La Brea Review: Pilot (Season 1 Episode 1)
La Brea Season 1 Episode 1, “Pilot,” is dumb and absurd in almost equal measure. At the moment, that’s neither a bug nor a feature; it merely is what it is. Time will tell if it swings one way or the other.
The biggest problem, right out of the gate, with this high-concept series is that it’s derivative of a dozen other series over the last twenty or thirty years that many of us would easily recognize. To add insult to injury, some of those were already so in the first place. So what we have here is essentially a counterfeit bill that was then photocopied.
The most obvious of these is Lost , so much so that it almost feels like punching down to say that La Brea would like to be the former given how painfully clear that is throughout this first episode. The main set used for the series is just a flat-out recreation of the fuselage wreckage, which is either an homage or blatant plagiarization, depending on how generous you are.
They have a scene early on in the episode that is similar to Jack Shepherd navigating the injured on the beach but it has none of the gravitas or weight that Lost had given it. That’s where the faults come in most plainly.
This is like if a child was asked to watch the first episode of Lost and then recreate it. What comes out of that is almost predictable. It doesn’t have any of the patience or nuance that series had and it’s not even clear how seriously we should be taking any of this.
It’s clearly camp but does anyone involved actually realize that? The sequence in which everyone falls into the sinkhole is almost laughably bad — from the visuals and effects down to the performances — and that has to be purposeful, except maybe it’s not. Is this meant to be taken or are we meant to think that this is all a farce?
There’s so much haphazardly into this giant pot of an episode that it’s honestly difficult to tell one way or another. The thing that the writers can’t seem to tell is that what they’ve created isn’t Lost. It has much more in common with something like Terra Nova.
It shouldn’t be either of those things, though. What it should be striving for — and there’s still plenty of room for it to get there — is Zoo. If you haven’t watched it, go queue it up after this but that is a show that fully understood the assignment. It was dumb and realized fully exactly what it is. It drifted into those skids and that is what Lost should be.
This should be ridiculous and absurd and idiotic and thrive because of those things. Otherwise, it’s hard to see this surviving more than a few episodes.
What did you think of this episode of La Brea? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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La Brea airs Tuesdays at 9/8c on NBC.
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Drew Koenig
Drew has an ongoing, borderline unhealthy obsession with pop culture, but with television in particular. When he's not aggressively trying to get out of a perpetual state of catching up, he can be found passionately defending the ending of Lost. More of his online work can be found at The Lost Cause and he also co-hosts The Lost Cause Pod.
4 comments
I just watched the first episode. It was intriguing enough but the criticism here was pretty spot on. They made the decision “to jump right in” but that really means there is almost no characters that stood out. The father who can “magically” see what is happening on the other side of the sinkhole really seemed kind of a cheap plot device and is the most contrived use of ebert’s law on economy of characters ever. Out of everyone in the world, the one guy who has psychic powers or whatever conveniently is the husband of a person that fell into the sinkhole.
Plus, they kind of act like it is a mystery what is “going on”(with a promo tag line for the season of “where are they” and “when are they”) when really, unlike “Lost” it is pretty obvious after the first half hour. If they think this is a mystery, then the series is in BIG trouble. And yes, I agree with the review that this is almost a plagiarism of “Terra Nova”
And yes, the effects for such a high concept show on a network is surprisingly mediocre.
But given the dreck of game shows and reality singing that networks have become, I almost want to give any network show that tries to recapture the high concept series grandeur of their past a chance.
This is so bad the dialogue is worst and the premise is a rehash of so many others that went down the sinkhole as this one will unless they hire new writers and directors
I have just one question — why isn’t anyone hungry or looking for food? They’re into their second day now & no one’s mentioned eating. And why are all the background characters just walking around the clearing all the time? What are they doing? (Ok, 3 questions.)
Bonus question — who thought it was a good idea to make this crap?
Ok, I just started binge watching the series that I have DVR’d so my review is a bit behind but I feel I had to post my views on the new series after watching the first episode.
I realize the epicenter of the event was right in the middle of California, but are Californians really that fking stupid? Right off the bat everyone with a line who fell into the hole is asking everyone else, “do you know what happened?” or “where we are?” like at least 1 of them must be responsible for the catastrophe and their survival of it. It was at about this point that I noticed the similarity to “Lost” and it wasn’t 3 minutes later that the junky mentioned that very show, which confirmed the similarities. Next have a lady claiming to be a cop that doesn’t act like one. Not even sure she has a gun at this point. Next she encounters the one guy that does have a gun and she doesn’t even question his possession of it, further reinforcing her failure to act like a cop. But again, this is CA, so maybe the cops there aren’t supposed to have guns either and they aren’t allowed to question possible illegal gun possession in a gun free state. And we are yet to know what happened to the traffic cop that fell first into the sinkhole.
Next we have the genius of Mom. Wolves show up, she screams “RUN”. Saber Tooth Tiger shows up she screams “RUN”. Why in the hell would anyone run from predators that can outrun you in the first place, not to mention, running only encourages the chase and you’ll only die tired. Secondly, with the tigers, why didn’t they just climb into the back of the van they were standing beside?
Lastly on the height of stupidity list for this episode, with all the vehicles scattered around, why hasn’t anyone attempted to see if at least 1 was operable before traipsing off to look for the rescue van, or maybe drive the rescue van as close as they could back to base-camp? It didn’t look like it was damaged either. Oh and we can’t forget, there is a Fire & Rescue van but no personnel so apparently the Hollywood F&R crew just left their truck sitting in the middle of the road while they went elsewhere, which must be why the traffic was blocked up to begin with.
The other aspect of “Lost” that I’m sure will come up in the next episode or 2, will be “The Others”. Since the Government is covering up the truth about a similar event at another location sometime in the past, there has to be a bunch of survivors from that event that will be the controlling party for what ever happens to the new arrivals. Kinda like the ones that rounded up the people in lost and sent them back home as survivors or on to the promise land for the dead who didn’t need prove themselves in purgatory.
And I have to agree with GuyRoy’s assessment on the Dad being the 1 person in 6 billion on the planet that just happens to have visions of the past. What happened to all the CA psychics? And why is it that anytime there is someone that sees something that nobody else can see, the rest act like the 1 is a nut-bag that can’t be trusted? If we’re going to go there, at least give us a whole lot more back story than, “he crashed and bumped his head, so now he’s a nut-bag”.
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