American Blackout

[Whackpack7]

Watching a show on National Geographic just now and saw an advertisement for a show titled 'American Blackout' supposedly coming this month. Anyone else see it?

I figure it has two options. A) Be a pretty interesting show/series. B) Be an absolute bucket of mega ultra fail in the true fashion of 'Doomsday Castle' ie how not to prep.

Anyone got any input? I don't know too much about the show. Doing some research.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[jor-el]

It's neither.

A documentary about a Georgia congresswoman who lost a primary, then got reelected two years later. A discussion about politics.

[Whackpack7]

It's neither.

A documentary about a Georgia congresswoman who lost a primary, then got reelected two years later. A discussion about politics.

No... No I just checked. It's definitely about a power grid failure in the United States. You are taking about the movie (coincidentally the first Wikipedia article that comes up when you search 'American Blackout'). I found this so far.

http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2013/1 ... 27/207389/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Mr. Bones]

Watching a show on National Geographic just now and saw an advertisement for a show titled 'American Blackout' supposedly coming this month. Anyone else see it?

I figure it has two options. A) Be a pretty interesting show/series. B) Be an absolute bucket of mega ultra fail in the true fashion of 'Doomsday Castle' ie how not to prep.

Anyone got any input? I don't know too much about the show. Doing some research.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Wait. You mean building a castle isn't the way to go?

[Whackpack7]

Watching a show on National Geographic just now and saw an advertisement for a show titled 'American Blackout' supposedly coming this month. Anyone else see it?

I figure it has two options. A) Be a pretty interesting show/series. B) Be an absolute bucket of mega ultra fail in the true fashion of 'Doomsday Castle' ie how not to prep.

Anyone got any input? I don't know too much about the show. Doing some research.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Wait. You mean building a castle isn't the way to go?

I mean I don't mean to rain on anyones parade... But I am afraid not. Sad too. I was going to get a pet dragon for mine to chase down those pesky FEMA choppers

[Mr. Bones]

I'll go in half with you on the dragon.

[Whackpack7]

Oh hell yes then I'll have more money for the tin foil hats! And according to my research this is actually a full length movie.


Sent from my mobile tacticool device with Tapatalk

[Mall Ninja]

Well, if its as bad as the UK Blackout movie from earlier this summer it'll be a bucket of fail. An annoying prepper caricature, all the other characters were annoying as well and by the end of it I was just wanting them all to die, die, die...

[Abuhin]

The show/movie/whatever has a website
http://www.survivetheblackout.com
Browser issues won't let me see it, so I'll check it out on my tablet later.

I'm thinking it's gonna be like that mockumentary style special on alien attacks. There'll be the proposed scenario of the blackout, some scripted scenes, and generic chaos-in-the-streets footage. They'll mingle these with experts chiming in on how people will react, what preparedness measures would've helped, and what they should do to survive.

[designerchick]

I'm curious to see how it's portrayed, but not very optimistic lol. On a sort-of-similar note, are there any good prep shows worth watching? I made it through about 3 minutes of Doomsday Castle.

[jeffmw]

Did Anyone watch this movie last night on Netgeo if so what are your thoughts?

[Maverick299]

I recorded it, was planning on watching tonight. It was running opposite "The Walking Dead" so there was no chance I was watching it last night. I think they are replaying it this week some too.

[jeffmw]

hope you guys added aan extrea 5 mins to those who recorded this becuase they showed a exstended clip of Killing Kenndy

[RickOShea]

I saw bits & pieces of it. A mongo cyber attack overloads the U.S. electrical grid, knocking it out......'cept that there isn't a "U.S grid", so much as several regional grids (which are broken-up into even more sub-regional grids) that make up the "North American" system, including Canada.

Unless I missed it, I don't remember Canada being affected. When they started showing individual transformers blowing-up in front of peoples houses, I kinda lost interest.

[Maverick299]

When they started showing individual transformers blowing-up in front of peoples houses, I kinda lost interest.

That has actually happened twice in front of my old house.........but the cause usually resulted in the charred outline of a neighborhood squirrel that was very reminiscent of the cat from "Christmas Vacation".

[RickOShea]

When they started showing individual transformers blowing-up in front of peoples houses, I kinda lost interest.

That has actually happened twice in front of my old house.........but the cause usually resulted in the charred outline of a neighborhood squirrel that was very reminiscent of the cat from "Christmas Vacation".

When I say "blow-up", I mean the can lost it's top and the mineral oil inside caught on fire and started burning like an oil drum. I've seen a few of those, after being damaged by an uber-lightning strike. Even then that's pretty rare. 99.9% of the time lightning just blows the guts out of the lightning arrester mounted on the side of the transformer can.

But yeah, squirrels have some sort of suicidal jihad going on. Whenever you see a "flat rat" on the road there's a good chance that it was hit by a power company truck that swerved to hit it, instead of miss it.

