial Revolution, the traveling companions are sleeping when a band of ruffians takes them by surprise, laying out a plan for the evening that involves rape and murder. Maggie, the older mentor figure, offers the attackers a bottle of whiskey.

"Thanks!" says the ruffian, knowing that you can always trust a gift of consumables from someone you've just threatened with rape and murder. To everyone's great surprise, the whiskey turns out to be poisoned!

Much blood is coughed up! The whiskey, combined with a bit of fighting, saves their lives. Later on, Maggie attempts to pass on some wisdom to her younger charge, saying, "Charlie, I'm telling you, you can't trust anyone."

Because she is a young person, Charlie must contradict everything the mentor figure says, and spits back, "Is that why you carry poisoned whiskey?"

"Yes!" any reasonable person would say here, "And clearly it came in handy! How are you enjoying being not-raped!" But Maggie just looks chagrined, like Charlie has totally got her.

The poor soul stews in silent shame, having to live with the burden of poisoning some poor rapist-bandits who just wanted to violate and kill them. Truly she was the real monster all along.

6

The Easily Dodged Arrow Trap (Revolution)

In order to tempt viewers with the false hope that the whiny main character would be killed, Revolution's writers set up a tantalizing cliffhanger where Charlie is tied up in front of an elaborate arrow trap.

5

The Packers-Seahawks Game

This is all fading into memory now, but the September 24 Packers-Seahawks game was probably one of the worst public displays of officiating of all time, bad enough to make the NFL cave in to referee union demands and end the unpopular lockout that had replaced the regular refs with high school referees and Bank of America vice presidents. To no one's surprise, they performed terribly for weeks, but this Monday night game apparently broke the camel's back.

4

Death of the Wagon Man (Revolution)

Where did the replacement refs go after this? Apparently they began writing for NBC's hit show Revolution, with the same level of competence they had previously displayed in officiating. Very likely they wrote this scene, which attempts to explore the lengths people go to for survival in this post-apocalyptic world. In these times, desperate men do desperate things, like threaten little girls at knifepoint to try to extort food out of their families.

3

Brand Monroe^TM (Revolution)

In the future of Revolution, the Monroe Militia, an organized, oppressive military force dressed in Civil War uniforms, brands every one of its members with an M logo.

Which is fair enough -- that's the sort of thing a fascist military organization would do. But where did the symbol come from? Conveniently, the show has provided a flashback to answer that very question.

Apparently, before the blackout that is the premise of the show, there was a reckless, partying soldier named Sebastian Monroe. Returning to base one day (the day of the blackout, as it happens) without ID, he instead rolls up his sleeve:

And reveals a tattoo! Of his own name! And logo!

Now I admit that I don't know a lot about hard-partying soldiers, but I don't think that one of their top concerns is branding. Maybe this is one of the unexpected aftereffects of the Citizens United decision declaring corporations to be people, in that some people now mistakenly think they are corporations, and spend a great deal of time worrying about their market presence and developing a corporate logo. Maybe he's had his own stationery printed.

Or maybe the show's writers believe that it is impossible to overestimate the stupidity of their audience and it is important to bludgeon them to death with a hundred reminders that some character in the past is now some character in the present. That seems likely, since they immediately cut to present-day dictator Monroe washing his hands.

2

The Least Dying-Looking Dying Person Ever (Revolution)

When a character with a medical background (Maggie) gets stabbed in the leg, the wound needs to be sewn up. Obviously she can't do it herself, since she's badly injured and clearly going into shock.

I think what happened here is that they told the actress that her character should be "in shock" and she took that to mean that she should be very surprised, as opposed to being about to pass out from blood loss. Well, she nailed that one.

Anyway, she's supposed to be near death here, but she talks like she's just come back from an invigorating jog, chatting calmly and casually with everyone, and giving very clear orders to the bearded nerdy comic relief character on how he should sew her up. Despite his complete inexperience in medical matters and C-3POlike fretting about every stressful situation, she feels that he is the best candidate for the job, because there is no way she, in her weakened dying state, could do such a thing. So she nods briskly toward her backpack and tells him what materials he needs and what pockets they are in.

1

The Point Where Revolution Started Being Eerily Similar to Star Wars

Yeah, yeah, I know, lots of things can seem similar to Star Wars because many story archetypes share the common elements of the Hero's Journey as described by Joseph Campbell, and wearing black is a common visual cue for villains, etc., and of course you expect vaguely similar plot arcs and character archetypes, but the sheer number of details seems a bit much. Take a look and decide for yourself:

After the brutal murder of their guardian(s), a whiny young protagonist (Charlie/Luke) who has always wanted to leave home sets off with an older British person of the same sex (Maggie/Obi-Wan) and a comic relief character who has been given a vital piece of intelligence in secret and charged to take it to someone (the droids/the nerd).

The purpose of their journey is to rescue an opposite-sex sibling who was captured in an ominous scene where a terrifying bad guy who is/wears/sounds black arrived with his soldiers, killed a bunch of people, unsuccessfully tried to interrogate someone and finally kidnapped said sibling.

Near the beginning of the journey, the hero is attacked by random ruffians, and the older British companion surprises us by dealing the ruffians a brutal fate (arm cut off, poisoned).

In order to continue on their journey, they find a scoundrel in a bar who likes to call people "kid" and persuade him to help. He is reluctant to help, and characters often wonder out loud if the scoundrel cares about anyone but himself. After getting into a fight in the bar, the scoundrel joins the group on their journey.

Later, they join up with a rebellion that is fighting the military power that employs the black/black-clad/black-sounding villain introduced earlier, who, despite his badassery and prominence in the story, is not the empire's leader, but serves an even more evil man above him. Also we find that the hero's same-sex parent, thought to have died a long time ago, is actually alive and with the enemy.

A bounty hunter comes after the scoundrel and encounters him twice, capturing him at some point.

After being freed, the scoundrel kills the bounty hunter.

Even though guns exist in this world, a lot of the fighting is done with bows and swords. In one dramatic scene, the older British companion is fatally stabbed while their group watches helplessly from a short distance away.

If you're still thinking that it's just coincidence, there's this interview with show creator Eric Kripke, where he said that he was inspired by Star Wars, albeit in a vague, hero journey way. But then there's also this, at the beginning of the pilot episode:

Kids in 2012 (when Charlie was a child) don't buy a lot of Return of the Jedi lunchboxes (unless they're big eBay shoppers), so that was probably shoehorned in for a reason.

I'm just saying, the story is still ongoing, but don't be surprised if Captain Neville throws Monroe down a shaft at some point.

For more from Christina, check out 6 Reasons The NFL Is The Trashiest Reality Show on TV and 8 New TV Show Ideas Almost as Stupid as 'Grey's Anatomy'.