Defiance. The TV show, not the game...

[Surlyboi]

Since there's already a thread for the game and nothing for the show, I figured I'd start one.

Syfy (god, I hate that stupid simplification) has the first 14 minutes of the pilot up on their site right now. I hope for the best, but expect the worst with this one. You've got Farscape and BSG creators in the mix, as well as some pretty decent acting talent. None of these things has stopped shows from sucking in the past, but I'm willing to watch the first few episodes to see what happens.

[TheWalrus]

I'm with you.

[Ghambit]

The only thing that has me leery is all the product endorsement in the show; seriously Dodge?  It's an immersion-killer for me to the nth order.
edit: But Bear McCreary makes everything better.   

I liked the 1st 15mins btw.  So far so good. 

[HaemishM]

Meh. The effects looked decent, but the lead (Grant Bowler) has been in two things I've hated. He was Richard Burton in that Elizabeth Taylor series with Lindsay Lohan and the lead in Atlas Shrugged. He's pretty terrible.

[Surlyboi]

Well, think of this as the sequel to Atlas Shrugged. The Randians took over and the world went to shit. His penance is to help clean up and raise scary alien chicks as his own.

[Nevermore]

I never paid attention to the game thread so this is the first I've seen of this.  The background looks interesting but the big question is will the writers be able to pull off some good, interesting stories.  Should at least be better than Falling Skies, but that's not exactly a high bar.

[Ghambit]

Yah, the reason I said I liked the 1st 15mins was the writing wasn't half bad.  Remember this is Farscape, Alien Nation (which I thought was pretty well written for an alien cop show) and so forth level of writing.  Not shitty, but not the greatest either.  Definitely should be better than Falling Skies.

The make or break will be how they portray the Votans.  It'll either be badass or total cheese-factor.  Science-Fantasy is tricky business.   Maybe if it survives the 1st season Haemish can send in a script.      I cant write sci-fantasy worth a shit.

[Surlyboi]

The Votans are definitely going to be interesting, as it's a coalition of seven different races. Not all of whom exactly get along with each other.

[Nevermore]

One would think that would have given them some skill in negotiating with hostile alien species.

[Ghambit]

The Votans are definitely going to be interesting, as it's a coalition of seven different races. Not all of whom exactly get along with each other.

So wait, the Votans are a conglomeration?  I thought they were the pasty-white elven types of the show.  Guess I was wrong (I'm not fanboised up on this yet; trying not to).   Got them confused with Castithans (theyre the 'elves.')  It has Mayan meaning btw:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Votan

So the premise is the Votans essentially came back to earth after having aided the Mayan civilization, built Atlantis, started Mormonism, etc.   Should be a future tie-in with the show I'm sure.

The Indogenes are my fav. race per the bios so far.  Quiet.  Logical.  Non-religious.  Cybernetic.  Please let SyFy not fuck this up.  Please.





edit:

[Surlyboi]

[satael]

I'm most interested in how they portray

[Ghambit]

Bumped for tonite.   

[Furiously]

I'm wishing you hadn't. Not impressed so far.

I'm not seeing how they are going to make this a series to last.

[Threash]

I loved how the sheriff got shot death and nobody gave a single fuck.

[Ghambit]

It wasnt bad (definitely better than something like Terra Nova, Revolution, or Falling Skies), but too much angst, darkness, and sexytimes for my liking.    My main beefs though were:

-The cinematography sucked ass most of the time; when they had awesome opportunity at art, they failed to deliver.  And it did indeed have too much of a soap opera HD camera appearance most of the time.
-Too much foreshadowing in the commercials; actually, worst foreshadowing I've ever seen.  You could watch the commercials only and get the entire scope of the episode.  It's a huge spoiler.
-The Indogene weren't mechanical enough in their verbeage, but entertaining nonetheless.
-The script was most times way too 'simple,' especially seeing as how Irisa rarely speaks.  Unfortunately the best moments in the show were when they werent talking much or when Nolan was cracking a joke.

Something in me thought the show should be on Starz, not SyFy.  It just has that kind of feel too it, like it needed to be set completely free of inhibition.  There definitely was a Spartacus vibe to the Castithan bunch, and the violent nature of many of the cast, to the point of blatant ripoff... even in the way they spoke.  I'd say they should probably run with that motif as much as possible.

Julie Benz (the mayor) was the biggest weakness of the show.  Terribad.  2nd most important character really and they completely fucked the casting and her script.  Everything that came out of her mouth was a cliche or pained attempt at being witty - just like a politician I guess.

I'll be watching the show, but hopefully it improves by accentuating its strengths and staying away from the shite parts.

I loved how the sheriff got shot death and nobody gave a single fuck.

Me too actually.  No sarcasm here though.

[Riggswolfe]

I watched it and quite enjoyed it. There were a few slow parts but nothing horrible. For a pilot episode it wasn't half bad even if there were several events I knew would happen before time because, well, that's the cliche. Still, it was good enough for a pilot and it neatly set up what is likely to be the conflict for the first season. I'd say its biggest issue is going to be how much money it costs. For that SyFy will likely expect high numbers (for them.)

We'll see how it goes. It's already been renewed for Season 2 but if it gets SGU numbers in the first few episodes we'll see a burn off, quite quickly too. I'd put it somewhere above SGU and Alphas for entertainment value but that isn't saying much.

