Revolution Creator Compares The Show To Game Of Thrones
This article is more than 2 years old
With Supernatural’s Erik Kripke, J.J. Abrams, and Jon Favreau as the creative forces behind NBC’s Revolution, genre fans had reason to expect big things. Unfortunately, the first 10 episodes of the show didn’t really live up to those expectations, and then the show dropped into a protracted hiatus that it still won’t return from until March 25th. The big question is whether any of the people who had checked the show out before will remember — or be interested enough — to tune in when it does return. Kripke hopes to entice viewers back by promising Revolution will be evolving into a very different show, even going so far as to compare it to HBO’s acclaimed Game of Thrones.
Speaking to TV Guide, Kripke says that the returning series will be putting aside the smaller personal arcs of the first half of the season and finally launching the revolution in its name. Fans of the show will recall that the hiatus left Monroe of the Monroe Militia with his hands on one of the mysterious pendants that can restore power within a limited range. When the show comes back, Miles and the rest will find themselves up against a newly emboldened Monroe Militia that now has functioning helicopters. “I think we really look at the first 10 episodes as the prologue to the story … now it’s time for the revolution to start,” says Kripke. That’s all well and good, but if you waste half a season on “prologue,” it remains to be seen if anybody will return to see the main event, especially since the show’s been off the air since friggin’ November.
Kripke says the shift in focus will open up more of Revolution’s world, including the other nations occupying what used to be the United States. That’s where the comparisons to HBO’s hit fantasy drama come in. “We’ll see the Georgia Federation this season, we’ll see the Plains Nation this season — and they’re wildly different nations,” says Kripke. “We really want this to evolve into kind of an American Game of Thrones.”
TV Guide also spoke to actor Giancarlo Esposito, who plays the villainous Captain Neville. He says the show’s pace will be picking up significantly after the hiatus…good news to all of us who twiddled our thumbs through 10 episodes spent trying to rescue a character nobody gives a shit about in the first place. Esposito also says part of that increased pace will be answering some of the show’s big questions, including what caused the blackout.
It will be interesting to see if they really stick to their guns on that last one. Kripke has been saying almost since the beginning of the show that they might reveal the answer to their biggest mystery, the blackout, before the end of the first season. That’s certainly a counter-intuitive approach, but it might save Revolution from some of the wheel-spinning we’ve seen in the past on mythology-heavy shows like Lost and The X-Files. By all accounts, Revolution’s long game is to tell the story of an actual revolution, with the blackout merely the inciting incident that sets up the world. If they can pull it off, more power to them.
Revolution returns to NBC on Monday, March 25th.
