Wausau, Wisconsin is a quiet town, where the police department is a family business. Sherriff Wayne Cypress (David James Ellott) and his daughter Dana (Melanie Scrofano) run the department better than their lives. Elsewhere, Martha (Romy Weltman), Dana’s younger sister, confronts her lecturer about their relationship and, on the outskirts of Wausau, the dead rise…

Adapted from the acclaimed comic by Tim Seeley and Mike Norton, Revival hits the ground running thanks to a tight script and an impressive cast. Elliott, best known for his run on JAG, is great as the deeply grumpy local Sherrif and Scrofano is as watchable and likable as she always is. Dana is competent, rushed, scrappy and on her heels. She’s got exhausted big sister energy, doing what she can to be the competent family member while still planning the escape she’s convinced, she’ll never be able to carry out. It’s a fun set up and one that gets neatly blown up by the revival.

Treating resurrection like a viral outbreak is an inspired choice and the script is at its best when it plays with the consequences of that.  Dana hits up a confidential informant who happens to be dead for information. Wayne conducts a wellness check on a suspect reviver with his grandson in the back of his patrol SUV. Life is normal but only on the surface. The entire town, and world, is reeling and Dana’s friendship/romance with CDC Doctor Ibrahim Ramin (Andy McQueen) puts them both on the line between the normal and the new.

It’s a tight, fun concept and it’s well executed by everyone. The payoff is great too, bringing Em’s complicated life (and death, it turns out) into sharp focus. The normal is gone and the town, and we, are finding out what replaces it together.

Verdict: It’s a fun script and it bounces along. That may be the only issue, the pace and events getting in the way of each other. But if that’s the only issue, and it is, the show is off to a great start. 8/10

Alasdair Stuart

 

Revival is on Sky and Now TV in the UK

Find the comics at your local comic store. The complete series is out.