Defiance

[arcanelegacy]

So, I gotta know:

Did anyone else watch Defiance last week?



I ended up watching the pilot on Hulu and so far the jury's out - I don't dislike it enough to stop watching (yet), but I don't know that I really enjoyed it, either. I think it has a few really solid ideas happening, but I also think that it has the potential to get bloated and overwrought quickly, and that worries me.

I mean, we got something like...three plots set up this episode? Four? Maybe even more...There was the initial Nolan/Irisa plot (which included the Deus Ex Machina device), the Romeo and Juliet plot, the related Machinations to Take Over Defiance plot, the Murder/Mystery plot which then gave way to the OH GOD THE VULGE ARE ATTACKING WHAT DO plot which then gave way itself to the Something Is In That Mine and I Want It (Hi, I'm Your Evil Former Mayor!) plot/reveal.

While, to be fair, a lot of these plotlines are really tightly interrelated - the mines are obviously a central Thing here, since the Romeo and Juliet/Machinations to Take Over Defiance plot are tied to the mines, just like the Murder-Mystery/Vulge/Evil Former Mayor plots are, that's still a lot of stuff to drag out in a single hour and a half time frame, and unless the show really starts slowing down and giving each plot its due...well, I'm not optimistic either way. Not that all of these plots can't work/aren't interesting, I just wouldn't have pulled out all of them in the pilot. Romeo and Juliet/Machinations to Take Over Defiance could have been pushed to later episodes, to give Romeo and Juliet some time to grow on the audience and to raise the stakes as well.

There's also a slew of characters through here. Not as many as plots, but good god.

Irisa is interesting; Nolan is okay but frustratingly predictable. Amanda has potential under the surface but didn't strike me as being too incredibly deep at first blush, and I have an inkling feeling that she exists in part to be Love Interest (or Love Interest Number 2, depending on how the writers roll with Nolan's relationship with Kenya.)

I also liked Kenya, but to talk about her I have to go into a whole rant about my feelings vis a vis prostitution in science fiction (and while I get that they miiiight be going for a sex-positive vibe [which is good, don't get me wrong], the fact remains that a bunch of dudes are writing and directing this show, and that makes me uncomfortable. Sex work isn't wrong. But it can be portrayed wrong, and I worry that's what's going to happen here, especially since the only major vibe I've gotten off the NeedWant so far is that it exists for sex's sake, and won't have much [if any] bearing on the plot.)

I also didn't much care for any of the townspeople, tbh, alien or otherwise. (Hell, I was ready to kick the show off my playlist the second the stupid Romeo and Juliet plot started playing out, because I HAVE NO REASON TO CARE ABOUT YOU OR YOUR FORBIDDEN LOVE YET ALSO YOU ARE BOTH PROBABLY IN HIGH SCHOOL. While High School romances CAN and DO sometimes work out, I've got no reason to believe these two will). Datak bored the shit out of me, though his wife has potential to be a game-changer and SHE was interesting. (Maybe she should team up with the mayor! MAYBE SHE AND THE FORMER MAYOR HAVE ALREADY BEEN FIGHTING OVER THE THING IN THE MINE, because THAT would make this show interesting. LADIES ONLY POWER PLAYS FUCK YEAH)

I like Sheriff's deputy, Tommy, though, and I will continue to watch this show till it ends if he and Irisa continue to have moments together. IDGAF if they're a couple or not, they had a dynamic and a chemistry I would stick around to see play out. I am not optimistic, though, as the overarching story seems to be about Lovable Scoundrel Nolan and his Issues, with Irisa playing some part when it's convenient for the plot.

...Which makes me sad, because I was really hoping for a super awesome father/adopted daughter dynamic with them and haven't quite gotten it in the way I was expecting.

I also feel like maybe there are too many aliens here in this town. One or two different species - yeah, I can see that. Eight? Unless there was some massive coalition thing happening beyond our borders and all eight species thought it'd be awesome to camp out on "unoccupied" earth, it's getting too big too fast. Maybe that's part of the plot. Maybe it's getting explained in the companion game. IDK. I just know that it's a lot to process.

Comments

[cannedcoelacanth]

About the only thing that intrigued me about this series was the idea that what happens in the game will influence the series at some point. (Which confuses me because the game is set in San Francisco and the series is in St. Louis?)

But whyyyyy MMO shooter, whyyyyy. Even without a monthly fee, no more MMOs for me.

Re: The Aliens- I don't remember where, but I read somewhere that the Votans were actually a coalition of many races that came to earth, but yeah, if they didn't explain that in the first episode, that's some shoddy writing right there. That seems like something kind of important to the plot.

[arcanelegacy]

I think the game does a lot more background explaining, and maybe events will trickle over? Which could be interesting. IDK. I'm worried the writers won't explain any of the game's influence and will expect that people who watch the show will also play the game, when that's just not true. I have no interest in the game, either.

I read that, too, and can't remember if they mentioned that at all in the pilot (I spent a lot of the first few minutes rolling my eyes and that might've been where it came up) - but I think that just annoys me more. How hard would it have been to call them the Votan Coalition, and use Coalition for short? Bam, problem solved.

