So NBC decided to drop part of Los Angeles into a sinkhole that apparently leads to an alternate dimension and/or the past.
Solid premise. First episode decent. CGI acceptably slick.
So far, so good.
Then about 10 minutes into episode two, they had the main character ask a scientist to carbon date a diamond ring that he figures his wife lost in the sinkhole/past/parallel universe/whatever.
Carbon date a diamond ring.
Firstly, the diamond is NOT an organic sample, so it cannot be carbon dated.
Second, when he bought the ring for his wife, the diamond was already likely millions of years old. Sending it back to prehistory is hardly going to make it much older and how the FUCK would you know unless you knew how old it was BEFORE it went in the sinkhole.
Third, although hardly necessary to point out at this point, carbon dating is only a viable dating method for samples aged 60,000 or so years or less. Older than that, other dating methods come into play. At the very least, the "scientist" should have pointed that out, immediately. Diamonds can be dated, loosely, with the various non-carbon inclusions within the stone, but again we're talking MILLIONS of years old. Same generally with the gold, only even less accurate since there's zero guarantee that a given piece of gold is single sourced and a ring is likely made of recycled metal from multiple sources.
Just for grins, I fast forwarded to the "big reveal" of the dating of the ring. "Your wife's ring carbon dates to approximately 10,000 BC."
Click.
Sorry NBC. Maybe next time. If you promise to hire AT LEAST one scientifically literate person to babysit your writers. If you want to do science fiction, you need to at least pretend to respect the science part.
2 comments:
The ring was my breaking point with the show too! The first red flag for me though was when they showed the tar pits. If you take a tour at the La Brea tar pits, the very first thing they tell you is that it is a misconception that the pits are large ponds of tar. They were actually like shallow mud patches that were super sticky so animals got their feet stuck and eventually starved to death.
I admit, I did not know that about the tar pits.
Thing is, if I was writing a show with tar pits as a central mcguffin, I'd take 10 minutes and read the wikipedia article about them, at the very least!
The writers on this show. It just makes me so annoyed when there are so many (ME!!!) writers out there who could have turned the premise into something very cool, fun AND at least a little scientifically literate.
Thanks for chiming in! Comments (especially those that agree with me!) are always welcome!
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