[satael]

I think the show has potential if they keep it sci-fi and don't just turn it into a "small town cop show" where the different aliens replace the usual stereotype groups.

[Ghambit]

Next week's show is essentially "small town cop show."   
This is why I preferred they kept to being ArkHunters rather than townspeople (Irisa sums it up in the conclusion of the episode).  Same crap happened during DS9; show only got cool when they left the cozy confines of the station.

[Surlyboi]

Yeah, but with the way it ended, we're being set up for shit that goes beyond that. Let's hope they're up to the task.

[kaid]

I liked the pilot really depends how they grow it as time goes on though. Some of the CGI was not that great but the makeups up close were all pretty darn good. One interesting thing is the town square is pretty much fully built on a set which is really nice I was kinda expecting a CGI overload like warehouse 13 or scantuary still get a bit of that but the town stuff all looks pretty good.

[Tannhauser]

Pretty good pilot.  Like others said, makeup very good, some CGI not so good.  I'm hoping for some Game of Thrones type story lines where Earth Republic and other factions try to influence/control Defiance.  Not a cop show.  Please god no. 

It did seem like the creators put some thought into what happened and the various alien species.  If they keep making an effort to create good stories then I'll make an effort to watch.

[Numtini]

I'm in 100%. It's not great art, but definitely worth watching. Or maybe they just had me at Bear McCreary, even if I think most of the pilot music was recycled from BSG.

IMDB tells me that Mia Kirshner is only in the pilot and thank god. I loathed her character in the L-Word and typecasting is a terrible thing, but every time I saw her on screen I just saw Jenny Schechter. (OMG she's screwing a guy?! And he's not a super early transition FTM? LOL)

I'm sort of crushing on virtually everyone in the Tarr family.

[Surlyboi]

Well, HG Wells has been a smoking hottie forever, so I'm with you there.

Van Gogh? Not so much, double for reverse bleach-boy. The former because no matter how much he tries to go legit, he's full of shit and he knows it. The latter because of the whole reverse emo thang.

Irissa's hot though.

[Bunk]

I enjoyed it. Five minutes in I was really worried we'd have a long drawn out Romeo and Juliet plot, but they skipped right on through most of that in the Pilot. It was cheezy in spots and you could certainly see the Farscape influences in some of the design, but it can work.

Interesting cast, trying to figure out who Datak Tar was and finding out he was Vincent in Dr. Who was kind of odd. Grahame Greene back on tv again.
I'll admit to being disappointed at no Mia Kirshner after the pilot, but I've had a thing for her since Exotica (and I didn't watch the L word). I'm guessing it has to be filmed up here considering the number of Canadian actors.

Ok, mid post edit - appears Grahame Greene isn't in it past the pilot either. Guess they could only afford known Canadian actors for one episode?
And even further editing... Datak's son doesn't even appear to be in the series. What's the point of setting up plotlines in the Pilot if they all get chucked? Maybe IMDB just has a really bad report on the cast?

Irisa might be the first alien character with no eyebrows that still managed to be attractive to me.

Now I'm wondering a little if I actually enjoyed the show, or just the quotient of attractive actresses in it... I'll give it a chance. At least it appears to be legit scifi.

[Ghambit]

I thought Datak's son actually did a very good job; unlike the entire McCauley clan.  They better keep him on the show. 
As for the attractive actresses, it's pretty obvious they're gonna ride the Jaime Murray quasi-Spartacus train till someone comes along and smashes her skull into tiny fragments.

[Pennilenko]

This show is horrible.

[Tebonas]

So, it seems one fateful night Firefly picked up a drunken Eureka at a bar and took advantage of her. Now the poor child is born and tries to emulate its father but the awesomeness got somehow lost in the recollections of a drunken night.

[Bunk]

This show is horrible.

Perhaps, but if one was to rate it on the scale of tv scifi along with such luminarchs as Terra Nova or Revolution - this show looks pretty good!

[Ironwood]

This show is horrible.

[Pennilenko]

Are we really so starved and desperate  for science fiction programming that we are really willing to make excuses to watch stuff this poorly done? At least the game deserves the show it got considering the quality level is about equal.

[Riggswolfe]

Are we really so starved and desperate  for science fiction programming that we are really willing to make excuses to watch stuff this poorly done? At least the game deserves the show it got considering the quality level is about equal.

You believe it is horrible. You are not, however, the final arbitrator of what other people enjoy. I like it. It's not the best sci-fi ever but it's fun and enjoyable.

[Ironwood]

Look, even taking the awful characters and bad writing away :  This is really Shot poorly.  Shaky and blurry and wiggly and awful.

Now let's talk about the awful characters and bad writing ....

[Riggswolfe]

Look, even taking the awful characters and bad writing away :  This is really Shot poorly.  Shaky and blurry and wiggly and awful.

Now let's talk about the awful characters and bad writing ....

I didn't view the writing or the characters as awful or bad. It had some rough edges sure but it's also a pilot episode. Some shows that went on to be great had really rough pilot episodes. See almost any Star Trek series ever for an example. Oddly I am extremely sensitive to shaky cam or whatever and this show didn't bother me. It was roughly on par with how BSG used to do it, if not actually better IMO.

[Pennilenko]

Alright dude, you win it is just our imagination that this show is a steaming pile of poop.