Save the World from Destruction!

by Karen J Mossman

Over the years I’ve found I enjoy TV Box Sets that are apocalyptic or science fiction. I’m not the same with books because those I’ve tried I struggle with the pronouncing of names and places. It’s like struggling to read through mud.

I was never a fan of zombies either, but watched The Walking Dead. They are not what I’d call zombies; they were people affected with a virus, and nothing of them remains except the dead walking body. I moved on to the books, but the more I read the more the graphic violence seemed to carry the story.

Read a book, or the watch the TV series? It’s difficult in knowing which to do first. Mostly, books are better, but there have been exceptions. Sometimes, as with The Handmaid’s Tale, you need to read the book to understand what is going on.

One of my favourites genres is time travel. I’ve yet to find a book that is not so overly complicated. Perhaps you can suggest one?  I discovered Travelers, that’s one L, as it’s American and they spell things slightly different from us.

I even wrote a time travel story of my own. It’s about a girl from the future who wakes up in World War 11 with no knowledge of how she got there. It’s called Distant Time if you want to check it out.

Travelers is about beings from the future whose own world is failing and send their consciousness back to present day earth. They land in the bodies of people about to die, and assume their lives. The team, who are on a mission to save humanity find each other, and their exploits make it an interesting programme. The five actors chosen to play the parts are very charismatic, and it is interesting to see how they adjust to their new lives.

When I find something I love, I binge watch, and covered the first two seasons pretty quickly. I’ve soon discovered a third series and devoured that too.

When it finished, I went on the hunt for something else and came across Salvation. An asteroid is heading for earth and when it hits, it will be catastrophic. They have 186 days to save the planet.

Tanz Industries run by Darius Tanz, played by Santiago Cabrera is a physicist and mathematician. He has already built an Ark. His young protégé works with him to find a way to knock the asteroid off its course.

The other two main characters work for the White House. The very good looking Harris Edwards, and Grace Burrows who is having an affair with him and who is also her boss.

It started well with lots of political intrigue, by the time it reached the end of the first series, a reviewer described it as a soap. Grace decides she loves Darius more than Harris, then her daughter starts seeing Harris’s son, while Harris gets involved with a woman at the bar, who turns out to be a secret agent! It gets even more convoluted and by then and I was hooked!

Would the asteroid hit? Would they go into the secret bunker? Who will go in the Ark Tanz had built?

As with a lot of box sets, it gets more complicated as we headed into series two, and, to be honest, sillier, too. They overused clichés like –‘ Save the planet,’ ‘Save all humanity,’  ‘The lives of millions of people are at stake.’

I asked myself why these four people in America were taking the responsibility for the whole of the planet. Why it was up to them to save the world? What was the UK doing? China? Russia? India? They wouldn’t all be sitting back saying, “Ah, let the Americans handle it, they know what they are doing.”

Then Darius Tranz, the scientist became President of the United States by default. Now I was struggling. The realism was slipping, and far fetched was creeping into its place.

Then, at the last minute they discovered the asteroid was not an asteroid after all. It was on a set path to the earth. As the four main characters came outside to watch it arc across the sky, I wondered if it would smash into the moon. Now that would take the series off in a different direction.

However, the camera stayed on the faces of the four as one said, “What is it?” Another replied, “I don’t know, but we are about to find out.”

 Thenit finished. Is there going to be another series? Will we find out what it was? I don’t know, but if there is, I shall be watching!

Next, Continuum…….