Resurrection Brings New Life to ABC

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Last night, ABC premiered Resurrection as they try and turn their season around. The show is based on the book The Returned by Jason Mott but is not related to the French-series The Returned which has a similar plot (confusing, I know). The plot is that an eight-year-old boy, Jacob Langston, shows up in China after dying 32 years ago. He returns with ICE agent J. Martin Bellamy to his hometown of Arcadia, Missouri.

In the pilot the town tries to deal with this unexpected event and each citizen handles the news in their own way. As the pilot continues we learn that the circumstances surrounding the boy’s death differed from what everyone believed and that Jacob is not the only person from Arcadia that has returned.

It is hard to tell from the first episode how the show will progress. Is this phenomenon limited to Arcadia? Will we see how the world reacts to this supernatural event? Will the show stay focused in Arcadia and become an examination of how they react to Jacob’s resurrection? Will the cause of Jacob’s return be teased and eventually explained or will it be left as just a plot device?

The answers to these questions will have a great impact on the tone of the series so it is hard to say at this juncture where the show is headed. But I will say that I did enjoy what I saw. It makes a nice companion piece to Once Upon a Time. The tone is darker, but it still focuses on family relationships while being a nice breather from ABC’s soapier fare (Revenge, Betrayal).

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ABC needs a hit. The only new drama to be successful for ABC has been Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Coincidently Resurrection show runners Tara Butters and Michele Fazekas will lead Marvel’s potential Agent Carter series for ABC. It is not known what will happen if Resurrection ends up being a hit, and so far that may be the case.

During the premiere, 13.3 million people tuned-in. This made Resurrection have the best mid-season drama premiere since NBC’s Smash in 2012 and the series performed much better than previous time-slot occupant Revenge which has moved to 10pm. Now it is to early to tell if Resurrection will make it to season 2, but it does offer an interesting question to Marvel/ABC.

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I enjoyed the show and I will be tuning into episode 2. But the real challenge for shows like this is not the second episode but the second season. How long can they keep this premise interesting and keep the viewers interested. For ABC’s sake, I hope they have a plan. Otherwise they will just replace it with another soap.