The Messengers

I want to like this show, I really do. But I can't. It's a little too simple, like a rough first draft. The characters are so far one dimensional and each of them has a one track mind. Of course there is the Latino who is into drugs (but really has a heart of gold), the mystical African American who knows all (and what is up with the clichéd African music attached to her revelations?), the scientist who does not want to believe in anything but science (and of course there must be a scientific explanation for God). It could be good, but instead of delving into the mythology, or really exploring these characters, it stifles itself with surface meaning. Oh, and the glowing eyes, a little over that already. Surely there is another way of showing that someone is evil than changing their eyes?

A meteor crashes onto the Trinity nuclear test site and a man rises from the crater. A shockwave is released and a few selected individuals are knocked unconscious. The man turns out to be the devil. The people hit by the shockwave are strangers who become angels with special individual powers tasked with stopping the rise of the four horsemen and the Apocalypse.

This CW traffics in the Biblical Apocalypse although it may be sacrilegious to turn angels into X-Men. Some of it is simplifying. I'm willing to root for the show which has a couple of familiar faces. It's not until the devil do something more complex and the Angel of Death reveal that the show gets better. It's too little too late as the show gets cancelled after 13 episodes. There is another problem with the story telling since the four horsemen are always expected to rise. If they don't rise, there is no show. It's trying to be a battle but some parts of the outcome are never in doubt. That keeps the tension at a lower level. Overall, it's a good enough, but not great show.

They didn't get the Message. I mean the producers and network executives.

This is another messed up series *designed* (so to speak) to appeal in younger audiences. After vampires, werewolves, heroes, originals, 100s, specials, mutants etc. etc. TV producers decided the last couple of years to give ...the apocalypse a go. Soooo Angels it is! This is the story of 5 (and maybe later 7) young reluctant heroes who are supposed to find the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse and stop the devil from ...well...his devilish evil plans.

God is present, but he likes to give strange ...visions and signs (even to his own ....angels) who must collaborate to stop the ...Rapture, (an act of God by definition). You see Rapture is when all true believers (dead and alive) will be taken from the earth by God into heaven. Seems like a good thing. Why God himself wants to prevent his own doing? Anyway...

The actors are all unknown to me and they seem really uncharismatic and forgettable. Except one who looks like a young version of "The mentalist". Vest and all. Their acting is really bad. No uprising stars here, sorry.

The visuals are the usual CGI with the devil having red eyes (sometimes, when the episode cuts to the next scene) and the angels having wings (when they look each other in the mirror), but they can't fly.

The plot is ridiculous in every way. It basically gets down to small detectiv-ish subplots, move there, find that man, prevent that, save this. Small things considering this is ...the Apocalypse.

Oh! And by the way all these happen to the ...U.S. because...well...I don't know...all the righteous people are there ?....or the filming is too expensive to shoot abroad....something like that! .

My main issue is that this show is advertised as a sci-fi. It is not! Ironically the two most unscientific characters on the show, are the two people supposed to be scientist. The writing is absolutely horrible, it's still to early to really judge the actual story, seeing how we only have the first episode thus far. But I don't have high hopes for this show, the plot just sounds really boring.

If you want good sci-fi, you need to create an interesting universe, in which you can experiment with different aspects of reality. WALL- E, what if the earth died - GATTACA, what if we could genetically improve our lives before they even began - and so on. It's all about asking what if - and this show completely fails to ask any interesting questions. Honestly I would deem it pure fantasy, but even as a fantasy story it fails, see how fantasy stories are supposed to be relatable metaphors for life - often coming of age stories. But this show is neither, it is just bad.

This TV series offers some interesting interpretations of scripture. The array of flawed characters are almost believable. The twists are often confusing, yet there is a sort of old school charm. I wish the writers did more than google the bible...