News: 2013 Winter Press Tour for the Television Critics Association
Via: Mercury News | USA Today | Hollywood Reporter | E Online | IGN.com | AssignmentX.com | Seattle Pi | LA Times
Abrams and Kripke, who appeared here with cast members, were stingy with details about the second half of the season, which will pick up exactly where the story left off.
"We'll deliver on the title," Kripke said. "The revolution begins."
The NBC sci-fi adventure, fall's most popular new series among younger viewers, is in the midst of a four-month break that started November 26 and will stretch to the end of March. It's a risk -- but producer J.J. Abrams, who went through a similar break in Lost, says he's happy to take it.
The advantage, says Abrams, is that when Revolution returns, it can run straight through without further breaks or repeats. Doing that with Lost, he says, "just helped enormously. So when the idea came up, I was just enormously relieved."
Producer Eric Kripke says there was another, creative advantage for the show, which is set in a sword-swinging, horse-riding world without electricity. Taking some time off allowed the writers to catch their breath and figure out what went right - and wrong.
"I felt like we could pick up the pace of the stunning revelations. I thought maybe the pace of the shocking surprises was a little too slow … We wanted to have a second half that was bigger and better and more exciting."
One journalist asked why the characters weren’t utilizing certain methods people could in a world with no power and have for centuries. As the season progresses, Kripke said, “Slowly but surely we start to expand the world. We cross the border into Georgia and we see that they have many of those things that the Monroe Republic doesn’t and there’s very specific reasons for that.”
What "the little break has afforded us is the ability to take a breath, look at what we've done and really analyze it," he told reporters Sunday at the show's Television Critics Association winter press tour session. Though he believed the first 10 episodes were successful ("I think we did a lot of things right"), he did concede that there were aspects to Revolution that could be better.
The break gave the actors a rare monthlong hiatus during production. And because Revolution is a heavily serialized show with a moving mythology, using a cable model seemed to be the best option. "The audience is OK to see eight episodes in December and 10 episodes in June," NBC entertainment chairman Bob Greenblatt said during the exec session. "Then you can run them all in a row. I think that's a better long-term play."
[Waaaait...8 and 10? Someone give that guy some accurate numbers.]
The goal is to maintain the format established, with Kripke noting, “There’s that kind of myth and that kind of story, but there’s still self-enclosed episodes and it’s really designed for that. Walking that balance has been successful for us.” At the same time, he reiterated he wanted to, “Make it more shocking more often.”
In the first episode back, "We pick up exactly where we left off, I can tell you that," Kripke dishes. "I can tell you that Monroe (David Lyons), he does have choppers. He has a limited form of power, but power."
(Though Abrams does say "the genie is put back in the bottle" when it comes to the return of electricity; "Will the power remain on all the time? The answer is no.")
Kripke said that Monroe gaining power, “was more about helping him become an unstoppable force. Your heroes are totally outmanned as they’re battling against him. We play that out. We start to deliver, officially, on the promise of the title. The revolution begins. The story becomes about can this family -- whether by blood or loyalty -- can they stick together in the face of these overwhelming odds and this overwhelming danger. Can you maintain your soul when you become a warrior?”
Geography fans are sure to be excited by the second half of the season as Kripke teases we'll see more of the country than the Monroe Republic post-blackout. "We start to expand the world and we cross the border into Georgia, the Georgia Federation," he says, adding that the show will also "go West" by season's end. "We're teasing it out at a very deliberate pace because we want everyone to explore the world," he explains.
While the writers are currently "working towards" the season one finale right now, Kripke says he has "a multiple year" plan for the show, much like his first show, the CW's Supernatural. "I have a sense of what we want season two to be... but you need to be surprised by your actors, your writers, you need to give yourself enough breathing room...There's no end of the stories we can tell."
Regarding long-term ideas for Revolution, Kripke said the ending of Season 1 is firmly in place, adding, “As much as I had in my previous show [Supernatural] I have a multiple year [plan].” But he stressed that it was, “A sense of what I want in Season 2, Season 3 - only a cocktail napkin sketch.”
"The show is about power and mythology and the mystery, so to me the show is about these characters and really trying to find the human heart of them. How can they find each other in darkness? This is THE WALTONS with swords, so we really want to make sure it has an incredible amount of heart.”
There's a chance some of our favorites may not come back whole, but that might not actually be written into the script. The cast has started to take on more horseback riding and swashbuckling sword fights, but that doesn't mean they're total pros yet. "Almost got my rib broken and almost broke Billy's nose," says Giancarlo Esposito, who plays the nefarious Capt. Neville.
Now that power is possible, Abrams and Kripke recognize that it goes against the initial premise of the series, which is why the former says Revolution doesn't plan to flaunt it. "The genie is put-back-in-the-bottle-able," Abrams says. "They are able to tell stories that will give us these moments and peaks that you know this power exists, and this power is out there, and it's a part of what this incredible struggle is and the conflict that you'll see. You'll be able to see that really what the goal is, is that the power is possible. Will it remain on constantly all the time way too early? Based on what Eric has brilliantly pitched to us, the answer is no."
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(So there you have it, I tried to collect all the scraps of info together into one piece. Personally, I favor direct quotes (as opposed to a reporter's interpretation) as it's closer to the truth, so I included more of those. Hopefully we'll get more actor quotes later, closer to March maybe - it'd be a shame to have them all together and get nothing...besides adorable pictures of them all cleaned up and smiley.
[Spoilers]
NOW, can I be the first to squee over the fact that we're going WEST towards the Wastelands perhaps AND that The Georgia Fed have technologies that differ from the M.R...PLEASE, PLEASE BE STEAMPUNK GEORGIANS...
Imagine the awesome: New World limited power tech Vs Rebel forces & explosions Vs Steampunkers...)