Top 13 Ways “Revolution” Hopes to Improve Its Ratings

Aaron and Priscilla Pittman

15 years after the blackout, Aaron and Priscilla Pittman attend a reunion for the few remaining Revolution fans. Or maybe this is a month from now.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Quick programming note for those MCC readers who follow along with NBC’s Revolution: as previously suspected, the show will be taking three consecutive Wednesdays off so NBC can regale us with an unsightly lineup of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit reruns they think Nielsen commoners would rather watch instead.

We’re now in the second week of its three-week unpaid suspension from the TV force. It’s no secret the ratings have been floating downward pretty much from the pilot onward. Every news outlet remains skeptical about its renewal chances, though I take small comfort in the fact that NBC already renewed the lower-rated Parks & Rec and therefore nothing is foregone. Granted, Parks & Rec is surely cheaper to produce, especially after losing two cast members this season. I’m not convinced the way forward for Revolution is to trim the roster down and shoot twenty-two straight bottle episodes of just Miles, Bass, and Tom arguing in rooms. That tactic isn’t helping Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and it won’t help here.

This way for the surefire keys to winning at Nielsens!

“Revolution” Takes Three-Week Bereavement Hiatus, Uses Up All Its Remaining Vacation Time

JD Pardo WAS Jason Neville IN "Revolution"!

Quick programming note for those MCC readers who follow along with NBC’s Revolution: as previously suspected, the show will be taking three consecutive Wednesdays off so NBC can regale us with an unsightly lineup of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit reruns they think Nielsen commoners would rather watch instead. (The following paragraphs assume you’ve already seen the April 2nd episode, “Austin City Limits”. The MCC episode recap link is at the bottom of this entry; beware the spoilers between here and there.)

This way for the show’s skip dates and return date!

“Revolution” 4/2/2014 (spoilers): Give My Regards to Manchuria

JD Pardo, Mat Vairo, Revolution, NBC

This week: Charlie is forced to choose between Jason or Connor for the Willoughby Senior Prom!

“Nothing will prepare you when one of your favorites pays with their life!”

We were warned. We were promised death in tonight’s new Revolution episode, “Austin City Limits”, and sure enough, there would be blood. The showrunners have offed major characters before, but they believe it’s time for another sacrifice to be made to the Nielsen gods so that their creation might be granted a stay of execution until at least the season finale. Best-case scenario: the sacrifice works and ratings uptick enough to convince NBC not to move the show to a Saturday night death slot for its next four episodes.

And tonight we bid farewell to this one guy…

MCC Q&A #7: “Revolution”: Who Dies Next?

Revolution cast, NBC

Our Heroes bide their time, waiting to find out who’s next to be chopped. (Left to right: Mat Vairo, Tracy Spiridakos, Billy Burke, David Lyons.)

“Nothing will prepare you when one of your favorites pays with their life!”

The last line of the promo for NBC’s next episode of Revolution has driven fans to the internets in search of hints or spoilers for the identity of the show’s next victim. In thirty-seven episodes the lengthy role call of the dead already includes two Matheson Family members, a British doctor anyone barely remembers, two high-ranking villains, countless minions, the entire populations of Philadelphia and Atlanta, and nearly every ex-girlfriend we’ve ever met. Judging by the search terms and traffic surge I’ve seen over the past two days, the fans are livid and demand to know: who’s the next Revolution character to die? And whose ex-girlfriend will she be?

Full disclosure: I do not have that answer, only my guesswork. But I’m less interested in the question of “Who will die?” than I am in the question, “Who should die?”

This way for my half-baked Revolution theories, 100% accurate on some alternate Earth!

“Revolution” 3/19/2014 (spoilers): That Stupid, Selfish Thing You Do

David Lyons, Revolution, NBC

Once again the day is saved thanks to Bass the tyrant king!

