From The Boston Globe:
Apocalypse now
Doomsday scenarios abound on TV, pushing buttons while preying on fears, and hopes
By Matthew Gilbert, Globe Staff | April 12, 2005
It's the end of the world as we know it -- on TV. Good and Evil are about to clash in an ultimate contest of cosmic pinball. Turns out Fox Mulder and Dana Scully were right on track, and Rod Serling was indeed a prophet. The apocalypse is really, truly here, that dreaded deluge of water and nukes and viruses and UFOs and zombies and demon children.
Yes, folks, it's time to party.
There's something wonderfully unexpected about doomsday scenarios in entertainment, those fictional setups that hinge on forthcoming catastrophe. Rather than inspiring despondency in characters, the End of Days has become a kind of dramatic wake-up call, a stimulating of awareness, an opportunity for people to unburden their hearts and souls at long last. As a storytelling device, the apocalypse has almost become symbolic of a new start, a second chance.
NBC's ''Revelations," which premieres tomorrow night, is the newest addition to the ''Apocalypse Soon!" genre that has weekly TV iterations on the likes of ''24," ''Carnivale," and ''Battlestar Galactica." Boldly heightened, the six-part series follows a nun and a scientist as they investigate signs of the end of the world as prophesied in the Book of Revelation. Looks like the Antichrist may have Earth up next on his travel itinerary.
Certainly, all of these shows shamelessly exploit cultural anxieties about mass destruction that have only grown since the traumas of Y2K, 9/11, anthrax scares, news of nuclear threats, and the tsunami. If there is social pessimism in the air right now, doomsday series definitely feed on it. The ever-intensifying confrontations between Agent Jack Bauer and the terrorist forces on ''24" threaten to cause nothing less than world disorder and disaster, just as the ''Carnivale" battle between Ben and Brother Justin has promised moral and physical cataclysm. Fox's ''Point Pleasant" also appeared to be heading toward a world-shattering crisis -- until it was canceled, that is.
But as their heroes and heroines struggle to prevail over evil, apocalypse shows simultaneously imply that humankind is worth fighting for, that we should live in the moment because our time is limited. Buried within the paranoia and panic and religious fatefulness of the apocalyptic drama is a happy little affirmation.
In ''Revelations," for instance, Bill Pullman's Harvard astrophysicist Richard Massey is deep in despair over the murder of his young daughter. He's also a skeptic by temperament. But ''Revelations" promises to be his journey into faith, as he teams up with Natascha McElhone's Sister Josepha. When he and Sister Josepha face a comatose girl speaking scripture, Massey's stubborn belief that everything can be explained by science will be put to the test. His road to Armageddon or, perhaps, to intercepting Armageddon will be paved with personal growth. Yep, it's all about saving the world as a character-building experience.
The ''Theatre of Fear" has taken its share of knocks, particularly since 9/11. As movie and TV shows play on our worries about domestic terrorist attacks, for example, they are criticized as pornographic for ''scare-mongering" and parlaying tragedy into ratings. ''24" has been widely criticized for pushing viewers' buttons about Islamic extremists and the vulnerability of the United States.
But scare-mongering is a tried and true narrative technique, one that reaches directly into our subconscious for its impact. Fantasies of doom are healthy when they are acknowledged and teased out, rather than left to fester underground. They can even be sadly beautiful. One of the strongest depictions of the end of the world was the 1959 adaptation of Nevil Shute's ''On the Beach." Unlike many of the apocalyptic stories we see these days, ''On the Beach" didn't offer a literal second chance at life. But, as a nuclear cloud drifted over to people in Australia, it did show how knowledge of the end can dislodge the truest of feelings from their hiding places and give them a second chance.
Apocalyptic stories such as ''On the Beach" remind us to look ahead to the specter of our own deaths, if not to the death of the world, in order to love the present. They are ''It's a Wonderful Life" and ''A Christmas Carol," writ very large indeed.
Recently, David Seltzer, the creator of ''Revelations," told the press about his motives for writing a story on the end of the world. ''People are very nervous where they are heading for the sake of their children and their children's children," he said. ''I think it's time to explore their relationship to the hereafter and the now, and whether or not there is a part mankind can play at this time to forestall the nuclear bubble breaking and the world coming to an end."
Big words, for sure, but they get at the emotional power of portraying worst-case scenarios, and how they can bring us down to earth, and into the moment. They give us the gift of the present, as the clock ticks in the background.
Boston Globe: Apocalypse now (TV)
