The World's Common Tater

La Brea premiered on NBC last night at 9 pm. I watched it live last night but got distracted by updates on the Braves game so I rewatched this morning.

The Premise

An epic adventure begins when a massive sinkhole opens in the middle of Los Angeles, pulling hundreds of people and buildings into its depths. Those who fell in find themselves in a mysterious and dangerous primeval land, where they have no choice but to band together to survive. Meanwhile, the rest of the world desperately seeks to understand what happened. In the search for answers, one family torn apart by this disaster will have to unlock the secrets of this inexplicable event to find a way back to each other.

Tater’s Thoughts

I really wanted to love this one. I’m a big fan of Natalie Zea. I liked Eoin Macken in Night Shift. I loved the canceled too soon Terra Nova. This seemed like the perfect show for me. I was disappointed. It was like watching a cheesy, so bad it’s good, SyFy Channel movie that forgot to add the good part.

There was so much thrown into the story for the first episode. Family drama. The sinkhole. Government coverup A car full of heroin. Bad CGI birds emerge from the sinkhole. Bad CGI wolves attack the sinkhole people. Eoin Macken’s character has visions of what is happening in sinkhole land. A quest to find medical supplies. Food theft. A saber-tooth tiger! It’s a lot.

Some of the acting is so bad it makes me think they pulled random people off the street to fill in the side characters. One stand out is Rohan Mirchandaney as Scott, a stoner who adds a little bit of levity to the show.

I didn’t find much to recommend here.

All that being said, I like the premise enough to not judge it on one episode. I will watch it next week to see if I feel the same.