General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

La Révolution

La Révolution is a French television series created by Aurélien Molas and Gaïa Guasti for Netflix, released on October 16, 2020. It is an alternate-history horror drama set in 1787, two years before the French Revolution, in which a mysterious virus called the Blue Blood spreads through the aristocracy and drives nobles to murder ordinary people, triggering a rebellion.¹^•² The series ran for one season of eight episodes before Netflix canceled it in January 2021.¹^•³

Key fact	Detail
Format	French series, 1 season, 8 episodes of about 46–50 minutes; genres listed as drama, horror, and historical¹^•⁴
Release	October 16, 2020 on Netflix; first trailer published July 14, 2020²^•⁵
Premise	1787: Joseph Guillotin, the future inventor of the guillotine, investigates murders and uncovers the Blue Blood virus among the aristocracy²
Main cast	Amir El Kacem (Joseph Guillotin), Marilou Aussilloux (Elise de Montargis), Lionel Erdogan (Albert Guillotin), Isabel Aimé Gonzalez Sola (Katell)¹
Directors	Julien Trousselier (episodes 1–2), Jérémie Rozan (episodes 3–5), Edouard Salier (episodes 6–8)⁶
Cancellation	A planned second season was not made; the cancellation was reported on January 15, 2021³
Reception	AlloCiné press score 2.0/5 against a viewer score of 3.0/5; IMDb carried a 6.5/10 at the time of cancellation¹^•³

Spoilers

Premise and setting

The story takes place in the Kingdom of France in 1787. Joseph Guillotin, a physician who would later give his name to the guillotine, investigates a series of mysterious murders and discovers a new virus, the Blue Blood. The disease spreads within the aristocracy and pushes the nobility to attack the common people, and the outbreak becomes the beginning of a revolt. The series frames itself with the question of whether the French Revolution happened the way history records it.²^•¹

The narrative literalizes the old metaphor of the noble as a parasitic being: infected aristocrats become truly blue-blooded superhuman figures with zombie- and vampire-like traits who feed on the people. An academic analysis describes the series as transposing an outbreak event and posthuman existence into the late 18th century, presenting an alternate origin for the Revolution of 1789.⁷ The action is set largely in the county of Montargis, a territory that does not actually exist, though the anger of the people rising against the aristocracy reflects real tensions of the period.⁸

Production and influences

Creation. Aurélien Molas, previously the writer of the series Maroni and Une île, created the show with Gaïa Guasti.⁹^•¹ Molas said the idea came to him while reflecting on Napoleon's maxim that history is a fabric of lies on which people agree.¹⁰ To sell the project to Netflix, he and producer François Lardenois prepared an 80-page dossier with comic-book and storyboard sections, far exceeding the 10-to-15-page format then rumored to be required.¹¹

Influences. Molas named the Korean series Kingdom as the true source of inspiration, and the stated ambition was to make a French Kingdom, combining the fantastic with the historical.¹¹ Reviewers also drew comparisons to Christophe Gans's film Le Pacte des loups (2001), which had similarly mixed French history, the fantastic, and legend; Molas acknowledged that the film was present in the cinematic memories he drew on during development.¹²

The series was part of Netflix's early push into French originals after the platform launched in France in 2014; by the early 2020s France had become one of Netflix's largest foreign investment markets, and La Révolution was among the domestic series produced in that period.¹³

Reception

French critics were largely negative. AlloCiné recorded a press score of 2.0 out of 5 from ten reviews, against a viewer score of 3.0 from nearly 2,000 ratings.¹ Le Parisien called the series overloaded with hemoglobin, inconsistencies, and clichés, with an unconvincing cast and a disjointed plot.¹⁴ Le Monde judged it a fiasco, alternating hysterical grand-guignol phases with long flat dialogue stretches, and Télérama called it a "consternating" historico-fantastic Z-series that questioned Netflix's strategy for French productions.¹⁵ Première was more positive about the craft, praising the remarkable aesthetics of the costumes, sets, and lighting.¹⁵ English-language reviews were split: Decider gave a "stream it" verdict, calling the show indulgent, bloody, and mysterious, while The A.V. Club graded it C− and located its weakness in the writing rather than the cast.³^•¹⁶

Cancellation and afterlife

Netflix canceled the series after its single season; the news was reported in January 2021, following the earlier cancellation of the French horror series Marianne.³^•¹⁷ A 2024 AlloCiné report noted that despite the cancellation, La Révolution remained one of the most-watched French programs on the platform, four years after its release.⁵ The series has also drawn scholarly attention as a case of transmedial storytelling in French historical fiction and of epidemic discourse in serial narration.⁷^•¹⁸

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › Scripted television and comedy series › Drama and prestige series (individual series) › Science fiction, horror, and supernatural

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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