Riverworld on SyFy Channel – a waste of time to be avoided

By Michael Vass | December 5, 2010

So I was struck with a bit of insomnia yesterday. Thus at 2 in the morning I was watching a rerun of Riverworld on SyFy Channel. It was a mistaken choice that was obvious simply because it was a SyFy Channel ‘original’ movie.

SyFy Channel is owned by NBC. Which means that everything on the cable network is built upon the broadcast executives concept that the bottom common denominator is the most important concept in entertainment. That reasoning is why the cable channel had to change their name from SciFi, as they provided virtually nothing that would give such a core audience anything worth watching.

But Riverworld should be different. It’s a television movie based on a successful and well regarded science fiction book. In fact Riverworld is a series of 5 books. So there is more than enough content to make a viable mini-series out of.

But this is NBC we are speaking about. So the scifi content must be watered down, the characters dumbed down, and PC must be observed. There was a reason I did not see this in its first run, which I should have stuck with.

Riverworld is dumb. On so many levels that the real enjoyment was counting all the plot holes and incredulous situations in the movie. But let me stop for a moment.

Great scifi, or any movie for that matter, is defined in the first 15 minutes of the film. In those establishing minutes, the complete rules of the world are defined. Energy weapons, the effect of gravity, language, aliens, everything is either explicitly or implicitly defined for the rest of the film. From that point everything else is a mere expansion on the rules established.

Riverworld fails to establish anything meaning full in its first hour. We are lead to understand that people from various times in history are all on this world at the same time. According to the rules of the world, people that die simulatneously on Earth appear in Riverworld days, months, even years apart. People can die and come back, for an unknown reason. Wounds heal in miraculous timeframes, and everyone speaks American English (with accents) for no apparent reason.

The lead characters are a black Muslim from the 19th century, an American reporter from modern days, a female Samurai from Ancient Japan, a Black American from the same time as the reporter, Samuel Clemens, Sir Francis Bacon, and a female Spaniard. Effectively the PC overseers of NBC tried to get all the major ethic and racial groups they want to pander to. Black women, American Indians, any other Asian, Hispanics, and anyone else are all ignored. So are Christians, Jews, and every religious group except Buhdists (who then ignores her religion in favor of becoming a warrior) are simply forgotten about.

The main hero of the fim, the American reporter from modern days, is supposed to be a great fighter (though he loses every fight he is in) and important for some undiscernable reason. His best friend is a Balck man whose only talent seems to be his ability to die and or be injured randomly and repeatedly. The Spaniard is duplicitous and a murderer who uses her femininity as a weapon. The Muslim is devout, and the anti-terrorist image of Islam, though too dumb to know how to use a gun. And the female Samurai is the perfect image of a feminist that history never had.

Ok, forget the weak characters and the PC stereotyping. How about the incredulity of the world itself. There are no animals on the planet, yet a mechanical horse is present (we learn it is mechanical later). There is no apparent mining facilities on the planet, yet swords, armor, and items requiring high industrialization exist (ie a steamboat and a zeppilin). There are no tools apparent beyond hammers and forges akin to the Middle Ages, yet high quality glass is abundant, like champagne glasses – not to mention champagne!

Yes, there are even rocket launchers (made of wood) in a world without the means of making anything beyond bows and arrows.

Ok forget that, how about the fact that the world is supposed to be filled with all the humans ever, except there is an overabundance of men to women – roughly 5 to 1. There has consistently been a slight majority of women in the history of the world. And none of them are Black or ethnic women beyond the 1 Asian and 1 Hispanic woman.

These are just the obviously glaring problems with the mini-series. There are so many problems that I could go on for hours. And that is without mentioning a single problem with the plot. Suffice to say the plot is about a well written as one would expect a 5th grader to write.

Most likely you haven’t seen Riverworld. Don’t. It’s just a fustrating conglomeration of half-fleshed out good ideas, and PC restrictions, that equates to boredom as well as annoyance. Even for those that suffer insomnia, watch an infomercial if nothing else is available.

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