TV Review: Crusoe

Friday, NBC premiered its new show, Crusoe. Apparently it's a limited run, thirteen hour series. If the first two hours are any indication, the remaining eleven won't be worth the trouble.

Last week, I read a commentary on Ain't It Cool News about the current state of Heroes. The writer brought up the idea of the "idiot plot" (a plot that only works because the characters behave like idiots). Crusoe seems to have fully embraced the "idiot plot." My favorite example of this comes near the end of the episode. The combined forces of the pirates and Spanish sailors lay siege to Crusoe and Friday in their massive tree fort (I'll talk more about this place later). I didn't count how many of these guys there were exactly, but they had to outnumber Crusoe and Friday by at least five to one. So, what's there plan for dealing with our heroes? Constructing a trebuchet and lobbing lit barrels of gun powder at them.

What could possible go wrong with a plan like that? Well, you've probably already guessed what goes wrong.

Now, I might just chalk this flawed planning to the bad guys just being stupid, but these are the guys that were able to construct a working trebuchet out of available materials.

Speaking of construction, lets talk about that tree fort Crusoe lives in. It appears to be a pretty impressive feat of engineering. It begs the question, if he's had the time, material, and know-how to build this thing, so why doesn't he just build a freaking boat and get off the island.

There are so many things that don't work with this program that I could keep going on and on, but I've already expended far too much thought on this show. I'll just leave it at this: If you've been waiting for a faithful adaptation of the novel, you'll be waiting a while longer.