Three years after The Walking Dead‘s epic, action-packed, nostalgia-filled finale, fans may finally have a series to help fill the void. SYFY’s latest series, Revival, follows small-town officer and single mother Dana Cypress as she and the CDC investigate the sudden “revival” of dozens of recently deceased residents.

The revived, as they are dubbed, are immortal after their return. While some of the revived behave just as they did before their death, at least one has come back significantly more violent. Things get more complicated when Dana learns her sister is one of the revived, having been murdered just before Revival Day.

Melanie Scrofano Stars as Officer Dana Cypress in SYFY’s Revival

Revival Airs Thursdays at 10PM EST

The first episode of Revival opens with the coroner on “Revival Day.” As he discusses his job with a local documentarian, he loads a coffin into the furnace to cremate a body. Suddenly, the furnace door starts shaking, and screams come from inside. A man on fire busts out of the cremator, and the camera pans to the laid-back coroner, whose only response is, “This is not my fault.” The introduction sets up the plot and establishes its understated humor.

Thirty-five days later, the county of Wausau is no longer on lockdown as the CDC has determined the revived to be relatively safe. The town remains under quarantine, and Officer Dana Cypress is still stuck there. Prior to Revival Day, Dana wanted to leave the small Wisconsin town and get out from under her father’s shadow. She had a job lined up in the Windy City, where she was going to make a name for herself, but following the month-long lockdown, her job is no longer waiting for her.

Character
Actor

Officer Dana Cypress
Melanie Scrofano

Martha “Em” Cypress
Romy Weltman

Sheriff Wayne Cypress
David James Elliot

Dr. Ibrahim Ramin
Andy McQueen

Revival is a slow-burning supernatural drama fueled by familial tension and the underlying mystery of Revival Day. While there is only a glimpse of it in the premiere, one of the foundations of the series is the sisterly relationship between Dana and her sister Em. Em suffers from brittle bone disease and is away from home for the first time at college. In the final moments of the first episode, “Don’t Tell Dad,” Em is fatally injured but miraculously heals, revealing herself to be one of the revived.

As the series progresses, Dana learns Em was murdered and that anyone in Wassau, alive or reanimated, could be the killer. The chemistry between the two leading ladies grounds the show. David James Elliott perfectly embodies their caring but strong-willed father, who doubles as the no-nonsense sheriff. Revival‘s first season has six episodes and airs Thursdays on SyFy Channel

Revival Could Be Considered a Replacement for The Walking Dead

Revival vs. The Walking Dead

Image via AMC Image via SYFY Image via Image Comics Image via Image Comics

While The Walking Dead is a full-on zombie apocalypse, Revival‘s incident is contained to Wausau County. The most obvious similarity between the two shows is that they both deal with zombies. They’re two very different kinds of zombies, though. The Walking Dead featured the more mindless and traditional depiction of zombies, where they have limited higher brain functions and can be killed by conventional means. Revival‘s zombies remain fairly human-like but immortal. Sheriff Cypress sums it up perfectly when he says, “We cut off her head, baked her to a crisp, and she’s still kicking. Does that sound like a person to you?”

We cut off her head, baked her to a crisp, and she’s still kicking. Does that sound like a person to you?

There are plenty of overlapping themes between The Walking Dead and Revival; both deal with death and morality, as well as religion, fear, and family. When dealing with the reanimated dead, these are unavoidable themes. One aspect of Revival that will surface as the show progresses is the religious one. Steven Ogg will have a key role in the series as Blaine Abel. One of the series’ creators, Aaron Koontz, told CBR that Blaine has an “exorcist background and is a weird tow truck repairman dude, but he’s also leading this religious fervor.”

On the surface, The Walking Dead and Revival have numerous similarities. The main protagonist is law enforcement, and they deal with the reanimated dead, but neither identifies them as zombies, with The Walking Dead calling them “walkers” and Revival calling them “the revived.” Both series are based on comic books. Neither series follows its source material to the letter. While they make significant changes, they stay true to the essence of the original story while exploring their own ideas.

What we wanted to do is ground our audience in something they might’ve seen and then go [another way]. It’s setting up those expectations and, again, zag instead zig.

Sometimes, it means adding new characters or changing the order and circumstances of events. For example, in The Walking Dead, Shane was around longer on the show, so his death is different. In the series, Rick needed to be the one to kill Shane because he needed “to take control of the group.” Whereas in the comic, Shane dies much earlier at the hands of Carl. Viewers can expect the same from Revival. “There’s something there at the beginning of the comic that’s not there at the beginning of the show,” Koontz said. “What we’ll say is that it’s still there; it still exists in our show. What we wanted to do is ground our audience in something they might’ve seen and then go [another way]. It’s setting up those expectations and, again, zag instead zig.”

The Walking Dead Fans Also Have the Spin-Off Dead City

The Walking Dead: Dead City Airs Sundays at 9pm on AMC

Image via AMC Image via AMC Image via AMC Image via AMC

The Walking Dead fans also have the spin-off series, The Walking Dead: Dead City, which centers on an unlikely pairing of two characters from the original series: Maggie and Neegan. Dead City takes place in Manhattan. Season one saw Maggie and Neegan working together to save her son, Hershel, from the leader of a hostile group, dubbed “the Croat.” While it receives mixed reviews, the first season became a streaming hit when it landed on Netflix in advance of the second season’s premiere.

As Dead City moves toward its season finale, things heat up with Maggie and Neegan being drawn into a battle for the city and fighting to protect their respective families. The penultimate episode of the season embodied the show’s themes and was full of betrayal, unlikely alliances, and moral ambiguity. The compelling and exciting series is definitely considered worth watching for fans of The Walking Dead, and Laren Cohan and Jeffrey Dean Morgan always make for good TV.

Melanie Scrofano Is No Stranger to Genre TV

Scrofano Starred as the Titular Character in Wynonna Earp

Image via SyFy Image via SyFy Image via SyFy Image

Wynonna Earp followed the descendant of Wyatt Earp as she battled revenants and demons, trying to break her family curse in the town of Purgatory. She is aided by her brilliant younger sister, the ageless Doc Holliday, and a mysterious federal agent. Wynonna has been a screw-up her whole life, drowning her trauma in booze, boys, and self-destructive behavior. She is a reluctant hero who struggles against her inner demons, a town that hates her, and powerful demonic forces.

I think that Dana really wanted the job, but that she wasn’t being taken seriously in this small town with her father being the sheriff, so people may think it was nepotism.

Wynonna worked for a covert government organization that focused on the supernatural. The sci-fi western ran for four seasons, with a movie last year. Melanie Scrofano spoke with CBR about the defining difference between the gunslinging Wynonna and the more stifled and weary Dana Cypress. “I think the job there was to justify that,” Scrofano said, “because I didn’t want her to feel like Wynonna Earp, like that she didn’t want this job. I think that Dana really wanted the job, but that she wasn’t being taken seriously in this small town with her father being the sheriff, so people may think it was nepotism. She may have a history of making mistakes.”

Revival airs every Thursday on the Syfy Channel at 10PM EST.