Sunday Morning Movie Reviews - Vol 1 - The "Colony" Colonoscopy
Sunday Morning Movie Reviews is a weekly look at movies or television that piqued my interest or raised my ire. It is 98 per cent spoiler free. Meaning I won’t ever give anything away the trailers don’t (and often much less).
Colony 6/10
Let me just start by saying that this show makes me mad. Not in the way a good show can, by evoking emotion through powerful storytelling. Oh no. It’s almost exactly the opposite.
The premise of Colony is pretty simple: Aliens have taken over the earth. They’ve killed most people and subjugated the rest. The few who are still kicking around exist in colonies, surrounded by massive 300 ft. metal walls. Order is kept by both alien, robotic drones and “Red Hats”, human soldiers chosen by the aliens to police the streets and keep the colonized in order.
Now that is a solid premise. So solid it kept me watching right to the end of a truly disappointing first season.
The Good
The show can be seen as an allegory for the colonization we've been doing to each other since the dawn of time. At it's core it examines how everyday people are caught in the crossfire between insurgents and oppressors. The show uses this to examine the morality of people who conduct “terrorism” in the name of freedom. It tries to look at what constitutes the “right” path when people are oppressed/ I give it some points for trying to broaden people’s minds in that respect. However it does come off in a way that favours U.S. colonial practices. Take that as you will.
The clearest example of this can be found in lead actress Sarah Wayne Callies’ (The Walking Dead, Prison Break) role. Her character is trapped between the world of the rebels and the world of the human overseers. The way she navigates that precarious position results in the show’s best performance. Her subtle, nuanced acting really shines in a sea of otherwise mediocre performances. She brings real emotion to her role, and often lends the show a feeling of consequence it’s otherwise lacking. I absolutely hated her character “Lorie” in The Walking Dead, so the fact she managed to win me back over should say a lot about just how good she is.
Aside from that, the only thing that really dragged me into the show was the mystery surrounding the Aliens. Just why had they come to earth? What were the plans for the human race? Were they saving us from ourselves perhaps? The show runners must know this though, as they’ve turned this great strength into one of their biggest weaknesses.
The Bad
Good Christ, this is part of what makes me so angry about this show. It feels like the writers are using the growing sci-fi niche to excuse some terrible writing. They manage to produce 10 hours of television where it feels like nothing of consequence happens. I feel like this is just another case of Hollywood capitalizing on geek culture by putting out half-baked plots and a script that’s blander than JLP ‘s Earl Grey. It’s like they know they can get away with it, because there isn’t that many options for sci-fi lovers. Or maybe I’m just moving the bar, it’s not like sci-fi has ever been that well produced or thought out (as a whole, I know there are fantastic gems out there).
Still this show goes beyond that. The writing is simply lazy. Take this example: a few characters are trying to ambush a senior colony official, so they put a guy in a construction uniform out on the street to detour his convoy into an ambush. Ok, let’s look past the fact this move is beyond over-played. You mean to tell me that these hyper-intelligent beings don’t plan their routes ahead. That this entire colony, in lock-down fighting an insurgency, doesn’t know exactly where and when construction takes place? If that’s the case the lead security guy’s head should have rolled. I mean, these guy have killer robots flying through the air at all times, and this unexpected detour is hunky-dory? That’s lazy writing folks. If you need more evidence just look at the way the male lead (Josh Holloway—Lost) solves his problems. I’ll give you a hint: he doesn’t. All of a sudden he just knows where the people he needs to find are. Like literally they’ve been searching for one rebel for 5 episodes, and all of a sudden his picture is on the wall and they know where he is. Give me a break.
And that’s to say nothing of Holloway’s two-note performance. The guy is either confused or smarmy. On the rare occasion he squeezes a few drops of actual emotion into his character it doesn’t seem natural or logical. I liked Holloway on Lost, but he brings nothing new or valuable to Colony.
The Ugly
While that’s all infuriating enough, the show also contains multiple b-plots that go absolutely no-where. Fucking nowhere. Maybe there’s a bigger goal for the show that I’m not seeing. But if you’re going to make me sit through hours of b-plot that have no relevance to the story at least make them entertaining. At least make sure the acting is on point. AT LEAST make sure I care about the characters, even if I don’t care about their circumstance. This show manages neither.
