Revolution is a brilliant concept with horrible execution. The world’s power supply has been shut down and electricity is no longer available. With anarchy reigning in this post apocalyptic world, the fate of the world lies around the neck of Ben (Tim Guinee). Accompanied by his two children (Tracy Spiradakos, Graham Rogers), it’s up to him to navigate the world they live in and try to return civilization back to where it once was.
It’s a brilliant conceit. We have all the trappings of the old world but with none of the electricity to power it. Set up in a longform narrative structure due to television, the show’s focus has been on this conceit that everything can be righted by turning the power back on. Normally in a film version utilizing a variant of this scenario we don’t have time to explore the world that’s happened after the fall of civilization. With 20 episodes of television we get a chance to slow down and explore the world, as opposed to glimpse over it in a tenth of that amount of time.
The problem is that despite the fact that it’s a brilliant concept the show has 40 episodes where it doesn’t do much interesting with it. This is a fairly dull television show, nothing more, that takes an insanely cool premise and makes a fairly boring show out of it. The second season is a departure from the first in that it’s much worse than the first was; there’s a reason why this was on the chopping block early and wasn’t renewed.
It’s sad because the season ends on a cliffhanger that’ll never be resolved. It doesn’t have a sense of closure to it, as the season two finale becomes the de facto series finale.
There’s a handful of extras. The usual suspects (deleted scenes, gag reel, EPK pieces) are included as well as the 2013 Comic-Con panel with the cast and creators.
Warner Home Video presents Revolution (Season 2). Starring Billy Burke, Tracy Spiridakos. Running time: 968 minutes. Not Rated. Released: August 19, 2014.
