Is anyone actually watching "The Event"?

I'm not, except that it was on while I was typing up a brief last night. From what I saw out of the corner of my eye, it seems to commit all the unforced errors described by Mark Twain's in "James Fennimore Cooper's Literary Offenses."  "The Event" has achieved such a volume of sucking vacuum that it appears to have driven the reviewer at Io into apoplexy:

I want to slap everybody in a fifty-mile radius of the Event writers' room. There's obviously a buildup of psychic energy all around the producers which is causing them to have narrative arc constipation when it comes to anything other than scenes where people repeat the plot we already knew and then somebody reacts with a "you are totally crazy" face. What I'm saying is that I BLAME SOCIETY for the scene where Michael drops Leila and Sam off with random aliens "for protection" and says "I love you" when Leila asks, "There's something, isn't there?"


And then, in the annoying scene I mentioned earlier, Leila overhears the aliens arguing about whether to support Sophia or Thomas. She busts in and says, "Tell me what's going on - I'm one of you!" The guy replies, "It's your father's place to tell you." WHY? Is there an alien knowledge patriarchy that nobody told us about? Nobody can tell her anything even though she's been through kidnappings and murders and is now being hidden somewhere? It makes no sense! Again, I BLAME SOCIETY. The writers don't actually have an explanation, and it's YOUR FAULT. All we'll get is an endless repetition of the scene where Leila expressionlessly asks for information and is told that only daddy can tell her.

Plus, folks, how bad and important can this difference really be? So she'll probably age more slowly than a regular human, and apparently she'll be able to melt her face and store earbuds in her chin the way Thomas' henchman does. Obviously human DNA and alien DNA is similar enough that she can have children with a human. Could it be that this whole "difference" thing is just a sad ploy to keep us interested in the Most Boring Person Ever? I BLAME SOCIETY. Also, I blame hipsters. And Cthulhu. And porn. And videogames! I'm sure they have something to do with this.

Also, the character are really boring and should be sucked through that quantum tunnel that is the McGuffin of the show.  Apropos of that problem, Twain's 10th Rule of Writing offers:

10. They require that the author shall make the reader feel a deep interest in the personages of his tale and in their fate; and that he shall make the reader love the good people in the tale and hate the bad ones. But the reader of the "Deerslayer" tale dislikes the good people in it, is indifferent to the others, and wishes they would all get drowned together.

The Event writers violate this rule, as observed by Io9:

Of course Sean also had to show what a badass he is by randomly going into a bar, trying to hit on some chick, and then getting into a fistfight with her boyfriend. Seriously, why is this scene in the show? Just to make us hate Sean even more? I think maybe the chief of staff isn't the only person who has misjudged his audience.


Maybe this was a meta moment for the show, and barroom fight was a metaphor for what it's like to be the audience for this show? So the boyfriend is the audience, the girl is the studio, and Sean is the show. And the show is punching you in the face! Punch! Whoa, this show is badass because it can punch you in the face! I'm just guessing here - could that be the subtle meaning that we're supposed to get out of this episode?

I think that the character of Sophia violates Rule Number 3:

3. They require that the personages in a tale shall be alive, except in the case of corpses, and that always the reader shall be able to tell the corpses from the others. But this detail has often been overlooked in the "Deerslayer" tale.