NBC’s 2-Season Post-Apocalyptic Sci-Fi Is the Perfect ‘The Last of Us’ Replacement

    &lt;<img src="https://static0.colliderimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/revolution-charlie-and-miles.jpg?q=70&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=1" />
    Image via NBC</figure>

From its very first episode, Revolution balances intense fight scenes with a series of unravelling mysteries, keeping its audience’s adrenaline pumping and their minds working. Flashbacks reveal the nature of the “Blackout,” and the mysterious pendant that Ben was carrying that can restore electronic devices. Charlie’s mother Rachel (Elizabeth Mitchell), who was previously believed to be dead, is actually held captive by warlord Sebastian Monroe (David Lyons). Even the quest to rescue Danny takes a dark turn when he’s gunned down in the Season 1 episode “The Stand”. Kripke and his fellow writers managed to keep Revolution from falling into the same traps that other post-Lost shows ran into by actually delivering answers to its mysteries that made sense.

Season 2 shook up the series’ premise by introducing a new enemy: the armed fanatics called “Patriots”, led by President turned tyrant Jack Davis (Cotter Smith). On top of that, the technology behind the “Blackout” is revealed to be a cloud of sentient nanomachines that can perform miracles like restoring power to dead electronics and even healing the dead. This was a smart shift, as it allowed Revolution to keep its sci-fi elements while introducing a new threat to keep things fresh. Sadly, it wasn’t enough to keep the series on the air.

• The Wachowskis’ 1999 film won four Academy Awards, including Visual Effects and Film
  Editing.
• Bullet time was shot with a rig of roughly 120 still cameras firing in sequence around the
  actors.
• Keanu Reeves trained in martial arts for about four months before a frame was shot,
  recovering from neck surgery the whole time.
• It opened the same year as Fight Club and eXistenZ, in a run of films about not trusting the
  world in front of you.

• Mad Max: Fury Road won six Academy Awards in 2016, more than any other film that year.
• George Miller storyboarded the entire film as roughly 3,500 panels before there was a
  script.
• The chase was shot almost entirely practical in the Namib Desert, with real vehicles and
  real stunt performers.
• Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth carried the prequel, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, in 2024.

• Blade Runner 2049 won Roger Deakins his first Oscar for cinematography, on his fourteenth
  nomination.
• The film also took Best Visual Effects, 35 years after Ridley Scott’s 1982 original.
• Villeneuve shot it on large-format film and kept the fog and rain practical on set wherever
  he could.
• Three short films by Luke Scott and Shinichiro Watanabe bridge the 30-year gap between the
  two movies.

• Denis Villeneuve’s Dune won six Academy Awards in 2022, including Cinematography and
  Original Score.
• Hans Zimmer turned down Christopher Nolan’s Tenet so he could score Dune instead.
• Dune: Part Two arrived in 2024 and brought in Austin Butler, Florence Pugh and Christopher
  Walken.
• David Lynch’s 1984 version and Alejandro Jodorowsky’s unmade one are both their
  own legends by now.

• The 1977 original won six Academy Awards plus a special achievement award for sound effects.
• John Williams’ score was recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra and became the
  best-selling symphonic film soundtrack ever.
• Andor took the galaxy somewhere colder and earned Emmy nominations for drama series in both
  seasons.
• The saga now runs across eleven feature films and a growing shelf of series on Disney+.

‘Revolution’ Was Cut Down in Its Prime

Despite having J.J. Abrams as a producer and fairly solid ratings, Revolution was canceled after two seasons. In the years following its cancellation, Eric Kripke would admit that he felt a strange sense of relief as Revolution was “a hard show” to make; ironically, he’d even compare it to The Last of Us.

“I would say looking back, I feel like my primary emotion was relief. It was such a hard show, and I forgot every lesson I learned with Supernatural. It was completely serialized. There was no engine. There was no clean path. But it was still a network show. Like, had that show been an eight-episode streaming show with a bigger budget? It would have been called The Last of Us [laughs]. It would have been good! Like, people ask me there, ‘What do you think of The Last of Us?’ I’m like, ‘Oh, it’s like if Revolution was good.'”

“I would say looking back, I feel like my primary emotion was relief. It was such a hard show, and I forgot every lesson I learned with Supernatural. It was completely serialized. There was no engine. There was no clean path. But it was still a network show. Like, had that show been an eight-episode streaming show with a bigger budget? It would have been called The Last of Us [laughs]. It would have been good! Like, people ask me there, ‘What do you think of The Last of Us?’ I’m like, ‘Oh, it’s like if Revolution was good.'”

Revolution would fare better than most canceled shows, as it actually got the chance to wrap up its storyline in a digital comic book series. While the series had potential to last for many more seasons, what made it on screen is a story that feels oddly relevant given current events, and a post-apocalypse story that feels genuinely creative.

revolution