Revelations

This article first appeared on May 6, 2005

There have been the most extraordinary number of special features on the end of the world and a God this year. Is there a prophecy I am unaware of: And henceforth Sunday shall no longer be the Day of Rest, but the day of the telling of stories of both natural disasters and those man made' Or a second? 'And lo there will be a violent fight to the death between the forces of good, Channel Seven, and evil, Channel Nine, whence Seven shall call first on storms and desperate housewives, then on planes that crasheth into desert islands and then on God himself to win the battle they calleth The Ratings? But in the winning must Seven not ask if it has worn the mask of its enemy for so long it looks not Good but Evil? And will not Seven rejoice regardless because they keep winning, winning every week and thereby leaving Nine squirming like a bug in the dust except for when the time cometh for the news whence Nine rises, briefly, to tell more stories of death and destruction before collapsing, exhausted leaving its viewers to change back to Seven?'

Revelations (Sunday & Wednesday Channel 7. 8.30 p.m.) is slicker, higher budget but less adventurous than the ABC’s Second Coming (shown last Sunday). It takes itself very seriously while being rather silly. It does, however, have a convincingly haunting quality. It is well acted, well produced and is written by David Seltzer who wrote The Omen - though Revelations screenplay has more emphasis on religion than the horror. It stars Bill Pullman as Dr Richard Massey, an astrophysicist whose belief that all worldly events can be explained by science is undermined by the death of his 12 year old daughter at the hands of a satanist, Isaiah Haden (Michael Massee). Another young girl is thrown into a coma after being struck by lightening and though dead she speaks from the Book of Revelations ( which predicts the End of Days and the time of miracles )in the voice of Massey’s daughter. Because of this Massey becomes the unlikely friend of Sister Josepha Montafiore (Natascha McElhone), who is searching for the new infant Jesus.

Revelations was shown in the States as the debate about Terry Schiavo's life support was at its height and was perceived as another attempt by the Christian Right to weigh in on various political debates. Perhaps it is easier to watch series like Revelations as entertaining fantasy here than it might be in the USA but for those who enjoy a more reasoned and considered account of man's struggles throughout the ages I highly recommend North and South (Sunday, 8.30 p.m., ABC - to be reviewed in full next week).

Christopher Eccleston played the new son of Christ last week and, as Dr Who (beginning Saturday May 21, 7.30 p.m., ABC) will take us a few billion years into the future to watch the end of the earth. The suggestion that the end is a few billion years away is a much more optimistic interpretation of events than most current shows are prepared to offer. Increasing numbers of manmade horrors since September 11 and the natural disasters triggered by climate change are seeping into the popular imagination and while such events are scary haven't there been many times over the millennia when it has seemed (or indeed been) the end of a particular civilization? Are disasters really accumulating at a greater rate than they have before? Possibly. Either way it's a state of mind that certainly leads to some weird television.

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