Yo…
Syfy is now four seasons deep on Resident Alien, a TV series adapted from Dark Horse comics.
And for their loyal nerdy viewers Syfy presents another comic book adaptation: Revival. I did not read Revival—a 47-issue horror comics series written by Tim Seeley and drawn by Mike Norton, published by Image Comics between July 2012 and February 2017.
Here’s the #SetTheVCR premise: the TV series opens on Revival Day, where everyone in a small Wisconsin town who died two weeks before the Big Day suddenly comes back to life. This isn’t Walking Dead zombies.
The Revivers’ retain their personalities and their bodies are now endowed with strange new abilities, like a Wolverine-style healing factor and super-strength.
How do you reintegrate the ah…walking dead back into normal society? Or does normal society even want them back?
Grief can’t swing from hurt to hope that quickly. With, a dark, noir premise like this there will be endless questions and endless fears.
Enter Steven Ogg, who plays the sinister Blaine Abel.
Blaine believes the Revivers are demons—the obvious work of Satan. Inside the quarantined town, he sparks his own Revival. Attracting and gathering a cult-like following among the sacred and unsettled townsfolk.
In Episode 3: Reality Check (broadcast on June 26, 2025), Blaine makes it clear he is preparing for “a holy war.” Yes, he issued those words.
In Episode 5: Triage (broadcast on July 10, 2025), as you’ll hear in this My Summer Lair conversation, Steven Ogg unpacks the strange markings on Blaine’s hand.
If you don’t recognize the name, you know the mullet: Steven played Simon in The Walking Dead and Rebus, a murderous synthetic android in Westworld. Like Blaine, Steven has a calling. He brings complex, unsettling characters to life with a distinct precision and passion.
Even Steven acknowledges Blaine is unusual addition to his unique gallery of characters. I swear dude’s catalogue of characters mirrors a rogue’s gallery of Batman villains.
Now, while Revival is centered around Melanie Scrofano as Dana Cypress—a small-town cop trying to solve the mystery—I’d keep my eye on Blaine.
When there’s an atmosphere of fear, Blaine’s "Revival" and his holy war becomes dangerously attractive. If you can’t provide foolish people with satisfying answers, you can give them direction and hate...is an powerful direction. Hate can third rail power a Revival.
Revival Season 1 is 10 episodes. By Comic-Con, this week…7 of em will have aired.
I suspect Revival is a bubble show, I’m not sure it’s gonna last a long time in this world.
Will it score a second season?
A Programming Note: Revival episodes will be available to stream on Peacock one week after they air on SYFY.
And in Canada you can watch Revival on the CTV Sci- Fi channel when it airs weekly. Though it’ll stream on Crave the following day.
And I opened my conversation talking about Scared Shitless. That is Chapter 306…I spoke to director Vivieno Caldinelli during Blood in the Snow Film Festival.
You Can’t Ketchup Chips Pop Culture
Steven Ogg is a Canadian actor—he was born in Edmonton, the same Canadian city that gifted us Michael J. Fox.
Does that really matter, though? Back to the Future is a dope movie. Period. Michael J. Fox could be Canadian, American or Italian or anything else—it doesn’t matter. The Work is good.
Sharing the dude in the DeLorean is from Edmonton is fine as a fun fact but it sucks at marketing. That fun fact fails to create Back to the Future interest or even passion. You’re really gonna put on pants and go see it just because Fox is from Edmonton?
I’ve been super critical of the recent wave of #ElbowsUp Canadian patriotism. There’s even a push for podcasts to slap a red maple leaf in their logos or show art. Yo, no.
Pod The North (another
newsletter) nailed it: “Canadian podcasting might be stuck in the same death spiral as all of our other forms of homegrown media and arts.”Sadly, it’s been like that for decades across every Canadian medium.
It’s like those trite social media posts: “watch "Canadian" movies!” (Or else, eh?)
But to the general (paying) public, “Canadian” isn’t an effective marketing hook or even a tantalizing genre.
Think of K-Dramas (Korean dramas) or Bollywood. Those are defined genres with clichés, fanbases, dedicated podcasts and super cute merch. How many German TV shows can you name? There’s no G-TV or something similar. Germany makes TV—it’s just not a movement.
One of my all-time favorite Netflix shows is Dark, and it’s German. But I don’t recommend it because it’s German. I recommend it because it’s sci-fi, it’s about time travel, complex paradoxes, misplaced time travelers, wild reveals, and numerous unique twists. I only share that it’s German to give you a heads up: hey, turn on subtitles.
Telling you it’s German isn’t marketing. But if you tell a friend: “It’s sci-fi with sinister paradoxes and emotional complexity,” that sells. That’s how you pitch a show to a friend.
Most pop culture (not all, but most) is rarely rooted in geography.
Bruce Springsteen is most associated with New Jersey. His songs are drenched in American culture: fast cars, unemployed factory workers, Vietnam, American politics.
And yet he successfully sells out shows all across Europe, where the car culture is totally different. In early July, Bruce was in Italy, and Italians belted out Born to Run with the same passion as Americans who grew up cruising the boardwalk in “suicide machines.”
"Elbows Up" works fine at the grocery store—ketchup chips are delicious.
But ya can’t Elbows Up pop culture.
It’s a marketing problem as much as it’s a discovery issue.
If you want something, you’ll find it. There are niche podcasters and bloggers who cater to your specific tastes. Canadian tastes. K-Dramas, anime, ska revival—whatever you’re into, Ask Jeeves can deliver it.
Upfront, I’m not one of them. I’m not seeking the Canadian. I’m searching for the fresh and the original, the overlooked and under appreciated.
I believe pop culture is bigger and bolder. That if creative artists are taking risks, so should listeners and readers and viewers.
Open Minds are cooler than Elbows Up.
Here’s the trailer for Scared Shitless.
The director Vivieno Caldinelli is from Toronto.
And the lead actor Steven Ogg is a Canadian actor.
Or…
A plumber must team up with his germaphobic son to battle a genetically engineered bloodthirsty monster that is loose in the plumbing system of an apartment building. Scared Shitless is fun for fans of The Thing and the 1988 remake of The Blob co-written by Frank Darabont and directed by Chuck Russell.
Plus, the creature & special effects for the movie were done by Steven Kostanski who directed the fantastic Psycho Goreman. Also highly recommended horror-comedy viewing.
Which pitch makes you push play?
All This Talk About Canadian Patriotism Makes Hungry For Poutine…
Sammy Younan
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Sammy Younan is the affable host of My Summer Lair podcast: think NPR’s Fresh Air meets Kevin Smith: interviews & impressions on Pop Culture.
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