Anyone see this tonight? The premise seems intriguing enough, but the first ep was largely uninvolving for me. Mostly, I think this was due to the paper thin characters. If they’d chosen one of the four storylines as a standalone tonight, I think the impact would have been greater for getting to know something of the characters outside of their reactions to the creatures. As it is, its like the Davinci code -involving enough overarching plot, but characters and writing that are subpar at best.
My thoughts, in no particular order:
It was okay…
In it’s defense, Scully and Mulder came across as paper thin in the X-Files pilot…
It didn’t hook me like Lost did.
The Louisiana Coast??? Would it have killed them to change it to Alabama? An intact Louisiana coast took me right out of it.
Better underwater stuff than SeaQuest’s grape jelly vision!
^^^Exception being horrible bluescreen for the divers.
Shit! Saltwater tanks are expensive! Can you insure fish?
Aliens? And why are we revealing that so early in the series?
Different people from all over drawn to the same thing a la Close Encounters. Interesting.
All in all, I think I’ll give it some time. I’m not watching anything else on Mondays, but I’m not keeping my fingers crossed either…
I thought this was pretty damn good and it’s not like I’m a huge Sci Fi fan. Not sure why this got the worst early buzz and reviews of the new sci fi shows. The characters weren’t fleshed out yet, but I think that was fine given what we got for the first hour. So far it reminded me a lot of a Stephen King story, especially the way it was set up so far. I really appreciate that there was no bad one liners, no pop culture filled dialogue and no unnecessary humor. Those things have been pissing me off with many shows lately. Surface played it straight, yet not heavy handed or overdramatic. There was no cheese here. The writing was fairly strong to me. I’ll definitely be back for as long as this show can go before being cancelled.
I actually took the time to watch it which was cool. I usually don’t do much tv watching. The whole appointment tv usually doesn’t work for me. There’s a few shows coming on this season that I’m a little curious about. This was one of them and I had the free time.
I kinda wonder what they can do with the idea. I suppose they can take it and run with it and I hope they have an overall plan of where they’re going. Probably do. I agree with Jesse Custer in that it felt like there was too much to say in an hour for all of the characters to have their time to shine and make more of an impression. A two hour premier would have perhaps been more fulfilling. The impression I got was that it’s going to be more about the life forms. We’ll see more of them soon and hopefully find out more about them. If they go too long and say too little it may get annoying. The characters are ok but I don’t know if they’re going to be strong enough to take away from the central idea of the life forms. We’ll see.
If I have the time I’ll definitely try to check it out some more. I’m interested enough to want to know where it’s going so that’s good.
Aliens? Maybe… It would definitely allow for more story options.
By the vague commercials, I was expecting sea monsters or something and not aliens, which actually disappointed me a little. Their are plenty of shows about mysterious aliens these days(too many) but when was the last time we had some good ole sea monster action in a tv show?
First poster pretty much nailed it. I was very bored by it and found none of the characters intriguing. I couldn’t even tell you their names (though that may have been because I was getting my WoW fix while watching). I think my reaction would have been different had this been a two hour pilot with more time spent introducing the characters, but I’ll still give it another shot since there’s nothing else on Mondays.
Don’t care much about the characters. The kid seems like the best of the bunch. I’ll continue to watch to see giant manatees invade earth though. Do you think it’s revenge?
I was stunned when the credits began rolling on the series premiere. If ever a show needed a two hour premiere to get people hooked, this was it.
The characters were completely uninvolving. If I was supposed to feel frustrated by the plight of the marine biologist, that emotion didn’t materialize. The kids were annoying (as kids almost always are), and the southern types had a rather drawn out storyline for what should have been throwaway (or maybe, eataway) characters.
I did really enjoy the underwater sequences, but when the characters opened their mouths, I began to yawn.
I can’t believe this is about aliens. Why? Is that really necessary?
I may give this one more episode, but I am not impressed thus far.
**one final note, they really, really needed to change the location of the “New Orleans” scenes. Would it have been that hard to change the captioning to “off the coast of georgia”, or even Florida or Texas. Leaving it as Louisiana was jarring and unnecessary. Yanked me right out of the story.
Quick question: Can anybody give any of the hints, obvious or not, that show that we’re most likely dealing with aliens? I was watching but missed a few of the finer details due to some interruptions.
I remember the scientist guy with something that looked like a big fossil or misshapen piece of metal saying something about a toothmark and not being in the fossil record, asif it fell from the sky so I’m fuzzy there.
Then at the end it looked like green shooting stars but as far as I could tell they were shooting into the water. I assume the shooting stars were more of the animals.
Anything else?
