Blackout is a “what-if” feature length drama-documentary that explores the effects of a cyber-attack on Britain’s national power grid.
Using a mixture of “amateur footage” and archive footage that has been cleverly edited to look like it is from a major nationwide blackout and the after effects of the blackout.
Blackout could have been brilliant, however for me it was not created the correct way. The whole feature length episode is set over 7 whole days which is crammed into an hour and forty minutes. What should have happened is 30 maybe 60 minute episodes, one for each day in the style that Torchwood: Children of Earth was created. We could have followed the groups and had proper character development and story arcs created, maybe throw in politicians trying to “sort” the problem out. We could have had an emotional attachment to characters but all I got was real hatred of every character apart from the group traveling to Sheffield.
The worst thing about Blackout is that Channel four somehow managed to fit more breaks into Blackout than ITV manage to fit in during pre-match coverage of England games. It was supposed to feature length but there was that many breaks I’d be surprised if it got passed an hour of actual footage. It’s not like it was expensive to make. It was made on a smart phone, with no expensive special effects or anything.
Blackout for me was a massive let down, This could have been made so much better, if it was made as a series with character developments and arcs rather than an hour and a bit (if that) of just shakey images. Every main character was annoying apart from the one group traveling to Sheffield.
It is not that it was made with a smart phone and is supposed to be “amateur footage” I’m all for things like that, Cloverfield and Troll Hunter are two of the best things I’ve seen in recent years it’s just that you have a weeks worth of what could be very good character development and arcs almost lazily crammed into one feature length episode.
Blackout was a good idea, could have been brilliant but unfortunately the delivery wasn’t quite right.