Also - I ended up reading somewhere that the Votans only came to Earth because they thought it was unoccupied, and...I can't even. Do the writers not science at all? I mean, even if the Votan didn't pick up on any of the radio signals we are blasting out into space on a daily basis, how did they miss the fact that our planet lights up at night? Or how it has markers of civilization (that are visible from space)? HOW DID THEY MISS THE EXISTENCE OF THE ISS OR OUR SATELLITES OR THE SHIT WE'VE PUT ON THE MOON?

MY MIND, IT BOGGLES.

The story now seems to be that the aliens came to Earth expecting to be able to mine it for resources, found it was occupied (lolwhoopsies!), and decided to fight for it -- then a bunch of aliens and humans both realized that's one of the stupidest things ever and tried for peace. And now the aliens are still after our resources and totally screwed up our planet through terraforming, and humanity is mostly okay with this.

What is this show, I don't even.

[cannedcoelacanth]

Ugh, Syfy, how you have fallen. Remember when you had advisors on Stargate SG1? And how you got rid of them for Atlantis and Universe? Remember how those two went off the rails SO FAST?

That's seriously a double fail there. There's really no reason a technologically advanced race like that WOULD NOT realize the earth was inhabited AND there's really no reason they'd have to come to earth in the first place. RESOURCES EVERYWHERE IN THE GALAXY, AND IF THEY HAVE THAT KIND OF TERRAFORMING TECHNOLOGY... just no.

They get points for both sides realizing the stupidity, but lose those points for everything else.

I mean, if you're going for PULP SCIFI, stick to pulpy stuff. Don't try and mix and match, it doesn't work well.

[arcanelegacy]

Ugh, yes. One of my favorite science fiction writers was actually something of a technical adviser for SGU, and I remember reading about how much they ignored him until the show tanked. Which sucks, because I remember being so hopeful for the concept, and so let down by the execution and the HORRIBLE characters and the horrifyingly squicky consent issues happening there.

There's a small part of me that really hopes the crux of the story becomes "oh, yeah, we knew you were here. Sry, lied earlier. We also didn't give two shits. We want your planet anyway. Whether you survive or not is of little concern of ours." (This works especially well since I think yet another plot point is that the Votan mostly come from a system either lost to or in the process of being lost to a star gone supernova. Either that or I want some weird reveal about how the Votans are linked to humanity by a seed species, since all of the aliens are quite humanoid and (AND!) the terraforming didn't apparently render the earth unlivable for its dominant species.)

The second episode was better than the first, I must say. I think this story will work a lot better if it focuses more on the town of Defiance and how the cultures are clashing (as well as the political machinations of some of the townspeople) than the wider world outside, at least for the time being.

[obscuritan]

YES! I was hoping someone else watched the show, I was thinking of doing my own "what I thought" post but didn't know if anyone else cared. I'm coming from the opposite end of the spectrum to you, though - I was interested in the game but it explains very little of the plot, presumeably so people will watch the show.

The only things that really bugged me (it's a pilot, and pilots are ALWAYS ropey in some areas) were:
*How people were suprised when the alien ship burst through the atmosphere. Given how the present-day news shits a brick whenever a meteor could have even a tiny chance of hitting Earth I figure someone would have noticed?
*The prosthetics on the Irathient characters were visibly darker than their skin. That's an odd goof, since they could have just given them a layer of makeup to hide that.

Still, glad someone else I know is watching it. That way if it sucks we can both snark at it, and if it's great we can... gosh, it's been so long, what is the opposite of snarking again?

[arcanelegacy]

So far it's sticking around on my watch list, if for no other reason than maybe there might be a nugget of salvageable ideas in it. And because I need something to consistently snark, since all of my other sci fi shows stopped being snark-worthy and just started being bad. (I'm still bitter about Falling Skies, apparently.)

Yeaaahh, that bugged me, too. I guess I get that some of this happened for the sake of the plot, but you're right - just as they should have noticed us (I mean really how does a coalition of aliens with that level of technology NOT realize when a planet is already occupied?) we should have noticed them. We might not have been able to do much about their presence, but without some sort of hand-waved cloaking technology (which it doesn't look like they have) there is no way they should have been able to pop in on us unannounced. :/

....gushing? Maybe?

The second episode was better - have you seen that one yet? It's still not great, but it's a vast improvement over the pilot in terms of plot and pacing and actual interest, even if I think it's all still going very quickly. If the show keeps up episodes like that, it might be able to find a groove and stick around.

[obscuritan]

I've not seen the second episode yet unfortunately - I haven't found any UK channel broadcasting it and all Syfy's website taught me is not to watch it on there (7 ad breaks. 7. Not counting the times it skipped and I had to rewatch it). Thankfully I've gotten into Hulu with a region unlocker, so once i've seen this second episode I'll post my own impressions. Glad to hear it gets (marginally?) better though!

[arcanelegacy]

CBS here has that problem. I used to try watching shows through it but it skipped at every ad and then I couldn't simply jump to wherever I was without hitting another ad which inevitably failed...so I stick with hulu and pass on everything else. Bah.

It's certainly tighter, and left me with the impression that the pilot was all about setting up the second (and later) episodes, so any an all plot devices from the pilot were there for the sole sake of getting things going and might warrant forgiveness. (If the rest of the show remains decent or better, I might be willing to grant that. lol)