I know the first part aired last night, but this wasn’t on my radar. Any good? The second part airs on July 19th, and I was wondering if maybe I should try to catch the first part.
Synopsis:
In “Meteor,” two massive rocks — tumbling debris older than the solar system itself — collide in space. The course has been altered. The target is Earth. In a remote observatory, Dr. Lehman (Emmy winner Christopher Lloyd, “Back to the Future”), discovers a meteor approximately three times the size of Mount Everest barreling its way towards Earth. His devoted young assistant Imogene O’Neill (Marla Sokoloff, “The Practice”) feverishly types in the coordinates only to find the previously identified meteor named Kassandra is headed their way. It’s only the beginning of their troubles as showers of smaller meteorites begin to lay waste to major cities around the globe.
The impending disaster brings out the best and the worst sides in people as they cope by either lending a helping hand or taking advantage of the situation. In a small California town, a police chief (Golden Globe nominee struggles to calm a panicky group of citizens. Miles away, his son Jack, a detective, finds himself caught in the middle of the most difficult arrest of his career with the ill-timed transfer of a very dangerous psychopath named Stark . Then there’s the skeptical Dr. Chetwyn who may be the only chance Lehman and O’Neill have to get their findings to the proper authorities in time to deflect Kassandra.
Time is running out in “Meteor,” in which eye-popping effects, explosive human drama, and hair-raising action combine to create a suspenseful, thrilling and dramatic new miniseries event from RHI Entertainment.
It apparently has my boys George Costanza and Dr. Emmett Brown in it so it can’t be that bad can it? It also has Stacey Keach, Marla Sokolof and Billy Campbell in it.
USA Today gave “Meteor” a pretty scathing 1-star review. So I thought to myself, “How bad could it possibly be?” Well, as it turns out, GLARINGLY bad. EMBARRASSINGLY bad. SO bad, in fact, that it made me downright ANGRY that one of the venerable “Big Three” broadcast networks would actually air it … and in this era of Reality TV, that’s really saying something.
There was absolutely nothing remotely redeeming about “Meteor.” The acting and direction were both about as awful as it gets. The special effects were cheap, and there was absolutely no attempt made at scientific accuracy. Bad enough for you? Well, how about that SCRIPT? According to USA Today, the screenwriter for “Meteor” was one Alex Greenfield, whose last major writing credit was for “WWF Smackdown,” if you can believe that. And BOY, did it show. The script for this film was so laughably, eye-rollingly BAD that for the first time in my life I felt geniunely ashamed of myself for tuning in to watch a show.
What could NBC possibly have been thinking in airing this? My guess is the only thing that mattered was the advertising revenue. Some corporate suit probably said, “It doesn’t matter if the program is bad. What only matters is that we make more money off it than we invested.” Are these the depths to which network television has sunk? If so, I see absolutely NO hope for human civilization.
It seems in general that they are popping out more and more of these made for television movies. I can not say too much on Meteor as I did not watch it, I find shows about stuff that “could” actually happen and destroy Earth a bit too scary for my brain to handle. What was the last made for television movie that really rocked? Haha Alex Greenfield and WWF Smackdown, that is funny. Was it one of those shows where you actually turn away because you are embarrased by it.
I completely agree. This has to be one of the worst pieces of tripe I have ever seen on television. This is the kind of thing that people get fired over and if whoever put the green light on this production still has a job, he/she better be very thankful to the right people. I felt like I needed a shower after watching it.
One thing that hasn’t been mentioned, the ten minutes of padding by using map transitions. Horrible.
Not only were the acting, direction, script and special effects completely awful, but it’s basically the same old storyline from previous TV movies:
http://www.tvtango.com/news/detail/id/47