S cyFy series Defiance

G

Gillvane

Veteran
I watched the first episode, it was on On Demand for my cable carrier. I liked it a lot. there's plenty of room to screw it up but for a first episode I thought it was good, so the series is promising. Often times series start of shaky and then they find their way and get better. Sometimes the opposite happens and they start off strong and get worse.

Being Human started off great, then by the third season I was like WTF? This isn't even the same series any more what were they thinking? I totally lost interest.

The FX are good enough in Defiance. You can pick them apart, they aren't ultimate quality, but I didn't find them distracting. There's a lot of character building, establishing the setting, and some weak subplots, stuff that's to be expected in a first episode, but overall it's a solid start.

It has mixed reviews. Some like it, some think it's crap, but that's par for the course. Not everyone likes the same thing. Lots of people love the newer Battle Star Galactica series but I thought it was crap. Aliens that, surprise!, look just like humans so you don't have to spend any time on make up. Bleh. Just another "V" which was also awful.

Sure, most Defiance aliens are like the old Star Trek aliens. What makes them alien? They have different bumps and lumps on their heads, contact lenses, or funky hair, but it works well enough.

from other blogs it seems people that liked Battle Star Galactica don't like Defiance so far, but I thought BSG was crap so maybe the two series appeal to different tastes in Sci Fi.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/maureen-ryan/defiance-review_b_3082390.html
 
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My biggest problem with the pilot was how obviously they cribbed (read: borrowed) ideas from Firefly, Star Wars, Star Trek, and others. I was also fairly unimpressed with the overall aesthetic of the show. It felt way, way too "clean" to me, for the world it was supposed to be set in. I wanted a much grittier, dirtier, post-apoc feel that matched the story/timeline more appropriately.

Overall, I am disappoint.
 
I will agree that the overall aesthetic of the show is a bit lacking, but then again I just personally prefer the aesthetic of shows like Battlestar Galactica. Also I found the aesthetic of some scenes to be muddied, to the point where it was either difficult to really tell what was going on, or it made the space and thus the world feel very small and empty. I'm sure this was a conscious decision to hide subpar CGI or production design.

As for the show as a whole, I did enjoy it and will continue watching it, but it didn't hit it out of the park. The story seemed rushed, and almost no explanation was given for anything. While I understand that you don't need to explain everything in the first episode, I find that the great TV shows somehow manage to very precisely create the universe for the audience, so that you feel after the pilot that you have an idea of what's going on here. Defiance unfortunately has so many different races with apparent different stories to each of them, that the end result for me was that I didn't feel like I connected to the Universe they've created, not yet at least.

Also that Johnny Cash scene at the beginning really dragged on. I understand they were trying to build affection between the audience and the characters, but after a while it started to get annoying and I kept wishing they would cut to the next scene.
 
jghenderson said:
Also that Johnny Cash scene at the beginning really dragged on. I understand they were trying to build affection between the audience and the characters, but after a while it started to get annoying and I kept wishing they would cut to the next scene.
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Yeah, I found that scene to be borderline cringe-worthy.
 
jghenderson said:
Also that Johnny Cash scene at the beginning really dragged on. I understand they were trying to build affection between the audience and the characters, but after a while it started to get annoying and I kept wishing they would cut to the next scene.
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I enjoyed that scene myself. Cute alien singing Johnny Cash. What's not to like?

I did have a little trouble with the scene where the main character explains what happened in the forest from the tracks. It was like suddenly he was Aragorn from Lord of the Rings or something.
 
For me, this one hit every single sci-fi cliche' there is, including one that I really, really hate -- people in the far-flung future latching on a song from the '50s/'60s.

Nobody today has any Rudy Vallee or Marion Harris on their iPods. The device is done purely for the sensibility of the contemporary audience, and as such, breaks the fourth wall.
 
David Jimerson said:
Nobody today has any Rudy Vallee or Marion Harris on their iPods.
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I don't know, but I'll hazard a guess that I'm one of the few, if any, posters who have seen Rudy Vallee perform in front of a live audience... but if there is more than one or two around... I'd be surprised... although he was doing a 1-man show into the 1980's...

Then there's Liberace... Ok... maybe there may be some people who have Liberace on their iPod/iPhone/iPads...
 
David Jimerson said:
For me, this one hit every single sci-fi cliche' there is, including one that I really, really hate -- people in the far-flung future latching on a song from the '50s/'60s.

Nobody today has any Rudy Vallee or Marion Harris on their iPods. The device is done purely for the sensibility of the contemporary audience, and as such, breaks the fourth wall.
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I get what you're saying, but what would the alternative be? Should they have made up a "futuristic" song? That definitely wouldn't connect with an audience in my opinion.

And in any case it was a Johnny Cash song, and almost every cool person I know has some Cash in their playlists.
 
One of the problems with it is that listening to a song, period, is never really necessary; it always seems contrived. The particular song is in it because they want that particular song in it. In this case, was there any particular reason to listen to a song at all? (But at least they didn't go into the also-typical "what music is that? " "What, you've never heard of Johnny Cash?" routine. :) )

Of course, it's one of those things that's done in sci-fi, like the typical "real, real, fake" listing of historical figures. Always threes: "Napoleon, Hitler, Li Quon." It's done for exposition reasons, and it's just not something people really do.
 
I thought Defiance showed some promise, despite being a bit clunky narratively. I like the set up and future post alien war Earth milieu. The western aspects were a bit too strong, but let's see where it goes. Firefly also went a bit overboard with the old west elements, but was a great series in the long run.

