UPDATE: Amazon announced on March 11 that The After and three other pilots, Mozart in the Jungle, Bosch, and Transparent have been picked up for series.

Amazon has been trying desperately to get into the original programming biz while watching Netflix take the lead in the new era of television with their hit original programs House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, and the resurrected Arrested Development. Amazon has tapped major talents and launched a few shows, but none of them have had the buzz of any of the Netflix originals.

Amazon hopes to change that with the return of Chris Carter, head guru of the beloved The X-Files, to the world of television. Or this brave new world of television, as it were. Carter has created a new pilot for a proposed series called The After, and if anyone has the tiniest hope that it could be the new X-Files … I’m sorry to say their hopes may be dashed after watching the pilot.

The foundation for the story finds a group of cliches trapped first in an elevator, then a parking garage, then a fabulous Beverly Hills mansion. The reason for their entrapment — something bad has happened. There is no power, at least not on the nation’s power grid (batteries, cars and the such still work), there is a strange booming sound that has the power to shatter car windows, and civilization has come to a grinding halt … although if you can get to an airport, the planes are still flying.

Among the group we’re stuck with is struggling actress Gigi Generau (Louise Monot), an LA cop (Jaina Lee Ortiz), a drunk Irishman (Andrew Howard), a prison escapee (Aldis Hodge), a lawyer (Adrian Pasdar), a diabetic old woman (Sharon Lawrence, looking shockingly old), a prostitute (Arielle Kebbel) who can quote the Bible, and a party clown (Jamie Kennedy). This group of characters is in the dark, literally, as much as the viewers (figuratively) with neither knowing what’s happening. With the appearance of a strange being at the pilot’s climactic moment, one would be tempted to think aliens, but references to the Book of Revelation have me thinking we’re probably dealing with demons and the Tribulation.

As much as I want a new Chris Carter series, this pilot does not live up to what it could have been. The premise of the power being out has been done (Revolution) as has the apocalypse (Supernatural, Sleepy Hollow). Carter certainly has the talent to put a new spin on these situations, but the pilot lives or dies in its casting and for this show to even have a chance of surviving, it needs some major re-casting if it goes to series. Familiar faces like Pasdar and Lawrence do fine with what they’re given (and this is a surprisingly thin script with some surprisingly awful dialog) and Kennedy could be the comic relief if his character wasn’t so whiny. Monot, however, seems to be the “lead” and she also struggles with the script and her heavy accent. Ortiz, Howard and Kebbel seem straight out of community theater, having landed their first big break (and again, I have to blame Carter’s script because they do have lengthy resumés), but Hodge does register, as best as he can, as a real person. (Although the number of F-bombs dropped during the pilot’s 55 minutes is comparable to The Wolf of Wall Street‘s record.)

The pilot is very well-produced and looks expensive, and the introduction of the humanoid at the end is a great hook but it would have been nice if it had been introduced sooner and Carter had done away with some of the extraneous material as the group explores the mansion belonging to the old woman, or having Kebbel take time to strip down for a quick swim in the pool. Yes, the power is out, the world may be coming to the end, but let’s all have one last swim before Armageddon. As it is, we spend a very long 51 minutes with a bunch of people we may end up rooting for to die before something truly interesting happens. If this were produced for a major network, or even a cable channel, I doubt it would get past the pilot stage.

Amazon thought they had something people wanted to see with a Zombieland pilot that went nowhere, and Chris Carter’s return to television should be a major event (and he even seems to put a nod towards The X-Files in the pilot with a small moment involving a bee), but unless The After gets a major casting overhaul and better writing, Carter’s return is going to be very short-lived. And that makes me sad. If you’re an Amazon Prime member, you can watch the pilot episode for free, or non-members can get a 30 day free trial and view the pilot for free as well. Viewers can then go to the Amazon Originals website and let them know if The After should sink or swim.

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You’ll have to excuse the few spots where the video gets cut up a tad. We’re not allowed to show videos or photos that get presented on the screens at the panels … and my battery cut out on me toward the end, during on question being answered (but I only missed 30 seconds, really!) Enjoy!