Conclusion
Now it should be said that the only reason I’m harping on this show is because it could have been so much better. The premise is really cool. And SOME of the justifications characters use for their behavior make sense. I wasn’t in as much pain as I was watching, ohh, say, The 100 last season (ok ok, not my demographic). Still, I’m tired of producers putting out stillborn sci-fi because they know us geeks will eat it up regardless. I demand more, dammit. I want a show with the writing of Moon, the budget of Interstellar and the vision of 2001 a space Odyssey. I want a god-damn sci-fi Game of Thrones already. Is that too much to ask?
If you like the premise of Colony, I know you’ll watch it anyways. Its originality is really what earned it the 6/10 I gave it. But don’t be surprised when you feel like a chump for watching 10 hours of a show that goes nowhere. And don’t be surprised when you start watching the second season juuuustt on the off chance it does go somewhere. It’s not like there’s a better show where we get our collective asses kicked by aliens.
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Colony 6/10
Let me just start by saying that this show makes me mad. Not in the way a good show can, by evoking emotion through powerful storytelling. Oh no. It’s almost exactly the opposite.
The premise of Colony is pretty simple: Aliens have taken over the earth. They’ve killed most people and subjugated the rest. The few who are still kicking around exist in colonies, surrounded by massive 300 ft. metal walls. Order is kept by both alien, robotic drones and “Red Hats”, human soldiers chosen by the aliens to police the streets and keep the colonized in order.
Now that is a solid premise. So solid it kept me watching right to the end of a truly disappointing first season.
The Good
The clearest example of this can be found in lead actress Sarah Wayne Callies’ (The Walking Dead, Prison Break) role. Her character is trapped between the world of the rebels and the world of the human overseers. The way she navigates that precarious position results in the show’s best performance. Her subtle, nuanced acting really shines in a sea of otherwise mediocre performances. She brings real emotion to her role, and often lends the show a feeling of consequence it’s otherwise lacking. I absolutely hated her character “Lorie” in The Walking Dead, so the fact she managed to win me back over should say a lot about just how good she is.
Aside from that, the only thing that really dragged me into the show was the mystery surrounding the Aliens. Just why had they come to earth? What were the plans for the human race? Were they saving us from ourselves perhaps? The show runners must know this though, as they’ve turned this great strength into one of their biggest weaknesses.
The Bad
Good Christ, this is part of what makes me so angry about this show. It feels like the writers are using the growing sci-fi niche to excuse some terrible writing. They manage to produce 10 hours of television where it feels like nothing of consequence happens. I feel like this is just another case of Hollywood capitalizing on geek culture by putting out half-baked plots and a script that’s blander than JLP ‘s Earl Grey. It’s like they know they can get away with it, because there isn’t that many options for sci-fi lovers. Or maybe I’m just moving the bar, it’s not like sci-fi has ever been that well produced or thought out (as a whole, I know there are fantastic gems out there).
And that’s to say nothing of Holloway’s two-note performance. The guy is either confused or smarmy. On the rare occasion he squeezes a few drops of actual emotion into his character it doesn’t seem natural or logical. I liked Holloway on Lost, but he brings nothing new or valuable to Colony.
The Ugly
While that’s all infuriating enough, the show also contains multiple b-plots that go absolutely no-where. Fucking nowhere. Maybe there’s a bigger goal for the show that I’m not seeing. But if you’re going to make me sit through hours of b-plot that have no relevance to the story at least make them entertaining. At least make sure the acting is on point. AT LEAST make sure I care about the characters, even if I don’t care about their circumstance. This show manages neither.
Conclusion
Now it should be said that the only reason I’m harping on this show is because it could have been so much better. The premise is really cool. And SOME of the justifications characters use for their behavior make sense. I wasn’t in as much pain as I was watching, ohh, say, The 100 last season (ok ok, not my demographic). Still, I’m tired of producers putting out stillborn sci-fi because they know us geeks will eat it up regardless. I demand more, dammit. I want a show with the writing of Moon, the budget of Interstellar and the vision of 2001 a space Odyssey. I want a god-damn sci-fi Game of Thrones already. Is that too much to ask?
If you like the premise of Colony, I know you’ll watch it anyways. Its originality is really what earned it the 6/10 I gave it. But don’t be surprised when you feel like a chump for watching 10 hours of a show that goes nowhere. And don’t be surprised when you start watching the second season juuuustt on the off chance it does go somewhere. It’s not like there’s a better show where we get our collective asses kicked by aliens.