Did you hear he was a collaborator?
Let’s face facts. A live action version of XCOM, this is not.
Carlton Cuse’s Colony is a new piece of sci-fi from the USA Network that I had some expectations for. At the very least, the marketing team did a decent job at getting me involved in the world of the show, especially through the websites that they set up to show the state of near future Los Angeles. The addition of Josh Holloway also helped, but is that enough to make this police procedural-ish show into something that is interesting to watch?
No.
Without further ado, let’s get into the show and try to make something out of it.
The Cast
I kid you not. The main bad guy actually makes them breakfast here. What?!
Josh Holloway is the best of the cast in his role as Will Bowman, but that is not saying much. I honestly felt that the performances of each of the remaining cast members left no impression on me. Sarah Wayne Callies is just kind of there as his wife, Katie. While she is given some things to do in the pilot, it seems like most of her scenes were pushed in there to create extra drama. Coming off of his role in House, Peter Jacobson does a fair job as Proxy Governor Snyder, but he ultimately seems like a mouse-y administrator who is in over his head instead of a calculating and ruthless servant of the dark side.
The kids are not even worth mentioning. It’s not because they didn’t do a good or bad job. It’s because they were on screen for all of five minutes. However, that might just work in this story’s favor, even though we have to consider the over-all mess that we are dealing with here.
The Story
This is all we see of the overlords. They hold parties around it.
In the near future, the world has been taken over by unknown alien forces that have set up a puppet government called the Transitional Authority. With the development of this new world order, details emerge of a campaign to kill off or turn law enforcement and military personnel. There is a resistance movement, but it is on the run from the law. Ordinary citizens are subdued and in fear for their lives. 24/7 surveillance is now the new norm as drones roam the streets. Eugenics programs are developing to cull the citizens. It seems like there are impossible odds facing our underdogs, but they keep fighting and try to find their lost son.
It sounds like an interesting premise, right? Well, it’s also where the show falls flat on its’ face.
The resistance is not a vast underground filled with people that are fighting for the world that was. It is essentially a small cell of around four to six people, depending on how you count. Even so, they are able to meet without any sort of real inconvenience. Ordinary citizens have just shrugged off the alien occupation and moved on with their lives, even though they know that one wrong statement could get them killed. And to make matters worse, there is one thing that is missing from this entire show.
The Big Question
Yep. Do you see how under the gun we are? We can sit in the backyard and have a pointless sex scene!
Who are the aliens and what is their agenda for Earth?
You see, some people might say that this is a part of the mystery and it can wait, but sci-fi stories with a twist like this one live and die on efficient world-building. As an example, we already know that XCOM 2 hinges on the Avatar Project, although we don’t know what that is just yet. In Carlton Cuse’s adaptation of The Strain, we instantly know that the Master is the evil overmind behind the vampire plague that is spreading across New York City. Here? We get pretty much nothing but the potential for a big bad behind another big bad.
We need some sort of inkling of a sinister agenda behind everything because the aliens seem like an extraneous plot device right now. Is there a character inside the “Factory” that stumbles across what they are up to? Why would Snyder think that they are just going to leave after they are done? If the aliens have never (or rarely) been seen, how was the Transitional Authority set up in the first place? How exactly is the Resistance going to be able to free Los Angeles without a massive worldwide attack on the aliens as well?
Please explain.
Conclusion
To be fair, this particular scene is pretty tense. It’s just too bad that it evaporates after that.
Look, I’m not saying that Colony is awful, but it does have serious problems that can turn people away from exploring what is going on in the world of the story. It’s almost as if the writers forgot to read the art of why we should or should not give a damn about anyone or anything. Granted, part of that might be because of the budget, but you can make a good story by showing that these characters have to suffer before they can even hope to achieve victory. It can get the audience invested and expose the humanity of the characters more.
Oh well, at least we have XCOM 2 to look forward to.
No Comments Yet