Resurrection is a paranormal drama which has enjoyed two seasons on ABC with the last episode airing on January 25.
For those who are not familiar with it, the show, which is based on the novel, The Returned, by Jason Mott, is about residents in Arcadia, Missouri whose deceased relatives come back from the dead. First it was a young boy named Jacob who drowned 32 years ago but woke up in the middle of a rice paddy in China with no idea how he got there. After insisting that he is Jacob Langston from Arcadia, an immigration agent escorts him back to the U.S. and returns him to his parents who are now 32 years older than when he died. The show then revolves around the couple’s struggle to accept that this really is their son, even after they dig up his grave and found his skeletal remains, etc.
The plot thickens as more people from the town begin to return from the dead, such as a character named Caleb Richards who was a thief before suffering a fatal heart attack years before and returns to his children, now grown, and his criminal activities.
Then the town’s pastor gets the fright of his life when his ex-fiance, who killed herself years before, returns from the dead. He's now happily married to another woman, but becomes conflicted when he sees his dead fiance again.
The stories go on and on but are essentially all about people who mysteriously come back from the dead and whose reappearance causes all kinds of chaos in the lives of those they left behind.
The idea behind this show has one foot in the world of the occult and the other in fantasyland. Only on the Long Island Medium do we so many people parading back from the dead. Unfortunately, demons are behind these ghostly manifestations, and suggesting that our loved ones can actually come back from the dead could encourage more people to try to contact their deceased loved ones.
At the very least, as the show's producers claims on its website, “Resurrection will make you question everything you believe.”
This applies not only to those who are gullible enough to believe this implausible story line but also to children whose minds are not as well-equipped to discern the difference between fact and fiction. A show like this will make them question their faith in life after death and may eventually lead them to wonder why we need a Savior if we don't really die.
Do we really want to go here?