Many of the “wackier” episodes of The CW’s Supernatural in recent years came to us from the [geniusly twisted] mind of writer Ben Edlund, who has now moved over NBC to join Supernatural creator Eric Kripke for the second season of NBC’s Revolution. The show will be moving to Wednesdays this Fall, starting September 25, and Edlund is just one of many fantastic writers added to the Season 2 arsenal.
We caught up with Mr. Edlund at this year’s Comic-Con International in San Diego to talk about moving from Winchesters to the world of Mathesons and Monroe. “It’s actually fundamentally different in its engine,” he confirms. “That [Supernatural] had aspects of procedural; this is like a saga. This is like writing some giant, fat book… some missionary tale!”
“Maybe the pivotal difference is this is an alternate universe,” Edlund continues, figuring out what makes the two shows so different in their approach. “The difference being that in Supernatural, for example, there’s two guys who know the secret. They know that under this universe, there’s another truth, and they find connections to that mystery as they go forward in their story. But it never felt right if suddenly the Devil comes out, and everyone knows the Devil’s real, because that turns it into an alternate universe like True Blood. Everybody knows vampires are real, so the news is an alternate universe news, and there’s all this oddness. Revolution is that. Strange, wild, universe-altering things have happened on a global scale. Everybody has related to it and we’re in a completely new future, and that’s a very fertile ground. Exciting!”
Edlund confirms that he does always look to doing quirkier stories, but that Revolution “has a higher degree of naturalism.” “For example, levels of meta and just formula weirdness that we all could play on Supernatural, where you could break the format… that stuff doesn’t happen here. But, I see the opportunity as it develops to have extremely strange things happen. Because, just to me, although there’s a human map of interaction in this new world, which is already a crazy new thing, but under it, we’ve just begun to look at what nanotechnological disarray is going to be. The sweater was well woven around the planet until the events of the last episode of the season. That’s come loose, and weird stuff is going to start to happen. That’s where I think I get to do that weird stuff. Because when you look into nanotech with just a little bit of imagination, it goes nuts. It’s amazing. So, eventually it’ll be a nice, slow simmer, we’ll feel like we’ve earned it, and we’ll get really weird,” he hints.
Season 2 of Revolution begins Wednesday, September 25 on NBC.
2 Comments
Ben Edlund has done some groundbreaking work on Supernatural, so it’s sad to see him leave for anything less than his own series (I’d vote for the adventures of Aaron and his Golem) but I don’t think we’ll see him gone from SPN for more than the 2nd (last) season of Revolution.
I don’t know, kaystiel, I wouldn’t place any bets against Edlund. He’s made weirder things work. And he Kripke do seem to do really well together. Maybe he’ll do what Kripke did S6 and write like 1 episode or something if allow by his contract with NBC. I didn’t really get into Revolution the first season but I’m going to have to give it another try now. Though if I could give Kripke a note, I would tell him, that S1 of SPN had some rough moments but the things that sustained was that he created 2 characters you truly cared about Sam and Dean. Yes the story became more and more involved and amazing but it was always rooted in them. But while I don’t hate any of the characters on Revolution I don’t love any of them either. Though I might love to hate Neville, okay I do. I really kind of love him. But there’s not one other character I care that much if they live or die. Though Rachel comes the closest. I will confess I had the same problem with a good portion of the Lost characters. Sawyer and Hurley I would have shed a few tears over. And a Juliet and Desmond I did cry. But I was over pretty quick.
Sam and Dean I ADORED though. I can have days long debate on if a character would do something. Swan Song was a perfect ending but I couldn’t STAND the thought of Sam like that forever. I feel like they’re family. Along with Bobby and Castiel. And Jody Mills and Charlie. Though I’ll admit the only ones I absolutely couldn’t do without are Sam and Dean, I cried buckets over Bobby and Jo and Ellen killed me. Oh and Rufus. Of course if I name all the characters they’ve killed I’ll be here a while. But I was really upset over all those losses. Revolution -not so much. I’m hoping that Edlund will help correct that for these characters. I feel like the potential is there. There are some great actors in the cast. But I don’t feel much for the characters yet.