The first season of the ABC American television drama series Revenge premiered on September 21, 2011, and concluded on May 23, 2012, with a total of 22 episodes.

[3] Max Martini and Robbie Amell joined the cast as Frank Stevens, a private investigator and Adam, a wealthy student who is hoping to attend Yale.

Recurring Gossip Girl star Connor Paolo was cast as a series regular playing the character of Declan Porter.

[6] Former Nikita star Ashton Holmes landed a recurring role as Tyler Barrol, a Harvard classmate of Daniel Grayson.

[32][33] Dorothy Rabinowitz of The Wall Street Journal praised the series, writing that "The arrival of one pure and unadulterated drama about a passion as old as man is something to celebrate.

"[34] Writing for The New York Times, Alessandra Stanley compared the series favorably with Gossip Girl, concluding that it has "just enough campy suspense to be enjoyable.

"[35] Episode 5 of the series received particular acclaim, with C. Orlando of TV Fanatic writing that "Revenge took things to a whole new level this week", and noting with reference to the set-up of David Clarke that "Victoria seems the only one with a conscience".

[citation needed] The pilot episode scored a 3.3 Nielsen rating in the 18–49 age demographic and 10.02 million viewers, winning the 10 pm hour time slot against CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

On October 22, 2011, it was reported that Revenge regularly won its hour in the 18–34 and 18–49 age demographics ahead of CSI and Law & Order: SVU.