REVOLUTION: Billy Burke, Tracey Spiridakos, JD Pardo & Eric Kripke on a World Without Electricity

REVOLUTION is the much hyped new show by J.J. Abrams, Jon Faveau and Eric Kripke that coming to NBC September 17. The show is set 15 year after *something* knocks out everything on Earth that is electric or requires batteries. Without power, governments have fallen and society has gone back to its agrarian roots.

Outside of Chicago, Charlie Matheson (Tracy Spiridakos), is tired of her unexciting existence near home until one day the militia shows up looking for her father. They think he knows something about why the power went out. After an altercation, her father is killed and her brother Danny (Graham Rogers) is kidnapped by the militia. As he lays dying, her father tells Charlie to find her uncle Miles (Billy Burke). Charlie sets out with her stepmother and another member of their community to find her uncle and bring her brother home.

Along with a display of some set pieces and some impressive signage (the show’s logo, the ubiquitous power symbol, covered half of the front of the Hilton near the convention center), the pilot was screened twice and many of the cast was on hand for a panel. I was fortunate enough to see the pilot and get to talk to Tracey Spiridakos (Charlie Matheson), J.D. Pardo (Nate Walker), Billy Burke (Miles Matheson), and Eric Kripke, the show’s creator in the press room,  where we talked about what it was like working with J.J. Abrams, going “back to the future” with horses, sword fighting, and archery, and reflected on what it would be like if suddenly all the lights did go out and stayed out for 15 years.

REVOLUTION premieres on Monday, September 17 at 10/9c on NBC.