Defiance - review
Apr. 19th, 2013 11:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatFinished watching Defiance - the new Syfy channel tv series, co-developed and produced by Rockne O'Bannion (who also did The Cult, and Farscape) and Kevin Murphy. Rockne O'Bannion for Farscape fans - wrote 12 episodes. It reminds me more of Babylon 5 meets Farscape by way of numerous B Westerns (including Gunsmoke) than Firefly, which may result in a longer series. It's not as well written as the others - too much CGI and dependence on video-game hijinks, not enough on dialogue. But it does, however, have a decent cast, which surprise surprise is NOT populated by the teen hearthrobs and cover models. Nifty that. May actually appeal to an older demographic. Also Rockne O'Bannion gives me hope - the man is definitely creative and likes to do stories about cultural clashes.
The cast? Great group of little known British, Australian, Canadian, Native American and Irish character actors.
I kept struggling to identify a couple of people, such as:
1) "Irisa" the alien orphan who has been adopted by Jed Nolan. Turns out I have seen her before - she played the heroine in Neil Gaiman's Mirrormask along with roles in the following tv shows: Doc Martin, Whitechapel, and various others.
2)Also looked up Mayor Nickles - the ex-mayor. It's the divine Irish actress Finnoulu Flannagan.
3.)Then of course, there's Tony Curran who plays Datak Tarr, who last played Vincent Van Gough in Doctor Who.
4) Longtime New Zealand/Australian character actor Grant Bowler plays the lead role of Nolan (who is sort of what would happen if you combined Malcolm Reynolds with James Gardner of Support Your Local Sheriff fame. (I was just on my way to Antartica folks...) Bowler has been in everything from Farscape to Lost to True Blood.
5.) Jamie Murray plays the snaky wife of Tony Curran's Datak Tarr, you'll remember her as Lilah in Dexter or recently in Ringer (Olivia) or in Warehouse 13 (Helena HG Wells).
6.) Of course there's Julie Benze who plays the town mayor, and was most recently on Dexter, Angel, and various other series.
7.) Mia Kirshner plays Julie Benze's brothel owning sister. Kirshner last played Elena's biological Mom on the Vampire Diaries and was one of the leads in The L Word.
8) And finally Graham Green the First Nations actor from Canada, who plays a town leader and minor, also the business rival and nemesis of Tony Curran Datak Curran. (He's sort of the G'Kar to Curran's Londo).
The series is billed as a science fiction/political/action drama - set in a futuristic town in the middle of a dystopic Earth - feels Babylon 5 ish. Starts out peaceful, but clearly someone is manipulating things. Who is manipulating things is revealed at the end of the pilot, but not quite why. And the who is a bit of a surprise. Again reminiscent of Bab 5.
While Firefly was more of an action adventure, Bab 5 and Farscape were more political and about staving off war.
The plot or premise is simple. Jed Nolan (an ex-tracker, and one of the Defiant few who refused to keep fighting the Pale Wars and instead instigated Peace, so war-weary and a bit of jack of all trades - ex-mercernary) is riding through the Midwestern US on his way to better climes, in this case Anatartica. It's 33 years in the future, Earth was accidentally terraformed, and now is inhabited by a variety of races from the Votan system which was destroyed. Note not a planet, a star system made up of multiple planets and races who fled to earth, in deep sleep, believing Earth wasn't inhabited. Whoops. Eventually a truce was declared after years of fighting. The town "Defiance" named after the truce - is in the place St. Louis once was. Jed is traveling with an female orphan "Iriathient", who is human-like. He adopted her in Denver and has been raising her as his daughter. According to Irisia, he saved her from her parents. Together they hit pay-dirt, with a power crystal, which will pay off their debts and get them to Antartica, but as happens in all stories, they get side-tracked. This round by a group of Spirit Riders, basically Iriathiens on motorcycles - or mauraders, who shoot Irisa. They escape with the crystal and run through the woods, only to run into weird mutated spider like monster rat creatures. Which in turn are killed by the current sheriff of Defiance - so they enter Defiance, and with them, so do we - and Defiance is a hot-bed of political activity and personalities. I'll leave off there.
While the first episode was weak in places, the action's scenes were like watching an arcade video game, it has definite potential. Oh there's a lame-ass romeo and julietesque romance that makes you want to ask the time-old question - didn't these people study Shakespeare in school? But it turns out to just be a red-herring for a far more interesting sub-plot. Apparently the parents of the boy have realized that they can manipulate their nemesis daughter through their son, and destroy their nemesis and his family in the process. If only Juliet's parents were quite that crafty. The adults are the focus here - and they are all rather world-weary sorts, at least in their mid-40s - rare on sci-fi series lately. (Yes, I may be watching one too many series on the CW.) The dialogue is bit cringe-worthy in places, Rockne? You can do better! And the murder mystery in the middle - wandered a bit. They have a lot of subplots tangled together.