As a sci-fi fan who loved BSG (one of my favorite TV series), Farscape, Firefly, and just about all the Star Treks, I hope Defiance builds upon its strengths and sticks around awhile. Just about all the sci-fi/fantasy genre stuff on TV these days is some sort of fantasy or urban fantasy. An honest to goodness science fiction show with aliens, robots, and various space opera elements is a good thing IMO.

I'd say Defiance reminds me a bit of TNT's Falling Skies. Not mind blowing but solid and fun. I'll take it.
 
David Jimerson said:
Nobody today has any Rudy Vallee or Marion Harris on their iPods. The device is done purely for the sensibility of the contemporary audience, and as such, breaks the fourth wall.
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This has been something that has been bugging me for a while. I have been reading a lot of classic SF (currently on The Jesus Incident by Herbert/Ransom) and I'm starting to get annoyed at how all the references are to books/movies/art that is all 1950 and back. There's hardly even contemporary references for the time the book was written.

At least with The Jesus Incident there are references to fake works. Hell, even Star Trek managed that.
 
Gary Huff said:
This has been something that has been bugging me for a while. I have been reading a lot of classic SF (currently on The Jesus Incident by Herbert/Ransom) and I'm starting to get annoyed at how all the references are to books/movies/art that is all 1950 and back. There's hardly even contemporary references for the time the book was written.

At least with The Jesus Incident there are references to fake works. Hell, even Star Trek managed that.
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In Star Trek everyone quotes Shakespeare, and everyone that hears it knows what play the quote came from and what character said it. It's like they spend more time on Shakespeare at Star Fleet than learning about Dylithium crystals.

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare
 
Gillvane said:
In Star Trek everyone quotes Shakespeare, and everyone that hears it knows what play the quote came from and what character said it. It's like they spend more time on Shakespeare at Star Fleet than learning about Dylithium crystals.
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I don't mean it always avoided that, just that there was an episode in which Kirk quotes a fictitious author.
 
Shakespeare isn't pop culture. Shakespeare is part of a well-rounded liberal arts education which is common among command officers. There's a Shakespeare requirement at the US Naval Academy.

It's no different from learning Homer, Virgil, Plato, Cicero, Dante, Milton. All will still be taught and learned 500 years from now.

(But at the same time, if you want to make someone seem "educated," the easiest cheat is have them quote The Bard.)
 
Defiance was very very cliche, but it wasn't bad nonetheless.

It was a bit frustrating. The cliche I hated the most was more of a 'situation'. "the main character(s) is/are surrounded, about to die... then get saved by 'insert character(s)' who you didn't know were there" It makes me roll my eyes every time, especially since there's no variety. I know they're going to get saved. This isn't Game of Thrones.

Johnny Cash didn't bug me. Johnny cash and a few other music pieces seem to have some staying power. I have Johnny Cash, Jimmy Hendrix, Bob Dylan, and the Beatles in my playlist, with some Chopin. I'm 27. So it didn't really pull me out.

Over-all the characters are slightly cliche with lots of room for growth. Some of them are likeable (which is more than I could say for Revolution). The world, while borrowed, is fun and dynamic. I like the concept. I feel if they flesh it out, and moved away from the obvious, this could be a great series.
 
Jon Starr said:
Defiance was very very cliche, but it wasn't bad nonetheless.

It was a bit frustrating. The cliche I hated the most was more of a 'situation'. "the main character(s) is/are surrounded, about to die... then get saved by 'insert character(s)' who you didn't know were there" It makes me roll my eyes every time, especially since there's no variety. I know they're going to get saved. This isn't Game of Thrones.

Johnny Cash didn't bug me. Johnny cash and a few other music pieces seem to have some staying power. I have Johnny Cash, Jimmy Hendrix, Bob Dylan, and the Beatles in my playlist, with some Chopin. I'm 27. So it didn't really pull me out.

Over-all the characters are slightly cliche with lots of room for growth. Some of them are likeable (which is more than I could say for Revolution). The world, while borrowed, is fun and dynamic. I like the concept. I feel if they flesh it out, and moved away from the obvious, this could be a great series.
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Those were my sentiments as well. I didn't think, wow this is a great series right out the gate. I thought, ok, this doesn't suck, I"m entertained, there's a foundation to build on here.

Next episode has "Hell bugs". I don't know what a hell bug is, but alien fauna? I'm sold. What other series out right now has alien fauna in it? No one else is even trying.

It's very doubtful I'm ever going to be entertained by a series that does the Battle Star Galactica thing, like V, and dozens of other shows where the "aliens" look just like humans. it worked in The Thing and Invasion of the body Snatchers, but I don't want to see either one of those drawn out as a series. It was the focus of the movie, who is the alien among us? Thta gets old fast, episode after episode. You're going to have to work over time to convince me you're not doing it to save time and money on FX.

I just find REAL aliens to be refreshing. yea, it's just some make up and in some cases barely passable CGI, but at least they're giving it a go.
 
Gillvane said:
I just find REAL aliens to be refreshing. yea, it's just some make up and in some cases barely passable CGI, but at least they're giving it a go.
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But "real" extraterrestrials are simply the idea that what we would consider "intelligent" life (i.e. civilizations with societies, technology, infrastructure, ect.) can come in a nearly limitless variety compared to our concept of upright biped walkers. I would think it might be entirely possible that we, in actuality, could live in a Star Trek universe, where that kind of life absolutely, by and large, resembles humanity. That something in the way life evolves greatly favors mammalian primate characteristics for that kind of development.

Of course, with the disclaimer that the above is merely a thought exercise from a total layperson.
 
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