A “Revolution” is Upon Us
Fifteen years ago, the world’s power gave out. Everything shut off and stopped working—lights went out, computers crashed and planes fell out of the sky with no explanation whatsoever.
Lucky for us, this isn’t real life, but the mere plot of NBC’s new television show, Revolution, now available to watch online. Revolution was created by Eric Kripke (creator of the CW series, Supernatural) and directed by Jon Favreau who also directed the Iron Man movies. Most notably, the series is executively produced by J.J. Abrams who was one of the creators of a personal favorite of mine, Lost.
The series opens the night the power goes out. Ben Matheson, played by Tim Guinee, barges into his home in a panic. Ben whips out his laptop, and a funky looking flashdrive and immediately begins loading something onto it. Lights begin flickering and he manages to call up his brother, Miles, played by Billy Burke (who is Bella’s dad in the Twilight series) to tell him that everything is going to turn off. That’s all he manages to get out before the world shuts down. The next scene is fifteen years later and the world has completely changed.
Ben lives in what used to once be a suburb, along with his two teenage kids: Charlie and Danny. Charlie is truly a renegade chick in every sense of the word and she is played by the stunning Tracy Spiridakos. Her younger brother Danny, whose Asthma becomes a serious problem is played by Graham Rogers. Their mom, Rachel, played by the beautiful and talented Elizabeth Mitchell (Juliet Burke on Lost) is no longer in the picture (supposedly she died) and their father is dating the town doctor, Maggie, played by Anna Lise Phillips.
Although they all live in a world of chaos—a group of militia have decided to create order and go looking for Ben and his brother Miles, suspecting that they both know something about why the power went out and how to turn it back on. When the militia enters Ben’s town looking for him, a violent fight breaks out when Danny threatens the life of one of the soldiers if they don’t let their father stay. As a result of the fight, Danny gets captured and Ben is murdered—as he takes his last breath, he tells Charlie to go find his brother whom he hasn’t spoken to in fifteen years in Chicago.
With Danny gone and her father gone, Charlie has no reason to stay and sets out on an adventure to find her Uncle Miles, accompanied by Maggie whom she doesn’t get along with and a humorous townie who once worked for Google, Aaron, played by Zak Orth. During this time, Danny is trying to escape the militia and find his way back. He ends up suffering an asthma attack and is taken in by a woman named Grace (played by Maria Howell) who as it turns out, has a flashdrive just like the one that Ben has! Turns out the reason it’s so important, is because it can power things up!
The series, just like Lost is bound to be a puzzle. The pilot gives you little pieces of the story but there is a lot missing. As a viewer, you are fed perfect balance of information: it keeps you engaged and tuning in while simultaneously challenging your mind as to what’s going to happen. You find yourself asking questions that aren’t being answered—why did the power go off? How did the militia come to be? What did Ben know about the power outage? How does the flashdrive give power? What happened the Charlie and Danny’s mom? How do all these people look so damn good?
Go ahead and watch the pilot. You don’t want to be kept in the dark when it comes to Revolution.