That said, there's some interesting characters here - many of them strong female characters which is more or less a prerequisite for me (if there aren't any strong female characters in the series? Don't bother recommending it to me, it's rare I'll stick with it for more than a nano-second) - more so than you usually see in these types of series. We have 1)the Mayor, 2)the ex-Mayor, 3)the wife of the local crime boss (who appears to be running him), the 3)daughter of the mining boss/owner, 4)the mayor's sister who owns and runs the brothel/gambling den/bar,5) the doctor (an advanced intellectual alien),
and my current favorite - 6)Irisia - a bright/adept fighter and orphan - who's narrating the story via her journal, written in her native language.
O'Bannon much like Farscape - felt the need to have his aliens speak other languages, or at least explain why we are hearing them all in English. She apparently arrived on Earth years after it was terra-formed - and no longer resembles the Earth Nolan knew. It's 33 years after the first ships arrived. And at least 15 years after the big Votan/Human war...which finally got resolved.
Unlike Firefly, this actually has a very well-developed back-story and book - you sort of need that for a video game cross-over. Also for the complicated political plot or it will fall apart. This is even more of an ensemble piece than Firefly or Farscape was in some respects. Again, reminds me a lot of Babylon 5, with a much lower production value.
Science Fiction is really hard to write well because 50-60% of it is the world-building and logistics. Since you are creating a world separate from your own, and inviting the audience into it - you have to give them enough detail to believe the world and suspend disbelief. Also for some reason or other 95% of sci-fans are insanely detail oriented and get annoyed when you forgot to cross the t or dot that i. (I say 95%, because I'm part of the 5% who really doesn't care all that much - just give me a good yarn and interesting characters and I'm there. But most my sci-fi geek pals do seem to care, a lot. Actually some of them seem to care more about the world-building than the plot or characters, which never fails to bewilder me.) Go here for the particulars: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defiance_%28TV_series%29.
While far from perfect, it is a lot better than I expected and oddly more interesting and easier to buy than Revolution. Actually I like it a lot better than REVOLUTION. There's more and far more diverse female and male characters. It's less comic-booky, which is surprising, you'd think it would be the opposite. Also the cast is much better and far more diverse. I'm thinking of dumping Revolution completely and just picking up Defiance. They are on the same night, coincidentally.
Overall rating? B-/C+ (B- for characters, acting, plot potential and world-building, C+ for dialogue, special effects (too much video game CGI) ).
The cast? Great group of little known British, Australian, Canadian, Native American and Irish character actors.
I kept struggling to identify a couple of people, such as:
1) "Irisa" the alien orphan who has been adopted by Jed Nolan. Turns out I have seen her before - she played the heroine in Neil Gaiman's Mirrormask along with roles in the following tv shows: Doc Martin, Whitechapel, and various others.
2)Also looked up Mayor Nickles - the ex-mayor. It's the divine Irish actress Finnoulu Flannagan.
3.)Then of course, there's Tony Curran who plays Datak Tarr, who last played Vincent Van Gough in Doctor Who.
4) Longtime New Zealand/Australian character actor Grant Bowler plays the lead role of Nolan (who is sort of what would happen if you combined Malcolm Reynolds with James Gardner of Support Your Local Sheriff fame. (I was just on my way to Antartica folks...) Bowler has been in everything from Farscape to Lost to True Blood.
5.) Jamie Murray plays the snaky wife of Tony Curran's Datak Tarr, you'll remember her as Lilah in Dexter or recently in Ringer (Olivia) or in Warehouse 13 (Helena HG Wells).
6.) Of course there's Julie Benze who plays the town mayor, and was most recently on Dexter, Angel, and various other series.
7.) Mia Kirshner plays Julie Benze's brothel owning sister. Kirshner last played Elena's biological Mom on the Vampire Diaries and was one of the leads in The L Word.
8) And finally Graham Green the First Nations actor from Canada, who plays a town leader and minor, also the business rival and nemesis of Tony Curran Datak Curran. (He's sort of the G'Kar to Curran's Londo).
The series is billed as a science fiction/political/action drama - set in a futuristic town in the middle of a dystopic Earth - feels Babylon 5 ish. Starts out peaceful, but clearly someone is manipulating things. Who is manipulating things is revealed at the end of the pilot, but not quite why. And the who is a bit of a surprise. Again reminiscent of Bab 5.
