Revolution

Series one, episode one
Sky1’s new post-apocalyptic drama series arrives with some pretty heady credentials. Directed by ‘Iron Man’ helmer Jon ‘Favs’ Favreau and exec-produced by the preternaturally busy JJ Abrams (‘Lost’, the big screen ‘Star Trek’ reboot, etc.), and starring the supremely cool Billy Burke (‘Twilight’) and Giancarlo Esposito (the nosy FBI agent from ‘The Usual Suspects’) as his evil opposite number, it sounds like it should all pretty much take care of itself.

A bizarre – and as yet very hazily delineated – global event has banjaxed all electrical systems (including, oddly, battery power) and sent humankind back to the Stone Age. Cue bands of marauding gangs asset-stripped from ‘Mad Max’ and ‘The Road’, a band of rag-tag heroes pulled out of ‘The Walking Dead’ and a black-clad ruling militia plucked wholesale from any ’80s video shelf.

The lead character, meanwhile, is a plucky blonde girl with a $1,000 leather jacket and longbow who will be mightily familiar to anyone who’s seen ‘The Hunger Games’. Derivative, dated, poorly scripted, opportunistic and plodding – episode two follows at 10pm for those with too much time on their hands.