"Paul Levinson's It's Real Life is a page-turning exploration into that multiverse known as rock and roll. But it is much more than a marvelous adventure narrated by a master storyteller...it is also an exquisite meditation on the very nature of alternate history." -- Jack Dann, The Fiction Writer's Guide to Alternate History

Saturday, February 13, 2016

Colony 1.5: Questions

Colony has continued in its past few episodes to offer good, taut, exciting stories, with lots of action, drama, and surprises, including sudden death in high places.   But as the series continues, big questions not yet addressed become more relevant, and the lack of information about these questions weakens the narrative.

These in include -
  • Who are the aliens?  It even occurred to me that maybe they're not aliens, after all, but humans with some kind of advanced technology.  Not likely, I guess, but until we know more about the apparent conquerers, it's hard to get a handle on the story.
  • What's going on in other countries, on the rest of the Earth?  Has every nation succumbed?  Are there pockets of resistance all over?
  • For that matter, what were the decisive battles that led to the occupation as we're currently seeing it in the LA area?
In the case of the late, lamented Revolution on NBC, which wasn't about aliens, but a sudden, apparently universal power failure that set back our civilization, the myopic view, with no indication of what was really happening world-wide or even country-wide until the end of first season, hurt the series.    I hope we don't see Colony go the same way.

To be clear, the stories are working well on the micro-level, in the new Los Angeles.  The treatment of Geronimo - the identity of the rebel leader and what would be done about him - was sophisticated and satisfying.  But I'm waiting for the series to roll out that intelligence to the deeper, bigger questions that surround this story.

See also Colony 1.1: Aliens with Potential ... 1.2: Compelling


not exactly aliens, but strange enough ...  The Silk Code

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