While Firefly was more of an action adventure, Bab 5 and Farscape were more political and about staving off war.
The plot or premise is simple. Jed Nolan (an ex-tracker, and one of the Defiant few who refused to keep fighting the Pale Wars and instead instigated Peace, so war-weary and a bit of jack of all trades - ex-mercernary) is riding through the Midwestern US on his way to better climes, in this case Anatartica. It's 33 years in the future, Earth was accidentally terraformed, and now is inhabited by a variety of races from the Votan system which was destroyed. Note not a planet, a star system made up of multiple planets and races who fled to earth, in deep sleep, believing Earth wasn't inhabited. Whoops. Eventually a truce was declared after years of fighting. The town "Defiance" named after the truce - is in the place St. Louis once was. Jed is traveling with an female orphan "Iriathient", who is human-like. He adopted her in Denver and has been raising her as his daughter. According to Irisia, he saved her from her parents. Together they hit pay-dirt, with a power crystal, which will pay off their debts and get them to Antartica, but as happens in all stories, they get side-tracked. This round by a group of Spirit Riders, basically Iriathiens on motorcycles - or mauraders, who shoot Irisa. They escape with the crystal and run through the woods, only to run into weird mutated spider like monster rat creatures. Which in turn are killed by the current sheriff of Defiance - so they enter Defiance, and with them, so do we - and Defiance is a hot-bed of political activity and personalities. I'll leave off there.
While the first episode was weak in places, the action's scenes were like watching an arcade video game, it has definite potential. Oh there's a lame-ass romeo and julietesque romance that makes you want to ask the time-old question - didn't these people study Shakespeare in school? But it turns out to just be a red-herring for a far more interesting sub-plot. Apparently the parents of the boy have realized that they can manipulate their nemesis daughter through their son, and destroy their nemesis and his family in the process. If only Juliet's parents were quite that crafty. The adults are the focus here - and they are all rather world-weary sorts, at least in their mid-40s - rare on sci-fi series lately. (Yes, I may be watching one too many series on the CW.) The dialogue is bit cringe-worthy in places, Rockne? You can do better! And the murder mystery in the middle - wandered a bit. They have a lot of subplots tangled together.
That said, there's some interesting characters here - many of them strong female characters which is more or less a prerequisite for me (if there aren't any strong female characters in the series? Don't bother recommending it to me, it's rare I'll stick with it for more than a nano-second) - more so than you usually see in these types of series. We have 1)the Mayor, 2)the ex-Mayor, 3)the wife of the local crime boss (who appears to be running him), the 3)daughter of the mining boss/owner, 4)the mayor's sister who owns and runs the brothel/gambling den/bar,5) the doctor (an advanced intellectual alien),
and my current favorite - 6)Irisia - a bright/adept fighter and orphan - who's narrating the story via her journal, written in her native language.
O'Bannon much like Farscape - felt the need to have his aliens speak other languages, or at least explain why we are hearing them all in English. She apparently arrived on Earth years after it was terra-formed - and no longer resembles the Earth Nolan knew. It's 33 years after the first ships arrived. And at least 15 years after the big Votan/Human war...which finally got resolved.
Unlike Firefly, this actually has a very well-developed back-story and book - you sort of need that for a video game cross-over. Also for the complicated political plot or it will fall apart. This is even more of an ensemble piece than Firefly or Farscape was in some respects. Again, reminds me a lot of Babylon 5, with a much lower production value.
Science Fiction is really hard to write well because 50-60% of it is the world-building and logistics. Since you are creating a world separate from your own, and inviting the audience into it - you have to give them enough detail to believe the world and suspend disbelief. Also for some reason or other 95% of sci-fans are insanely detail oriented and get annoyed when you forgot to cross the t or dot that i. (I say 95%, because I'm part of the 5% who really doesn't care all that much - just give me a good yarn and interesting characters and I'm there. But most my sci-fi geek pals do seem to care, a lot. Actually some of them seem to care more about the world-building than the plot or characters, which never fails to bewilder me.) Go here for the particulars: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defiance_%28TV_series%29.
While far from perfect, it is a lot better than I expected and oddly more interesting and easier to buy than Revolution. Actually I like it a lot better than REVOLUTION. There's more and far more diverse female and male characters. It's less comic-booky, which is surprising, you'd think it would be the opposite. Also the cast is much better and far more diverse. I'm thinking of dumping Revolution completely and just picking up Defiance. They are on the same night, coincidentally.
Overall rating? B-/C+ (B- for characters, acting, plot potential and world-building, C+ for dialogue, special effects (too much video game CGI) ).