Official Synopsis
Imagine a world where all technology – computers, planes, cars, phones, even lights – has suddenly and mysteriously blacked out…everywhere. What’s left is a post-apocalyptic landscape inhabited by ruthless paramilitary groups, heroic freedom fighters – and a family struggling to survive in this epic adventure thriller from Supernatural’s Eric Kripke and J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot Productions. Seen through the eyes of a fiercely determined young woman, Charlie Matheson, REVOLUTION follows a rogue band of rebels – including Charlie’s secretive mother Rachel and estranged uncle Miles, a former marine and militia leader – as they face danger at every turn in an attempt to overthrow the Militia, and ultimately return power to the people.
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A healthy outline, maybe a couple of re-writes, might have done wonders for this second season, which is gloriously engrossing at times, but other times it can be absolutely all over the place.
The second season starts off six months after the first, as two factions fighting against the Patriots are decimated by nuclear bombs. The scattered remnants of each is thrown across the country like samurais without masters. The Patriots, who are leftover, look to take over things in a literally powerless country that is desperately seeking leadership, even from bad leaders.
What a helluva start to a season, right?
The Patriots are pushed into the main storyline pretty heavily, as is our gaggle of characters that are led by the anti-hero Miles (Billy Burke), his forbidden love interest Rachel (Elizabeth Mitchell), nanite creator Aaron (Zak Orth) and badass gunslinger Charlie (Tracey Spiridakos). All of which are enough to keep the second season of this show thriving.
Anyway, the focus of the second season is set on the Patriots and their corrupt presidential leader Jack Davis (Cotter Smith). The group’s endless grasp over the United States, as well as its people, is frightfully established right at the get-go. The heroes of the show, a ragtag band of mixed nuts (some good, some bad, etc.), are constantly finding themselves in the crosshairs of the Patriots. If the show had managed to maintain this focus and intertwine the political thriller story that it could have created without the sci-fi element, then there’s a strong possibility it would have survived. Most of the show is dedicated to this, as the group of heroes tries to serve justice to the Patriots corrupt plans to take over the country in a power grab sort of way, while at the same time trying to fight off demons from their past. There’s a lot of good depth here that makes for a character driven experience mixed with some fantastic action.
We’re talking about epic Battlestar Galactica-esque stuff here, folks, where the characters feel real, although the backdrop is a bit ludicrous.
For example, the last three episodes of the second season is focusing on a thrilling timeframe where our heroes must thwart the plans of the Patriots to exterminate another militia group known as the Texans. When the clock is ticking and the world depends on heroes to rescue these Texans, thus righting a wrong, there’s nothing better than to focus on just that in a story. Classic good versus bad, where the heroes are constantly on the run and the odds are against them. It’s exciting stuff that could have led the entire season, if not the entire show. Had this been the only elements in the show, then we’ve got ourselves a drama that viewers probably would have followed around NBC’s sporadic scheduling.
Sometimes overthinking things can ruin a good time.
The writers felt the need to add a sci-fi element to the entire broken world they created and introduce humanized nanites to the story. First, they dedicated a good portion of an episode to Aaron falling into a ‘Matrix’-like dreamscape, where the nanites are trying to communicate with him and seek his help to correct a coding problem. This little introduction to a scarier nanite allows for more sci-fi moments, which is just so out of place.
Using Aaron as the vessel, the nanites take over his ex-wife Priscilla (Maureen Sebastian) and introduce a new level of sci-fi into a show that doesn’t need it. When you see the nanites come to life for the first time in Revolution, it’s quite an odd/out of place element to the world that the writers had already established. I’m a huge fan of sci-fi, but if the world is in disarray because of these things created with good intentions, and you haven’t really done much with them other than explain what they did to get the world to this point, there’s little need to go further with the tiny robots. You’re simply straying off of a good story and into another story, which is completely unnecessary, and it disrupts everything built up to this point.
That’s really where season two takes a bad tumble. Instead of just simply having this political thriller intact, the idea of nanites setting people on fire through mind control, healing people through mind control and taking people over through literal mind control is a bit out of left field. Maybe they could have been introduced in the third season once it was locked down and the Patriot problem had been resolved, but this portion of the story in the second season simply disrupted the flow of the entire show and didn’t fit.
It was neat, but it didn’t fit.
Anyway, if you can get beyond the sci-fi element and see the second season for what it is, a character driven drama that has a corrupt empire trying to eliminate resistance fighters (our heroes) and set a new world order, then you’ll find this show absolutely fascinating. Revolution has a lot to offer in solid storytelling techniques, brilliant acting and perfectly contained worlds (sans the nanites).
By the time you reach the last episode, it’s evident that no one knew they were being canceled by NBC. The last episode is a cliffhanger. It’s nanite driven, but it’s so interesting that you can’t help but wonder what could have happened next. It is the perfect introduction to a third season that might have been completely nanite driven. I would have watched that season. Anyway, the second season of Revolution does bring a bit more excitement and depth that the first set up pretty well. Just a bit more organization and shifting the nanites to the third season would have helped its cause tremendously; probably would have cut down a bit of the budget, which apparently helped to get it canceled.
Give Revolution a chance, if you can.
As for the Blu-ray portion of this release, it’s quite good. For a television show the effects actually don’t get in the way of the Blu-ray transfer. Generally, the budget for television shows really affect the effects (like that) and how well they are generated, and they usually come off cheap on television. The effects in this show are comparable to a theatrical release, which would probably explain the huge budget it took to keep this show alive. Anyway, the HD transfer for this show is pretty damn good. It shows off some gorgeous effects, scenery in this drab world and focuses heavily on yellows, reds, whites and black color schemes.There isn’t any graininess or imperfections in the transfer, it’s simply quite excellent. I wish more shows looked like this when they made it to Blu-ray, but sadly this is a bit of a rarity.
The audio comes to you in DTS-HD 5.1 and the aspect ratio for the show is 1.78:1.
Finally, as for features, here’s what you’re looking at:
• Revolution: Heading West featurette
• Impact Revolution: Conversations with the United Nations featurette
• United Nations: The Mission Continues PSA
• 2013 Comic Con Panel
• Deleted Scenes
• Gag Reel
The featureless are pretty solid, though the most interesting of the bunch is the ‘Heading West’ feature, which has all the writers and executive producers (sans J.J. Abrams) sit down for a season one and two comparison. I particularly like this feature because the writers honestly open up about the troubles they had with the first season and the re-direction they wanted go with the second. It’s nice to see some honesty and refreshing to hear the imperfections the production ran into during the writing process.
As for the rest of the features, the deleted scenes are okay and the gag reel is amusing. The Impact Revolution feature is good, as well as the comic-con panel.
Not a bad set of features for a show that no longer exists.