Also, is it possible they’re not aliens? Maybe they were chilling IN the earth and left. The spot with the lady in the submersible showed lots of activity. They were going up. It seems that they can live out of the water so maybe they can fly too… I don’t know. If they go UP from IN the earth maybe they can fly and they go back DOWN. What goes up must come down, that sort of thing? Just wondering.
Well i finally saw it, and I am very interested in seeing where this goes. The character dev. portions were a bit clunky but the storyline has me pretty intrigued.
My guess, is that the “hotbed ecosystem” or whatever its called was actually created by these alien comet things hitting the ocean and it acted as the catalyst for life on earth to start developing.
I am guessing the alien/sea creatures were lying dormant all this time or just moving around unnoticed by man, or there is something bigger going on. My guess with that comet storm is that things are going to get a little hairy.
Well, I’m tuning in to this again tonight unless something pulls me kicking and screaming away form the tv. It’s been years since I’ve actively followed any show as it runs on broadcast tv. So far I’m trying to get back in the habit this year. I’m starting small. I’ll try to follow this show and Lost (and likely Invasion after Lost). If I get too ambitious my anxieties will kick in and l’ll lose my mind. If I catch anything else from time to time then that’s all good. And if anything rubs me the right way then there’s always the prospect of dvd in the future.
Tonight with this one I’m kinda looking forward to the kid trying to keep his ‘pet’ under control. Maybe we’ll get a better look at the whatever they ares too. And if I’m really lucky maybe I’ll be able to tune out afterwards and know the names of some of the characters…
I hope the show get nuts. Fazer’s idea of “seeds from space” is a good one, but we’ll need more time to really see what’s going on. I’m guessing that the ‘things’ are really advanced life forms, maybe as intelligent or more so than us. I guess I don’t really have a basis for this, but it would be interesting. Time will tell. Even if they’re just monsters out to take over the universe, well, that’d be cool too. Ha!
Watched it last night, then more or less passed out. Migraine. Ugh. Anybody else catch it?
I think I remember the name of the kid keeping the critter in a cooler. His names is Miles. I think… Nobody else really registered again. I’m watching it more for the strange marine life than anything else so far I suppose. There are a few new wrinkles to the story so I was left wondering a little bit more about what actually may be going on, like how the Indian guy got healed and wondering if he seemed a little in a ‘not himself’ sort of mood, among other things. We also got a better look at the animals, especially little Nimrod, which is what Miles and his friend names their little guy. It’s neat how they seem to prefer live food. Nimrod zapped some goldfish and then ate them kind of like an otter would.
The end was kinda cool too. Shark fishing, reel in shark’s head, then have HUGE thing swallow the boat whole.
I don’t necessarily think it’s a great show, but so far the concept alone is enough to keep me interested so I’ll see where it goes.
Turning out to be not what I thought it would though.
Only show that seems like it could go another season out of the three is Threshold. Surface seems too much like a DTV movie and Invasion feels like a mini-series.
That little alien creature so reminds me of the children’s book, The Mysterious Tadpole.
I guess I don’t get the Lake Bell’s kid angle. It’s a drag for us to watch her deal with him all the time.
That last shot was one the coolest I’ve seen on TV in a long time.
Quote:
| Originally Posted by Del Griffith That last shot was one the coolest I’ve seen on TV in a long time. |
That shot totally reminded me of the first boss fight in Resident Evil 4. Pretty sweet.
Tonight’s episode had me screaming like Wesley Willis:
“SURFACE KICKED MY ASS”
The closing sequence from last week was very cool, but the opening sequence this week, even better. The creatures are digging, raising the temperature and draining lakes in the process… how fucked up is that? There were a lot of crazy things going on in this episode, and I love how global it feels, exploring events as they occur all around the world, not just in one town or just the USA. And I like how there’s four storylines going on, occasionally intersecting but still their own threads. It’s just really nifty. The effects are alternately strong and weak (the closing sequence at Yellowstone this week looked like shit, but the monsters are actually nicely rendered) The Pate Brothers (GvsE) have an underrated but solid show again with this one.
Of Invasion, Threshhold and this one, Surface is my favourite (Invasion makes a good sleeping aide and Threshold succeeds only on acting, the scripts are kind of dull).
Saw last week’s episode. Very entertaining. I am actually pretty intrigued at where they are planning on going with this whole thing. Everything is so murky (no pun intended) right now, but there are enough hints here and there that keep me coming back.
I find the kid/ET storyline abit boring though. Its pretty weak.
This show is reaching down into “so bad it’s good territory”. Especially that geyser sequence at the end. Pure greenscreen and shit 3D. I mean come on… use a practical effect for damn sake.
Finally got around to watching it last night and the SFX were almost XENA/Hercules campy. And they lingered on that shot so long it was painful. Bad, bad, bad. And there’s enough overacting going on to last me a llifetime.