Revival Review

Revival, the new Syfy supernatural horror series might feel a tad familiar. For one, it’s based on the comic series of the same name. But it also shares a bit of DNA with some past supernatural shows in its key foundational plot points. Even with all that, the series takes a bit of time to really get moving, needing to do a lot of upfront expositional work to let us meet our various characters, understand their intersecting relationships, and set up the murky world of Wausau, Wisconsin where it’s hard to tell just who you can trust.

Much like with the 2013 French series Les Revenants (which was adapted into a much less successful American version in 2015 titled The Returned), Revival is centered on the return from the dead of a handful of Wausau residents, only this time they all perished during a set time frame in the recent past. The return of loved ones has the effect one might imagine – those who had someone come back are either elated or frightened (worried that this returned individual might not be the same person they buried – more on that in a bit), while the general townspeople are whipped into a lather over just who these people are and what their return might mean for the town and its population.

Our central characters are the Cypress family. The father, Wayne (David James Elliott of JAG fame, who is fine if not particularly memorable), is the town sheriff and is still barely holding it together following the loss of his wife to cancer. Eldest daughter Dana (Melanie Scrofano, Wynona Earp and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds) is one of his deputies and a single mom to a precocious son who befriends one of his classmates who returned, but whose parents are terrified that she’s actually some demonic version of their daughter. And the youngest daughter, Em (Romy Weltman), is the most broken of the lot – literally and figuratively. Still trying to get over her mom’s death, Em had resorted to numbing her pain with drugs. And she’s been dealing with a severe form of brittle bone disease her whole life, causing her family and friends to take pains to try and protect her – something that drives her nuts. She’s also made a host of bad decisions of late, all of which come home to roost pretty quickly within the series.

With Wayne trying to deal with the continually increasing pressure within the town surrounding the returned individuals, he doesn’t have time to really focus on how both of his daughters’ lives are slowly spinning out of control. Which makes the arcs with Dana and Em the most interesting parts of the story. If you’ve seen Scrofano in any of her recent work, you won’t be surprised that she’s exceptional as a harried but empathetic cop, trying to keep her baby sister safe while also trying to navigate her work and personal life with varying degrees of success. And Weltman is great as Em, never making the character feel too sullen or too angry – and that’s not an easy thing to do. As the season continues, we get to see Em really come into her own in great ways, separating her a bit from Dana, and Weltman is more than capable of commanding the screen. Even alongside Scrofano, Weltman more than holds her own – and Scrofano does a great job making sure Em’s arc is what we’re paying attention to. Because while it seems like this is Dana’s story at first, it’s really about Em.

Unfortunately, the rest of the (far too many) storylines aren’t nearly as compelling as the story of the two sisters navigating this new world. Andy McQueen does his darnedest to bring some measure of intrigue to the story of Ibrahim Ramin, a CDC doctor tasked with trying to understand just what is happening with these returned individuals (while also playing a potential love interest for Dana). McQueen is good, but that section of the story feels almost like an afterthought compared to the more character driven aspects of the show – and it really shouldn’t, since getting an answer for why this happened is a key element of the overall series arc. There’s also the inevitable zombie element of the story, wherein those who returned can heal any wounds they sustain, are much stronger than other humans, and seem to have additional “superpowers.” And since they can heal, they’re also harder to kill – which only adds to that sense of fear within the town. But again, we only get to see snippets of this part of the story despite it being a huge driving force in the overwhelming town reaction toward the revived persons.

Of course, there’s also a religious extremist arc – because why wouldn’t there be? Without spoiling too much, there’s a seemingly charismatic leader who gets a segment of the town population to join his vigilante crew aimed at terrorizing those who have returned – threatening their lives and attacking them. And once the town requires all revived individuals to mark their driver’s license indicating they’re revived, it makes it all the more easy to not only discriminate against them publicly, but for those who might want to hurt them to know precisely who to target.

There are a lot of interesting ideas here – from how does one deal with the grief of losing someone only to have them suddenly back in your life, to how does the fear of the unknown cause people to act and react in potentially damaging ways – but Revival doesn’t seem all that interested in those larger, more complex storytelling beats. Instead, the series is much more focused on the violence, anger, and despair that come from an event like this one – and how the government can act to keep ratcheting up that terror under the guise of trying to help sort things out. But amidst this muddle storytelling, the performances of Scrofano and Weltman rise above the fray, providing an interesting throughline to follow. While I wouldn’t necessarily recommend the series, if you’ve enjoyed something like Wynonna Earp in the past, this is likely right in your wheelhouse. It’s dark, occasionally funny, and there are two sisters at the center who make the show work much better than it should.

Revival premieres on June 12 on Syfy and episodes drop on Peacock the week after their initial airing. Six episodes were provided for review.