`10.5: APOCALYPSE' SELF-DESTRUCTS.Byline: -- David Kronke At one point in the dispiritingly idiotic ``10.5: Apocalypse,'' a character asks intrepid geologist Samantha Hill (Kim Delaney), ``What's on your mind What's On Your Mind Austin Access, Channel 10This public access show, produced by Sue Cole, aires every Saturday from 5:30-7:00. Many topics are discussed, which mostly are political issues. ?'' To which she replies, ``A thought.'' If true, it's the only one that is in any way associated with this destruct-o-rama miniseries, which gratuitously lays waste to everything between the Mississippi River Mississippi River River, central U.S. It rises at Lake Itasca in Minnesota and flows south, meeting its major tributaries, the Missouri and the Ohio rivers, about halfway along its journey to the Gulf of Mexico. and the West Coast, the latter left in ruins in predecessor ``10.5.'' Let's just put it this way: If, at any point in the first 15 minutes of the miniseries (which begins at 9 tonight on NBC NBC in full National Broadcasting Co. Major U.S. commercial broadcasting company. It was formed in 1926 by RCA Corp., General Electric Co. (GE), and Westinghouse and was the first U.S. company to operate a broadcast network. ), you find yourself asking ``Why are they ...?'' or ``Why don't they ...?'' then flee immediately with your sanity intact, for you will spend the entire four hours questioning the vexingly vex tr.v. vexed, vex·ing, vex·es 1. To annoy, as with petty importunities; bother. See Synonyms at annoy. 2. To cause perplexity in; puzzle. 3. tenuous logic. ``10.5: Apocalypse'' offers the spectacle of an epic cluster of earthquakes destroying Las Vegas Las Vegas (läs vā`gəs), city (1990 pop. 258,295), seat of Clark co., S Nev.; inc. 1911. It is the largest city in Nevada and the center of one of the fastest-growing urban areas in the United States. , Hoover Dam Hoover Dam, 726 ft (221 m) high and 1,244 ft (379 m) long, on the Colorado River between Nev. and Ariz.; one of the world's largest dams. Built between 1931 and 1936 by the U.S. , Mount Rushmore and everything in between. (The effects don't quite reach ``special'' status.) The president (Beau Bridges Beau Bridges, (born Lloyd Vernet Bridges III on December 9, 1941 in Los Angeles, California), is an American actor. He is the son of actor Lloyd Bridges and his college sweetheart, Dorothy Dean Simpson. ) wrings his hands ineffectually. Evacuations -- to where, exactly? -- are repeatedly ordered. And Dean Cain, Garcelle Beauvais-Nilon, Oliver Hudson, Carlos Bernard, Carly Pope and others are variously imperiled or heroic. (``Personal'' stories are depicted as indifferently as the mayhem is zealously.) Frank Langella appears as Hill's disgraced-geologist father, who spends his time not watching newscasts but playing poker until his casino and his world are rocked, but good. My viewing companion actually got a headache from the camerawork. In all my years of watching TV, it was the first time I saw a show literally make someone sick. 10.5: APOCALYPSE - One star What: Shaky plate tectonics reconfigure most of America; shaky narrative logic reconfigures your brain synapses; shaky camerawork reconfigures your digestive system. Where: NBC (Channel 4). When: 9 tonight and Tuesday. In a nutshell: Spectacularly stupid. CAPTION(S): photo Photo: DELANEY |
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