Robert Patrick turns 54 today. This slightly bewilders me, as I still remember being traumatized as a child by the T-1000 in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and nine years later, counting on him to protect me from super soldiers during the final two years of The X-Files. I was a Robert Patrick fan not that long after I was out of the womb, so this calls for some sort of a celebration.

The first movie I ever saw was Terminator 2 in 1991, and my first movie memory involves being terrified of the liquid metal guy. I was five (and before you start jumping on my parents, they didn’t know I’d snuck into the room). The T-1000 had that unnerving tone of voice and that downright almost violating glare and I had nightmares that it was going to kill me instead of John Connor. At the same time, though, I was intrigued by the fact that something I knew wasn’t real was having a very real effect on me. (To this day Terminator skeletons still make me uncomfortable.) It was my experience with the T-1000 in Terminator 2 that got me interested in entertainment and made me a Robert Patrick fan.

In the intervening two decades, I’ve seen just about everything Robert has done, and I do mean everything. Ask my friends about how I made them go see Spy Kids with me just because he had a bit part in it. There’s an honestly subpar direct-to-video flick called Perfect Assassins that’s a guilty pleasure of mine as it co-stars Robert and my high school crush Andrew McCarthy. And although I can’t watch it without laughing at his hair, I do own a copy of Double Dragon.

The truth is, while the projects he’s in haven’t always been keepers, his performances are. No matter if it’s villain or hero, comedy or drama, every role he plays still registers somehow. I know that when I see his name in the credits, I can expect at least something that I’m going to remember, even if it’s screaming at my TV because I rented Mexico City only to see him get killed off in less than five minutes.

You’re probably wondering why I went for the picture from The X-Files at the top of this article instead of something more recent, and that’s because I love Special Agent John Doggett most of all. It was Robert’s casting that got me to watch X-Files in the first place, and so I’m a bit biased, but Doggett was the FBI agent I wanted on my side. I loved that he was tough but not cold, strong but also equally vulnerable, and even occasionally witty. I had as much of a crush on that man as you can have on a fictional character. Beyond that, though, I enjoyed watching Robert get to play that role over a prolonged period of time, seeing how the character grew and changed, and all the things I got to learn about Doggett along the way.

I was ready to let The X-Files go after the train wreck that was most of Season 9, but even so, it broke my heart to leave that character behind when the show was cancelled in 2002. I still think about Doggett today, pretending that he’s still with the FBI and continuing to do all sorts of heroic things. I also think it’s pretty cool that the man who played my favorite science-fiction villain is the same one who played my favorite science-fiction hero.

In more recent history, Robert played Colonel Tom Ryan on the CBS military drama The Unit, and I loved what he did there even as sometimes I loathed his character. Now he’s teamed up with Unit creator Shawn Ryan on ABC’s Last Resort, and I’m just glad that I get to see him on my TV again — this time with Andre Braugher, who is also an incredible actor. Every time those two are in a scene together I get chills; that’s just too much awesome for one show.

But beyond all that the Robert Patrick that I’ll remember most fondly is the man himself. Two decades after that moment in my family’s living room, I met him when he was moderating a talk with Hal Holbrook last year. I nervously wandered over, thanked him for all the fond memories, and snapped a picture with him. That was all I’d ever hoped for. To my surprise, when the talk was over, Robert approached me and my friend, shook our hands and thanked us for coming. He told us that he was just going over toward the bar if we wanted to join him. “Did Robert Patrick just invite us to hang out with him?” I asked my friend in disbelief.

And that was how I spent the next hour – just me, Robert Patrick, and three of my friends, standing at the bar, talking about everything from The X-Files to that time he was on Hell’s Kitchen. I was honored that he was so generous with his time and that he cared so much about what we had to say. I’ve gotten a few compliments in my day, but Robert Patrick telling me he liked me is always going to rank near the top of the list. It was honestly one of the best nights of my life. Even as the five-year-old in me still worried, just a bit, that he might kill me.

There’s so much that I have to thank him for, whether it’s getting me interested in movies, or the performances that I’ve enjoyed literally as far back as I can remember, or the fact that he made a childhood dream come true and then some. Even after almost a thousand words, I don’t know how to sum up how great Robert Patrick is, so I’ll just say this: Happy birthday, Robert. I hope that your special day is as awesome as you are.

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