Revolution is an American post-apocalyptic science fiction television series that ran from September 17, 2012, until May 21, 2014, when it was cancelled by NBC. The show takes place in the post-apocalyptic near-future of the year 2027, 15 years after the start of a worldwide, permanent electrical-power blackout in 2012. Created by Eric Kripke and produced by J. J. Abrams' Bad Robot Productions for the NBC network, it originally aired on Mondays at 10:00 p.m. ET, and did well enough that NBC ordered a second season shortly after the first-season finale.
Film director Jon Favreau directed the pilot episode. In October 2012, NBC picked it up for a full season of 22 episodes, which was later reduced to 20 episodes. Season 1 of the show was filmed in and around Wilmington, North Carolina. Many of the scenes were shot in historic downtown Wilmington and on the campus of the University of North Carolina Wilmington. On April 26, 2013, the series was renewed by NBC for a second season of 22 episodes to air in a new time slot of Wednesdays at 8 p.m. Season 2 of Revolution was filmed in and around Bartlett and Granger, Texas. The second-season premiere aired on September 25, 2013, and the finale aired on May 21, 2014.
Fans started a petition to renew or relocate Revolution, and as of January 2018, the petition had gathered over 101,358 signatures with a goal of 110,000. The TV series was never renewed, but a four-part comic book series appeared in May and June 2015, and wrapped up the story.
Plot
Series overview
Season 1
The series is set in a post-apocalyptic near-future, in the year 2027. Fifteen years earlier, in the year 2012, a worldwide event known as "The Blackout" caused all electricity on Earth, ranging from computers and electronics to car and jet engines, to be disabled permanently. As a result, trains and cars stopped where they were, ships went dead in the water, and aircraft plummeted from the sky and crashed. In the years after the Blackout, people adapted to this new world without electricity.
The series begins with the surviving Matheson family: Ben and his two young adult children: daughter Charlie and son Danny, who now live in a village near Chicago. He wears a small pendant around his neck that is the key to not only finding out what happened fifteen years ago, but also a possible way to reverse its effects. Sebastian Monroe, Monroe Militia general and self-appointed President of the "Monroe Republic", whose borders are the Mississippi River and the old states of Kentucky and the Carolinas, is searching for the pendants so he can use their power to take control of the entire North American continent. In the series' pilot, Ben Matheson is killed and Danny is abducted by Captain Tom Neville of the Militia. The remaining Matheson family, joined initially by Miles Matheson, Aaron Pittman, and Nora Clayton, now are on the run from the Monroe Militia. Monroe's new benefactor, Randall Flynn, a former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense who fifteen years earlier ordered deployment of the weaponized technology that caused the Blackout, now works with Monroe in his efforts after Ben's wife Rachel (working under duress for Monroe) escapes from his custody. This technology is later revealed to be a form of nanotechnology whose ability to drain electricity can be countered by the pendant.
Opening Introduction: