Yesterday, against my better judgment, I decided to watch the first four episodes of Revelations, a show the Politician had me download for him this term. It seems to me like it's trying to be a sort of West Wing for Christian fundamentalists.

I'm all for trashy fun (I hope to see Mindhunters at the cheapseats sometime soon) but I can see why Revelations was cancelled: The writers seem to have "Carter's sight," a debilitating form of myopia which causes the patient to become effectively blind to future episodes. The patient's behavior becomes increasingly erratic, as he writes with at best a dim sense of the story arc. This is the most advanced case I've seen to date: individual episodes are logically irreconcilable.

What follows deserves a SPOILER ALERT.

What really bothered me was the poor characterization. The prison inmates are putty in the hands of a satanist, the Harvard astrophysicist spouts vague nonsense to a filled classroom, a father who's just lost a second child has no problem coming to work hours later.

In one of the last episodes I watched, a news report on a new star mentions skeptics who claim it's just an optical illusion. Those are some skeptics, because the camera pans over a geothermal map of the star during the reporter's voiceover. Also, the Vatican wants to hush up the fact that Jesus (who most of the characters refer to with the more formal "Christ," btw) is on Earth because the pope would lose his moral authority.

The theology is horrible. Several episodes in, the nun looking for a miracle child casually mentions that it might be the Antichrist (as indeed the first messiah should be, if I remember my Revelations correctly) and asks if a DNA test (or perhaps a routine soul smear?) could tell Christ from Antichrist. Apparently it can, because the devil, enraged, tries to drop a cross on her. That said, the baby Antichrists have horns so DNA testing might not be necessary. The nun is also a firm believer in a very ancient heresy the name of which I can't find, it's the one where evil can win if we don't tip the scales in God's favor.

The only really enjoyable part was occasionally seeing Martin Starr, "Bill" from the one of the best television shows ever made, as the nerdy intern. He's the only character I don't dislike, really the only believable one at that. Though as of episode four it looks like he's going to go rescue some nuns. Let's lock and load!

Yeah, it's a train wreck. But I cannot look away.