“When you think of zombie shows, many times that’s a show that’s dealing with death. Our story is more about life,” says Revival co-creator and showrunner Aaron B. Koontz.
The new Syfy series premieres on Thursday, June 12, at 10/9c, on SYFY. (All episodes will be available to stream on Peacock one week after air.) TV Insider has an exclusive first look at a featurette in which the cast and co-creators and showrunners Koontz and Luke Boyce introduce the new world of Revival, based on the best-selling Image Comics series from Tim Seeley and Mike Norton.
On Revival, one day in rural Wisconsin, suddenly, people come back to life within a two-week period of dying. These “revivers” act just like they once were. Local officer and single mother Dana Cypress (Melanie Scrofano) is thrown into the center of a brutal murder mystery of her own and left to make sense of the chaos amidst a town gripped by fear and confusion where everyone, alive or undead, is a suspect. The series also stars Romy Weltman, David James Elliott, and Andy McQueen. Recurring guest stars include Steven Ogg, Phil Brooks (CM Punk), Gia Sandhu, Katharine King So, Maia Jae, Nathan Dales, Mark Little, Glen Gould, Lara Jean Chorostecki, and Conrad Coates.
As seen in our exclusive featurette, any injury a reviver suffers after dying and coming back heals. “They have something of a supernatural phenomenon that is happening in their cellular structure,” explains McQueen.
It’s a twist on the typical “zombie” story, and the hook of the comics was it was a murder mystery where the victim was still alive and has to figure out her own murder. “That never happens,” Weltman says.
The show is also about the Cypress family relationships, between Wayne (Elliott), Dana (Scrofano), and Em (Weltman).
“Dana’s father has a certain idea of how to deal with revivers that is different than the compassion Dana has for them,” previews Scrofano. Adds Elliott, “We have this family dynamic that is challenged on many levels.” According to Boyce, “They are this broken family trying to revive a relationship.”
