What is it? Revolution, Season 1, 20 episodes on four Blu-ray and five DVD discs from Warner Brothers Home Entertainment
How much? $69.98
When? Today (Season 2 starts Wednesday)
Revolution against what? Overzealous militias and megalomaniacal leaders.
You see, one day, for mysterious reasons, the power went out. But this wasn’t some normal, run-of-the-mill blackout. Everything that ran on electricity or batteries suddenly failed to function: cars, planes, cellphones - everything. Naturally, civilization devolved into chaos.
Now, 15 years later, America is divided into nations and factions. One of these is the Monroe Republic, a militia-run dictatorship under the helm of powerful and brutal former marine Sebastian Monroe (David Lyons). His goal is to take over the entire former United States.
The Matheson family of father Ben (Tim Guinee) and children Charlie and Danny (Tracy Spiridakos and Graham Rogers) live in a little agrarian village in what used to be a cul-de-sac near the ruins of Chicago. Mom Rachel (Elizabeth Mitchell) disappeared years before and is presumed dead.
Then, high-ranking militia man Tom Neville (Giancarlo Esposito) shows up looking for Ben, and in the aftermath, Ben is dead, Danny has been taken prisoner and it’s up to Charlie to go find her shady Uncle Miles (Billy Burke) and enlist his help in rescuing Danny. She takes Maggie (Anna Lise Phillips), her de facto stepmother, and computer genius Aaron (Zak Orth) along for the ride.
As the season continues, the story turns from a post-apocalyptic quest story into a more conspiracy-heavy tale as the audience and Charlie learn more and more about what caused the power to go out - and what role her family played in the disaster and Monroe’s rise to power.
Eventually, the surviving Mathesons join forces with rebel forces seeking to restore the United States and take Monroe’s dictatorship down.
Apocalyptic series are pretty common these days, aren’t they? True, there are plenty of “end of days” series and movies floating around. As always with these types of stories, part of the fun is in seeing the way society has adapted - or not. In this case, the production values are great and there are plenty of high-energy fight scenes.
But it’s not as good as it could be. The writing is hit-or-miss and while a few of the actors are quite good, too many are varying degrees of bad.
The series kills characters off with impunity, so it’s probably not a great idea to get too attached. And, actually, there’s a twist partway through that all but renders the first half of the season pointless.
J.J. Abrams, the man behind Lost and Alias, is an executive producer on this one, so you know the story is going to get very twisted before it’s over. And it may or may not make any sense.
Extras? Deleted scenes and a gag reel plus two behind-the-scenes featurettes (one on the pilot and one on the design of the series) and a handful of webisodes. The Blu-ray copy also has a half-hour panel discussion with cast and creators at Paleyfest.
New this week: 2 Broke Girls, Season 2; Foyle’s War, Season 7; Hannibal, Season 1; Hawaii Five-0, Season 3; Law & Order: SVU, Season 14; Modern Family, Season 4; The Neighbors, Season 1; South Park, Season 16; Two and a Half Men, Season 10.
Next week: Beauty and the Beast, Season 1; The Big Bang Theory, Seasons 1 & 2 (Blu-ray); Downton Abbey, Seasons 1-3; Glee, Season 4; How I Met Your Mother, Season 8; Magnum, P.I., Complete Series; Murder She Wrote, Complete Series; New Girl, Season 2.
Style, Pages 52 on 09/22/2013