Tonight’s new Revolution episode, “Why We Fight”, is the first time in series history in which the episode title makes perfect sense and occurred to me before I looked up the episode title after the episode ended. The theme pops up in the dialogue more than once as characters take turns questioning their motives for hanging around the town of Willoughby and shortening their life expectancies in the War on Patriots. Why not go hide in a seedy bar and wait for death to come? Besides the fact that it would make for dull TV?

This way to glorious victory with Commander Bass!

“Revolution” 3/12/2014 (spoilers): Spy Kids Must Die!

Elizabeth Mitchell, Revolution, NBC

The lead photo from an upcoming True Romance article titled “Will Our Love Be Ruined by Underage Enemy Soldiers?”

Tonight’s new Revolution episode, “Exposition Boulevard” (a common street name in California? I guess?), picks up where we left off two weeks ago, with a Mexican standoff between the Mathesons and the Nevilles. Once that threat fades into nothingness, the road beyond it runs afoul of Patriot Youth, a belligerent Chief of Staff, a love triangle, a new alliance, and more screen time than usual for Steven Culp as Ed Truman, Patriot at a crossroads.

This way for more sinister Patriot shenanigans…

“Revolution” 3/5/2014 (spoilers): Me and Beardy McGee

Zak Orth, Aaron Pittman, Revolution, NBC

This is not my beautiful house! This is not my beautiful wife! Come to think of it, reality doesn’t have those, either!

Is it a hoax? A dream? An imaginary story? A holodeck accident? A parallel world ruined by Walter Bishop? A mess for the Doctor to straighten out? A pilot for a new spinoff series called Leave It to Google?

Tonight’s new Revolution episode “Dreamcatcher” throws brainy sidekick Aaron Pittman into a strange old world filled with working electricity, first-world tech-biz problems, cold beer, product placement, and familiar faces in incorrect places. As with most such stories, the question isn’t whether or not Our Hero has awakened to true reality — it’s about how many levels of unreality he’ll have to escape before he’s back on his old show.

Travel this way inside the mind of Aaron the hapless genius!

“Revolution” 2/26/2014 (spoilers): Father/Son Steel Cage Death Match!

Mat Vairo, David Lyons, Revolution

“My name is Connor Bennett. You killed my mother. Prepare to die.”

After a three-week vacation to allow for Sochi Winter Olympics fever, Revolution returned tonight with a new episode, “Fear and Loathing”, in which tenuous alliances are formed, leftover cliffhanger threads are sewn up, Grandpa Gene has the night off, and what happens in New Vegas slays in New Vegas.

Right this way for the main event!

“Revolution” 1/29/2014 (spoilers): The Fight Club Job

Bret Michaels, Poison, Revolution, NBC

Humanity’s lived for fifteen years without electric guitars, CD players, or iTunes, and yet hair metal refuses to die.

Tonight’s new Revolution episode, “Happy Endings”, featured a very special cameo by the first known celebrity to survive the blackout: reality-TV star and Poison frontman Bret Michaels! When three of Our Heroes travel to the sideshow campground of New Vegas, Michaels appears as himself, alone on a tiny outdoor stage, cradling his acoustic guitar and lip-synching “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” while the original single plays as background music. Yes, folks, while humanity tears itself apart, all the Top-40 hits of your teenage years will live forever, even without a recording medium to preserve them.

This way for a sad, sad song…

“Revolution” 1/22/2014 (spoilers): It’s Not Lupus

Revolution

One of the tense researching scenes from tonight’s CSI: Willoughby.

Tonight’s new Revolution episode is titled “Captain Trips”, another in the show’s long line of references to Stephen King’s The Stand, which in turn referenced Jerry Garcia from the Grateful Dead. It was also the name of a drug-fueled super-hero from George R. R. Martin’s Wild Cards shared-anthology series, which blew me away when I was a teenager, even though I might’ve been grounded for a decade if my mom knew about the content.

I’d much rather rattle on about that etymology chain than cover tonight’s main story about the town of Willoughby suffering from the heartbreak of widespread typhus. As I previously complained when it was Sleepy Hollow‘s turn to use the epidemic plot device back in October, “Diseases can be a really dull antagonist.”

So is it really typhus?…