The production values on this show are top-notch. Good CGI, classy sets, and appropriately grungy slums. The plotting and acting, however, are strictly B-list. Sean Teale and Allison Miller seem to be giving their roles their best effort, but either it's not good enough, the writing's too stilted, or both. Haysbert's best moment is a feral glare at a surveillance camera, meant for Julia Ormond's eyes, but otherwise, he's wooden. It's fun to see Douglas Nyback get physically debased in exchange for some Red-Zone tech, but his young face (or heavy makeup) doesn't allow him to display the humiliation and seething anger such an experience demands. Ormond is the only one able to bring some subtlety to her role.
Some plot holes are just too big to be disbelieved. The ease with which Ben Larsen goes in and out of the Red Zone to visit Theo is one such example. Corporate surveillance would flag his comings and goings and he'd be questioned for their frequency. The corporate tech. that Ben takes to the Red Zone club in order to obtain his boss's blood would undoubtedly have an RFID tag to monitor its whereabouts, and Ben would have to have answered for that. As others have noted, the health of Red Zone residents seems too good for their squalid living conditions, and their superior tech. R&D is simply not plausible. Ben's father's suicide makes no sense. What parent wants to abandon their child in such a harsh realm, much less make a demagogic speech before doing so? In the latest episode, the defection of an Inizaga SVP is completely unbelievable. In a world where corporations have replaced nation states, employees would absolutely want to inculcate loyalty to their employer in their children from an early age, just as parents of today want to make their citizens' children patriotic; it would be seen as a sacred duty. For a senior Inizaga exec. to claim otherwise should have raised a red flag to Spiga execs as a pretense for a double-agent operation.
While I think the premise of this show is highly plausible, the execution is too flawed to enjoy the show.
Some plot holes are just too big to be disbelieved. The ease with which Ben Larsen goes in and out of the Red Zone to visit Theo is one such example. Corporate surveillance would flag his comings and goings and he'd be questioned for their frequency. The corporate tech. that Ben takes to the Red Zone club in order to obtain his boss's blood would undoubtedly have an RFID tag to monitor its whereabouts, and Ben would have to have answered for that. As others have noted, the health of Red Zone residents seems too good for their squalid living conditions, and their superior tech. R&D is simply not plausible. Ben's father's suicide makes no sense. What parent wants to abandon their child in such a harsh realm, much less make a demagogic speech before doing so? In the latest episode, the defection of an Inizaga SVP is completely unbelievable. In a world where corporations have replaced nation states, employees would absolutely want to inculcate loyalty to their employer in their children from an early age, just as parents of today want to make their citizens' children patriotic; it would be seen as a sacred duty. For a senior Inizaga exec. to claim otherwise should have raised a red flag to Spiga execs as a pretense for a double-agent operation.
While I think the premise of this show is highly plausible, the execution is too flawed to enjoy the show.