Common Sense Media Review
By Kari Croop
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Cryptic drama raises complex questions about life and death.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 13+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Watch
Videos and Photos
Resurrection
What's the Story?
When an 8-year-old boy who died 30 years earlier in Missouri turns up halfway across the world, an unsuspecting immigration agent (Omar Epps) gets pulled into a puzzling small-town drama that finds other long-dead residents returning home to see their loved ones. But the reason behind their RESURRECTION remains an unsettling mystery.
Is It Any Good?
Whatever you think of ABC's Resurrection, you can't deny that the central premise is compelling. It's also nearly identical to that of the Sundance Channel's The Returned, a subtitled re-airing of the French series Les Revenants that was based on completely different source material and subsequently inspired A&E to green-light a U.S. remake of the same name.
So it would seem that people suddenly coming back to life is a trend. And for particularly squeamish viewers -- and those with families -- Resurrection's take on the topic is at least a bit more palatable than the decomposing zombies of The Walking Dead that fill the screen with their severed limbs and rotting flesh. In fact, the scariest aspect of Resurrection's story is the societal reaction to the presence of resuscitated citizens, making you wonder whether we'd really ever act that way.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about Resurrection's premise and how it might play out -- however unlikely -- in real life. How realistically does the show handle the logistical and emotional repercussions of dead people returning to their families?
What's Resurrection's message when it comes to life and death? Is the outlook positive, negative, or somewhere in between? What role does religion play?
What do you know about Jason Mott's The Returned, the book Resurrection is based on? How does the TV show compare? Were any changes made to the story to turn it into something that works better on-screen?
TV Details
- Premiere date : March 9, 2014
- Cast : Devin Kelley , Kurtwood Smith , Omar Epps
- Network : ABC
- Genre : Drama
- Topics : Fantasy ( Magic ) , Book Characters
- TV rating :
- Last updated : October 1, 2025
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