Revenge" Serves Up Sin In The Hamptons"

It all begins with gunshots and a dead body on a dark beach in Southampton during an engagement party.

“Revenge,” a new ABC drama-thriller set in the Hamptons that premiered on Wednesday, September 21, will get only juicier as it unfolds from here, promises star Gabriel Mann.

“If everyone hangs in through the first two or three episodes, they’ll be on a ride of their lives with this show,” he said during a telephone interview while taking a break from shooting an episode in Malibu, California on Friday. “There are plot lines and stories I have not seen being told on television at this point. It gets deliciously demented and very sexy.”

Loosely based on the novel, “The Count of Monte Cristo,” the story revolves around 26-year-old Emily Thorne, played by Emily VanCamp. But Emily is in fact the wealthy Amanda Clarke, whose father was framed for a crime he didn’t commit. Gabriel Mann’s character, Nolan Ross, is the only one who knows her true identity and secret.

Emily moves into an oceanfront mansion in Southampton next to the elite Grayson family, who, 17 years ago, brought her father down, landing him a life sentence and robbing his daughter of her childhood.

Returning under her assumed identity, Emily calculatingly chips away at the Graysons’ social structure, vowing to reach her endgame: revenge.

“It’s not typical revenge, it’s smarter than that,” producer Melissa Loy said during a telephone interview last week from Malibu. “It’s not, ‘I know where you’re going to be and

I’m going to run you down with my car.’ It’s, ‘I’m going to inflict the same pain on you that I’ve had to grow up with and you put on my father.’”

With revenge will come murder, a love triangle, sin and sex. But while on the set of episode seven, both Ms. Loy and Mr. Mann were reluctant to spill any more details.

“Nolan might get to go to bed with somebody during this episode. It’s a maybe. We’ll see,” Mr. Mann said, chuckling. “It may be an interesting day.”

Mr. Mann described his character as an “odd duck.” He said he fell for the wealthy, former tech-boom whiz kid after reading the pilot script.

“To me, the most interesting fact was that he has so much money but yet is so terribly insecure,” Mr. Mann said of his character.

The show’s social and financial undertones are lifted straight from today’s headlines, Mr. Mann explained, and added that exploring them in the Hamptons is an unprecedented move seen on television.

But the setting alone is one that’s been tried many times in television, however unsuccessfully, Ms. Loy said.

“It always seems to be the wrong story to be telling in that world,” she said. “This particular story seems to make sense for it because it’s not something that’s so obvious. It’s a story about people, a story about history. It just happens to be set in a world that I think people who don’t know it very well find very intriguing. It’s the wish-fulfillment element.”

This past summer, production crews spent a weekend flying over Southampton and Montauk in helicopters shooting aerials to use as establishing shots, Ms. Loy said. Hamptons weather issues and limited funds have set the rest of production in California and North Carolina, she said.

“The first 13 episodes of the series take place between Memorial Day and Labor Day, and our shooting schedule takes us into December,” she explained. “It’s not so lovely in the Hamptons at that time for summer. So we have to fake it a bit.”

If there is a second season, Ms. Loy said she plans to bring the cast and crew on location to the East End for exterior shooting, and maybe even pull similar stunts as USA Network’s television show, “Royal Pains,” which staged a crash between a Hampton Jitney bus and a silver Ferrari in Southampton Village this past April.

“This all remains to be seen,” Ms. Loy said. “It depends on ABC and how much money they want to give us. It’s a lot easier in seasons beyond the first one.”

If viewers tune in to the first 13 episodes, ABC will order another nine episodes to complete season one, Ms. Loy said.

“Anybody who has ever been wronged and wanted to get revenge should tune in,” she said. “It’s such a universal story, and the idea of revenge goes across many cultures. It’s the mother of all story engines.”

According to ABC, the “Revenge” pilot won its time slot across categories “Adults 18-49” and all key women demographics. It stands as the highest-rated series premiere in the Wednesday 10 p.m. slot in the last four years among adults age 18 to 49.

On premiere night, the cast gathered at Ms. VanKemp’s house in Los Angeles, where Mr. Mann said he experienced an epiphany of sorts.

“Emily’s place is literally at the Hollywood sign,” he said. “And I just had a moment—you have those in your career—where I was like, ‘Wow, it’s really happening. We just aired, I’m practically touching the W in this Hollywood sign and I’m with a group of people I’m crazy about.’ Life right now at this moment is absolutely more than you can ever imagine.”

The next morning, Mr. Mann said everyone “flipped out” when they heard the ratings.

“Let’s just hope we don’t go off a cliff,” he said. “The time slot lets us be a little racier for network television. The kids are tucked in bed and, all of a sudden, people let their hair down, have a cocktail and it’s ‘Revenge’ time.’”