ABC’s New Series “Resurrection”

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Have you seen Resurrection yet?  Episode 2 is on later tonight, so if you missed the first one, get thee to a computer or Hulu and download it stat.  You don’t want to miss this series, it’s going to be a good one.  Even IO9 says to give it a shot, and they are a pretty good source when you are looking for fun new sci-fi or sci-fi-ish-ness. I totally made up that word, deal.  It’s a great word, use it with zeal.

Back to the point- the show is pretty good thus far.  I was able to preview episode two after seeing episode one, and it only gets better (and weirder) but will keep shocking you. I’m by no means any type of wild fangirl of much, but I’m going to be watching this show and you can bet on that.  The first episode (and in case you have not seen it, I wont’ give away any spoilers) has the young son of a couple come back after being dead for 30 years.  When he arrives on his parents doorsteps, and his father realizes who he is, I almost threw up.  I had to hit “pause” and leave the room for a second- can you imagine first losing a child (God forbid) then having that child returned to you?  You really put yourself in his place for that second,  it was very visceral.  The show was completely amazing, and you find yourself being sucked in the entire time.   The second episode gives you more of those feelings, and has a feeling of the show “Lost” or “Haven” to it if you watched either of those.

As much fun as it was to see an episode of Resurrection before it aired,I must say it was made even more so because we watched it with the Executive Producers and had a question and answer session afterwards.

Are we going to find out how these people were brought back? 

Tara Butters: That’s one of the central questions of the entire series. There are some answers but we don’t answer everything. We still want to have an investigative drive. Do we know yet? There are several questions: Why here? Why Arcadia? Why is it happening? How is it happening? When we pitched the season to ABC, we pitched them the last scene of the last episode of the series. So we know where we want to go.

Michele Fazekas: As writers, one of the things we tried to do was  answer some questions. But like anything, when you get one answer, it kind of makes you have more questions. And in some ways, it’s almost beside the point because they’re back now, regardless of how they came back. And it is something that Marty and Maggie are investigating and trying to figure out.

In the meantime, these people are still here. Much of the drama comes from, “What do you do now that you have this 8-year-old boy? How do you deal with that?” Henry’s got a very complicated reaction to this. He feels like “If I embrace this boy as my son, am I betraying the memory of the child that I lost?” Why is it happening is a question, but that’s not the central theme of every single episode.

Was LOST an influence at all?

Tara Butter: Absolutely. I don’t think you can do a show like this without having some influence. I feel very strongly that this show shouldn’t be more than 13 episodes a season, because my favorite seasons of LOST were the shorter seasons because they could be so much more.

Michele Fazekas: When you’re building these continuous storyline episodes, you can’t jump around; you have to sort of build them in order. And if you change something back here, it sort of affects this. So that’s why we really liked having a smaller number of episodes. You can really craft it and be smart about it, versus just kind of filling space.

Are you worried the show may be too personal for some people?

Michele Fazekas: There’s something interesting about men with this show. I showed my husband just the trailer for it, and he’s like, “That looks great! I will never watch that show.” Because it really does get to you.

Does the show mainly stay in Arcadia or spread out across the country?

Michele Fazekas: We focus on just Arcadia for those eight episodes. We have certainly planned more and there’s a cliffhanger at the end of the season that hopefully makes people want to come back for the second season. Jacob’s like a stone that’s thrown into a pond and the kind of ripple effects he has upon his return and how it affects Fred and Maggie’s relationship upon his return. These characters are all affected by his return in different ways, some good and some bad.

ABC’s “Resurrection” stars Mark Hildreth as Pastor Tom Hale, Kurtwood Smith as Henry Langston, Landon Gimenez as Jacob Langston, Frances Fisher as Lucille Langston, Omar Epps as J. Martin Bellamy, Devin Kelley as Maggie Langston, Matt Craven as Fred Langston, Samaire Armstrong as Elaine Richards and Sam Hazeldine as Caleb Richards. (ABC/Bob D’Amico)

Be sure to watch episode 2 of Resurrection tonight on ABC, it will keep you on the edge of your couch  :)

Watch Resurrection on ABC Sundays at 9/8c