Defiance

[Midnightangel]

A few months ago Syfy rolled out their new series, "Defiance" and it was the one they were betting everything on.

I watched the entire season and here's how I saw it.

It sucked.

You can't blame the cast - they were pretty solid. Graham Greene (Dances with Wolves), Grant Bowler, Julie Benz ('Rita' from Dexter), Tony Curran, Jaime Murray (also from Dexter) and Mia Kirshner round out the leads. (Mia, by the way, is decended from Holocaust survivors.)

Can't blame the costumes and make up - excellent job there. Great job giving each race their own look and feel. Nice job of taking the darkest race morally (the Castathans) and making them and their clothes pasty white. Nice contrast.

Problem #1 - Key to the season were two gold discs. They told you they were important but not why until the last couple episodes. You can't be expected to care about a plot device if you don't really know why it's there.

Remember LOTR? How soon in that movie did they tell you why the frackin' ring was important? Movie #1, scene #1. That way when Gandolf panics when Frodo tries to hand him the ring, you understand.

Through out most of Defiance people are fighting or scheming to get one of these discs and since you don't know why - you don't care.

Problem #2 - A side character was the hero. The whole season came down to Irisa (as played by Stephanie Leonidas) doing something with one of the disks. Yet the whole season we're focusing on just about everyone BUT her. She had her moments here and there but if the crux of the season comes down to her, she should have been the focus all along with all other charaters supporting her.

Problem #3 - They killed off the characters you care about. The people they focused on all year - most of them died. Not sure you can start season #2 off with new characters and keep your audience.

Problem #4 - To many races vanished. The premise behind the show is that Earth is now the home of about 7 different races but after the first few episodes we only saw 3. Humans, Castithans and Irisa's race. That was pretty much it.

Problem #5 - lack of backstory. Buy a brand new book and start at chapter 7 and you'll get SOME idea of what Syfy did with this show. We have all these races on this planet but really have no idea why they left their worlds in the first place. They were supposed to be refugees. From what? No one ever said. You're left with the feeling that you're in a room full of people telling inside jokes.

Problem #6 - Lack of strong characters. I've never seen this in a series where the actors are fantastic but the characters are weak and that's the fault of the writers. They took a scatter shot approach to the first season. You can give each of the main characters an episode focused on them if you're doing 24 episodes a season. Usually a TV season as one main arch with a lot of little archs along the way. If you only have 12 episodes you have to stick to the main arch and the actors don't all get their own episodes.

The ONE good episode in the whole season was the murder mystery episode where they actually DID have some backstory and some suspense.

Season one is usually spent setting up your characters and providing backstory. That's the safe bet. Season 2 is where you start to get into huge things.

They end the season with the season 2 promo, "Next season we're changing all the rules".

Rules?

What rules?

I wasn't aware we had rules in the first season.

Wont be watching season #2.

 

[rfjeff9]

I checked out the first three episodes and wasn't impressed. So I didn't care that I missed the fourth episode.

But on point 4 above, there was 4 races. Humans, the white skinned rich couple, the mean girl following the main character around, and the freaky looking doctor. But that's neither here nor there.

A dull show. I won't watch it again now because I have missed so much, and it isn't good enough to go back and catch up.

 

[MilkSpiller22]

Defiance was not bad... not great either... but certainly better than the 2 new shows...

 

[Midnightangel]

They tied the series to the video game. I don't know whether they were relying on the game to tie up loose threads we had from the week or if it was just added content if you played the game.

Just every week left me going, "Wait, what?"

 

[tech_iceman]

Stevie, is that you?

 

[Skinny jeans aint cool]

Eh, I gave it a try and after the first 3 episodes got bored to death. It seems like all of Syfy's shows just suck with the exception of Paranormal Witness which I guess can be considered reality tv. They really need a make over. There movies look like they cost $5 to make and I wouldn't watch them if they paid me. Just horrible! Sharknado?! Really?! Who the freak thought that was a good idea?

 

[Winged_Wheel88]

It held my attention enough for me to make a good effort to catch each episode.

Good actors can save (or mitigate) a bad series.

I give it a C+.

 

[7NationalChampionships]

Stevie, is that you?

STEVIE!

 

[Cave_Johnson]

I really wanted to like this show, but it was just.....not good. Really bummed Syfy dumped so much money into this while cancelling Warehouse 13 and Eureka.

 

[calsnowskier]

I have not watched the finale yet. Frankly, I just have not felt excited to watch it.

The Pilot sucked. The next couple episodes were bad, but not horrid. I gave them 1 more episode to grab me at that point. Then the show got a LITTLE better and I did not remove it from my DVR list. It is still a show that I watch when I have NOTHING else to do.

They turned down the BSG Prequel for this?