Defiance (SyFy TV Show)

DIrishB

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So I checked out the pilot episode of Defiance. Overall I enjoyed it. It had a few problems, namely not giving much info on the various alien races and much on the history of the war between them and humans, but I'm sure more of that ground will be covered in future episodes so I won't hold it against them too much.

But the show has a lot of potential. It's overseen by Rockne S. O'bannon, who created and wrote for Farscape, an absolute classic. The different alien races and their various cultures kind of leave you interested to know more about them, as well as the setting: this new Earth which is now littered with alien plantlife, mutated animal life, and alien technology leaves open the possibility for a lot of interesting storytelling. The show has a sort of Firefly vibe which drew ms to it, with a sort of Western/frontier setting on a future Earth. I also like that it kind of upends the classic sci-fi show tradition of humans encountering and dealing with alien species in space, instead bringing the aliens to Earth in a desperate attempt to find a new homeworld.

The main character also has some Mal Reynolds type characteristics, while also establishing himself as his own character. The supporting cast almost all have good potential for character growth, and the series sports a fair amount of established TV actors.

I'm interested to see where the series is headed. It airs Monday nights on SyFy, I believe at 9pm (but I'd check your local listings to verify that).

Also, there's a tie in video game for consoles also called Defiance, that has it's own thread, but this is for discussion of the TV show. That being said, it's an interesting transmedia experiment in terms of tying the storylines together and making them dependent on each other, without the need to watch and play both to know what's going on. It'll be interesting to see how they tie and weave the storylines for the two together.
 
I too loved the pilot and I'm looking forward to seeing what the game and tv show influence in each other. I'll be honest I loved that each race was not too expanded upon as I feel if they had done them all in the episode it'd be bogged down in information. Where as like you said future episodes can do each one. My only negative is in the cgi and some clichés but those clichés are in most scifi shows so I kinda love them (is that weird?) the cgi though at times looked too poor for tv. Hopefully they get better. I'm liking all the characters and the romeo & julliet like romance has my interest. So far i'd give the show a 8/10
 
So I've seen the first three episodes, and while I still think the series has potential, it hasn't blown me away and it's exhibited a number of sci-fi cliches that leave me yearning for more Firefly.

That said, I love the opening credits theme. Bear McCreary is awesome, and the combination of strings and synths makes for a really cool piece of music.
 
So I've seen the first three episodes, and while I still think the series has potential, it hasn't blown me away and it's exhibited a number of sci-fi cliches that leave me yearning for more Firefly.

I like the clichés to be honest. They are things that almost define the genre. I agree it's got a lot but so has every star trek ect... Just like every comic movie have the same clinches as each other (kinda) They are the ones I love as a fan of the genre.


On another note. I got the game on ps3! pretty awesome. It even has "episode" missions which when active fill in the blanks on what''s on tv. Pretty fun game.
 
I like the clichés to be honest. They are things that almost define the genre. I agree it's got a lot but so has every star trek ect... Just like every comic movie have the same clinches as each other (kinda) They are the ones I love as a fan of the genre.

You're absolutely right. And I went back and rewatched the first five episodes a second time and must say the fourth one, "A Well Respected Man", did a fantastic job of portraying Datak Tarr and his wife Stahma. I'm also loving Nolan more and more each episode. Again, he's no Mal Reynolds, but he's on his way to becoming a worthy replacement.

Also, they've done a great job displaying the different cultures and languages of the Votan races, from the Castithans' strangely slow and precise dancing in the pilot to the Irathients' tribal culture. And again, the different languages and their common usage is great.

On another note. I got the game on ps3! pretty awesome. It even has "episode" missions which when active fill in the blanks on what''s on tv. Pretty fun game.

I haven't picked up the game yet but have been following the episode specific missions on YouTube. I love that it parallels or continues each episode's story lines. My only regret is that those episode specific missions can't be replayed. Once they're gone, they're gone. I hope in the future they re-release those episode specific missions so they can be replayed, though obviously not so that the goals or whatever are impacted. Just the ones which actually expand on the story with new missions and cutscenes, like the Prologue mission which featured Nolan and Irisa before their appearance in the show, or the most recent The Irathient Vagabond which continues Rynn's story after episode five. The stuff like Most Wanted or the Hellbugs missions aren't essential since they were more contests as opposed to story expansions, as far as I can tell. Since the story missions expand on the story of the show, for latecomers like myself it'd be nice to be able to revisit those missions (even if only once) to get the full story. It might work against Trion to not re-release them at some point, since many people might only discover the show once its released on DVD, or in other countries where episodes may air later, and they may not be motivated to pick up the game if they think they're missing out on part of it through those limited time episode missions.
 

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