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IP: A true Y2K disaster: NBC's Sunday night movie
From: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
Date: Sat, 20 Nov 1999 14:50:16 -0500
Date: Sat, 20 Nov 1999 14:39:52 -0500 To: farber () cis upenn edu From: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com> ******** http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,32578,00.html A True Y2K Disaster: the Movie by Declan McCullagh (declan () wired com) 3:00 a.m. 20.Nov.1999 PST Terrifying the public can be a dodgy undertaking nowadays, and in fin de siecle America it's not hard to see why. After a formulaic procession of quotidian disaster flicks such as Asteroid, Deep Impact, and Volcano, audiences seem to be rendered catatonic by catastrophe. NBC's Y2K, airing Sunday at 9 p.m., falls just as flat. Technical glitches and Y2K woes are an unconvincing pretext for what turns out to be a rather pedestrian action movie, in which our Hero Designate (Thirtysomething's Ken Olin as Nick Cromwell) must pull the plug on a Seattle nuclear power plant before it vomits radioactive detritus over much of North America. Bonus incentive: His daughter and wife are downwind. Sound familiar? It should. Anyone who's suffered through similar brink-of-the-apocalypse flicks knows what happens next. (It's no coincidence that the movie's executive producer is David Israel, creator of the even more banal viral-terror miniseries Pandora's Clock.) In fact, the most interesting thing about Y2K might be the buzz. Can fictitious depictions of a jet screaming toward the Potomac River, blackouts spreading from Virginia to Canada, and cash machines not doing what they're told panic Americans? Without even seeing the two-hour movie, industry groups have become as jittery as Bill Gates near a pie factory. [...] >Date: Fri, 19 Nov 1999 20:20:07 -0500 >Subject: Re: FC: NBC Y2K movie causes panic -- among power companies, > bankers >From: "Rick Cowles" <rick () csamerica com> >To: declan () well com > >As a techincal advisor to the movie during pre-production, it doesn't >surprise me that critics have already panned "Y2k" as a stinker. >(http://www.energyland.net/commentary/guest7.asp). I didn't expect a whole >lot, but I haven't seen the finished production yet, either. I'll reserve >judgement until Sunday. What tickles me is that EEI and ABA have really >tied their panties in a knot over this thing. The electric and banking >industries have provided this low budget thrill-o-rama more advance >publicity than NBC could have hoped for in their wildest dreams. I'm >guessing that their incessant whining over the past few weeks will easily >add another point or two to the ratings beyond what the movie would have >otherwise captured. Sometimes silence is indeed golden. > >Rick Cowles -------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- the moderated mailing list of politics and technology To subscribe: send a message to majordomo () vorlon mit edu with this text: subscribe politech More information is at http://www.well.com/~declan/politech/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------
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- IP: A true Y2K disaster: NBC's Sunday night movie Dave Farber (Nov 20)