Entertainment

Apocalypse now

Billy Burke and Tracy Spiridakos (pictured) look fabulous while battling evil forces on NBC’s new series. (Bob Mahoney/NBC)

Billy Burke (left) and Tracy Spiridakos look fabulous while battling evil forces on NBC’s new series. (Trae Patton/NBC)

Giancarlo Esposito plays militia man Captain Tom Neville. (Bob Mahoney/NBC)

There’s nothing like a little apocalypse to kick off the fall season. We’ve all seen the world nearly end in recent network dramas but on NBC’s “Revolution” what looks like the end is really the beginning.

The series aims to work on several levels and appeal to geeks everywhere. The central plotline hinges on the world’s unexplained loss of all generated power, from batteries to jet engines. Secondary story lines have the feel of a family drama, with teenage siblings turning to their uncle, their father’s girlfriend, and various people they meet along the way to help them survive.

“For me, the best way to make a genre show is for it to not be about genre at all,” says Eric Kripke, the series creator and executive producer, and also the man behind The CW’s long-running “Supernatural.” Kripke is joined by super-producers Jon Favreau (“Iron Man,” “The Avengers”) and J.J. Abrams. “For me, this show is about the connection between people. It’s not about extraordinary concepts,” Kripke says.

Nevertheless, “Revolution” is one of those shows with a big back story. While Kripke and Co. don’t intend to spend every week confusing viewers by asking big questions and never answering them, like some other shows of this genre (we’re looking at you, “Lost,” and you, “X-Files”), there is a central mythology that viewers will watch unravel.

After the “blackout,” which takes place some 15 years in the future, the US has reverted to an agrarian age. Most folks are congregating in small farming communities, minding their own business and trying to get by. Meanwhile, a mysterious dictator, General Sebastian “Bass” Monroe (David Lyons), is seeking to consolidate his power. Monroe’s militia roves the countryside, brandishing swords and creating terror in its wake.

One apocalypse survivor, Ben Matheson (Tim Guinee), has a better hunch than most about what happened to the power, but he’s keeping that to himself. Still, Monroe and Matheson have some sort of connection, and that means Matheson isn’t safe.

Matheson also has a brother, Miles (Billy Burke), who served in the army with Monroe before the blackout. Miles, who can really hold his own in a swordfight, also is keeping a few secrets to himself.

Miles had been anonymously holing up in the now dangerous city of Chicago, until a sudden turn of events brings a niece he didn’t know he had — Charlie (Tracy Spiridakos) — into his life. She’s accompanied by her father’s girlfriend, Maggie (Anna Lise Phillips), and former Google millionaire, Aaron (Zak Orth), who’s supposed to provide comic relief. Good luck.

Together, this attractive group, inexplicably buff and clad in skintight clothing, has a few vague goals: find Charlie’s brother, Danny (Graham Rogers), who’s been captured by Captain Tom Neville (Giancarlo Esposito of “Breaking Bad” fame) and the militia; figure out what General Monroe wants with Ben and Miles before Monroe’s troops find them; and above all, discover how the power got cut. Not necessarily in that order.

While much of “Revolution” is set in the post-apocalyptic future, the show also will spend time in the present, exploring what happened immediately after the lights went out.

“We’re going to have flashbacks in every episode,” says Kripke. “We’re going to see what we kind of call these sort of EpiPens of adrenaline of what happened in those first days after the blackout and how people survived, how they made their way out of the cities, how they found food, how they found water.

“But I think that stuff really is effective in small doses because it’s very harrowing and it’s very dark. It was very important to me and Jon and J.J. that we tell a story that isn’t about death, but is about rebirth and is about hope and adventure.”

Those flashbacks will prominently feature Charlie and Danny’s parents, Ben and Rachel Matheson. Rachel will be played by Elizabeth Mitchell of “Lost,” underscoring the show’s themes as well its link to the ABC hit.

Mitchell came to “Revolution” late in its arrival on the fall schedule, replacing Andrea Ross. Recasting roles from the filming of a pilot to the production of a series isn’t uncommon, but Kripke wants to set the record straight.

“That [recasting] has nothing to do with how exceptional and exquisite an actress Andrea is and everything to do with, as we were [plotting] the season and starting to figure out where that particular character was going, certain things just revealing themselves to the writers,” he says. “We started to realize that there were facets of that character that Elizabeth would be best suited to play.”

With the series’ foundations firmly in sci-fi, the creators happily acknowledge that they are inspired by such good versus evil classics as “Star Wars,” “Lord of the Rings,” “Planet of the Apes” and “Logan’s Run.”

“This story is about heroes actually working to restore the world,” says Kripke. “While we’ll spend some time in that environment, many of those stories are about a society that’s falling apart. We were very much interested in telling a story about a society coming together.”

REVOLUTION

Monday, 10 p.m., NBC