I've knocked at least a hundred of the crispy critters off of transformers and pole tops, and found even more all charred and lying on the ground near a pole, while on trouble-calls.

[Browning 35]

The winter before last we actually had a transformer blow up behind my neighbors house. Went off with a loud bang. Power went out. Thought it was the frost, maybe it was the squirrels that live in the tree between us. Suicidal lil bastards, a few of them have looked kinda crazed.

[ineffableone]

Sadly I missed the airing and from what I have seen they wont be airing it again till mid Nov.

Go figure one of the few things I want to see and they aren't playing it in constant rotation.

I figure it will be pretty cheesy but also thought it might have a few good parts and also figured it had possible entertaining value to see what BS they might come up with.

[jeffmw078]

American Blackout is on NOW and Again at 12am CST on NetGeo

[ineffableone]

American Blackout is on NOW and Again at 12am CST on NetGeo

I will have to try watching it tonight.

I watched the British version last night. LOL, it was rather funny the youtube prepper who ended up being pretty unprepared for the reality. Though half his problems seemed to be due to his family being not on board and fighting with him. As well as his horrible opsec.

* edit to add, I set my DVR to record the show tonight at 1am tonight. While I don't have a lot of hope for this being a good show, I think it will be interesting to see the Nat Geo take on this sort of disaster. A long term black out would cause a lot of issues, and seeing a program explore the idea is always helpful. Even poorly done I will likely learn something, even if it is just how not to do things.

[dtwn92]

Liked the show. Showed me a few area's where I'm weak or had simply just not thought about.

I think they hit pretty good on most "relevant" stereotypes aside from pure ghetto which most of those people live in a WROL of semi-there now.

The elevator shaft folks- how could you not take a brick and beat thru the door in 8 days? They were able to make a harness but couldn't find a way thru a door?
On top of it, I highly doubt the big, healthy, ox of a kid would die that fast due to infection on that cut. Sure he didn't look good, but they compensate very well.

Yuppies- I'm surprised they lived that long.

Kid with a gun - how did he not get looted or have his camera jacked?

I felt bad for the San Diego couple. Lil girl was a brat, but I'm sure she never faced anything like that AT ALL. Of all the people, sure they weren't ready but had the worst luck of anyone. Mom was a tough broad IMO

The Colorado people, I kind of felt they panicked to bug out that fast. There are lots of power outages that we aren't sure what is happening and he just at the drop of a hat packs the truck. I agree with taking the BF he is extra labor and should have been worked with on training. I'm pretty shocked that the neighbor who seemed like the rugged and hardy type ran out of food. Hey pal, how about go HUNTING! and then try and trade with your suspicious new neighbor who showed up after an emergency?

What I'd have done different -
-I'd would have slept in the bunker and forgone the watch for a bit, 'specially after the conflict with the neighbor.
-Worked on training the kids about how to watch and not let them go so far from the house.
-Hid the fuel better.
-And just maybe if he talked to the neighbor a bit more instead of acting like a paranoid freak and found out what was happening over there or lying to them saying they were stuck there on the way to a vacation things would have gone smoother than a knife the throat in a 1 vs 6 scene at the end of the outage.

All in all, it was good and different.

[doitnstyle1]

The winter before last we actually had a transformer blow up behind my neighbors house. Went off with a loud bang. Power went out. Thought it was the frost, maybe it was the squirrels that live in the tree between us. Suicidal lil bastards, a few of them have looked kinda crazed.

That's why I sprinkle the Abilify in the fall. Just to help them in the winter with any despondency. The sqirrels are all just shits and giggles around my house!

[Murphman]

I liked certain aspects of it. The neighborhood parties, the "news" footage, what I perceive as what would really happen (the gas lines, the grocery stores, and the looting). I think all of these were decent portrayals of what would go down in the impossible scenario of the entire "grid" going down. I also enjoyed the subtle message to prepare. It was not overboard or doomsday related. The news caster mentioned preparation, the characters said it more than a few times (I wish I was mroe prepared), etc. If nothing else, that was a positive to take away from this show.

I think all the characters were on the extreme. You had the paranoid prepper (chock full of camo outfits, guns and lingo with the daughter's long-haired boyfriend to ruin OPSEC that he gets to berate), the Manhattan Yuppies (with caviar given by an assitant and designer shoes), the vlog kid (whose nurse mother couldn't get home for 8 freaking days...yeah right), the elevator victims (2 died, one from a tiny scratch, who had about a gallon of water and lived 8 days) and the "typical" family (mom overdue pregnant, has baby after car wreck on sidewalk, house burned down, separated from father, etc, etc, etc). Another Nat Geo show that only contains extreme examples of drama to try and make a point. I wish they had had one example of a neighborhood coming together and showing people playing games, using water filters, cooking meals together, etc. Just one positive example of being prepared. Sadly, it didn't happen.

[ineffableone]

I haven't gotten to watch American Blackout on my dvr yet, but it sounds like they follow a similar formula as UK Blackout.