We’ve known for awhile that Netflix was planning a TV show based on the Resident Evil franchise. And that’s great! The movie series, though successful, continually got further and further away from its source material. It ended up being nothing like the games on which it was based. It had zombies in it, sure, but aside from that it was an obnoxious, Kung-fu-filled action movie series that was just downright silly. A Netflix show could bring things back to their roots, right?
Wrong! Today we learned what the Resident Evil show will be about and it sounds an awful lot like the movies that thematically strayed far, far away from the video games.
Here’s the plot (well, plots) for the RE show. The “second timeline” is the one you should really pay attention to:
In the first timeline, fourteen-year-old sisters Jade and Billie Wesker are moved to New Raccoon City. A manufactured, corporate town, forced on them right as adolescence is in full swing. But the more time they spend there, the more they come to realize that the town is more than it seems and their father may be concealing dark secrets. Secrets that could destroy the world.
Cut to the second timeline, well over a decade into the future: there are less than fifteen million people left on Earth. And more than six billion monsters — people and animals infected with the T-virus. Jade, now thirty, struggles to survive in this New World, while the secrets from her past – about her sister, her father and herself – continue to haunt her
While the first timeline sounds a bit mysterious, creepy and different, the second seems like it’s right out of the last few Resident Evil movies, which became about a big, bad zombie apocalypse. Those hoping that this show would be a refreshing return to what made the video game series successful in the first place are outta luck. It’s going to be more of the same.
Does that mean the series will be bad? No, no it doesn’t. The show will be produced and run by Supernatural show runner Andrew Dabb who is creating new characters and settings, that’s a promising start. Plus, there is a chance that this long series format will work a lot better for Resident Evil than the movies did. Still, I was hopeful the show would give us something that felt like some of the finer games in the franchise (Resident Evil 2 & 4 come to mind). Those games weren’t about an explosive, burnt-out zombie doomsday and slow-mo fighting. It was about creeping ghouls, dark hallways, massive conspiracy and impending doom. For years now, RE fans have been wishing and praying for a movie or show like that. And for years they’ve had to settle for those Milla Jovovich movies. She may not be involved with the show but she might as well be, based on these descriptions.