Defiance - New Sci-Fi show from Syfy Channel on Showcase Canada

[Wetcoaster]

And this is Sci Fi with aliens... lots of aliens.

Here is the trailer:

The pilot will be repeated on Sunday April 21 and Monday April 22 before the second episode "Down In The Ground Where The Dead Men Go" airs on Monday April 22 at 10 PM ET/PT

http://www.showcase.ca/defiance

If you do not have Showcase from your TV service provider, episodes are also online at Showcase along with a number of "the Making of" type videos

http://www.showcase....#defiance/video

The pilot episode showed promise although it had a lot of ground to cover by way of back stories to get to the current setting of a terraformed and completely changed Earth of 2046 after the invasion 33 years ago by the Voltan (consisting of seven distinct alien races) and the frontier like town of Defiance built on what used to be St. Louis after an end to the war between earth and the Voltan when it became clear that continuing the conflict would destroy Earth so there was an armistice. Aliens are in control of what used to be the west coast of North America, humans are governing the east coast, and in between is desolation. Now there is an uneasy process of the human and aliens learning to coexist.

The relationship between Nolan and his alien companion Irisa is intriguing and well done. And there looks to be a very interesting back story that is hinted at during the pilot episode. There is a great scene near the beginning when they are scavengers travelling the post-apocalyptic wasteland (think Mad Max) in their vehicle and she seems decidely unhappy with Nolan.

There is also an online video game as a companion piece. Here is the promo from Showcase:

An unprecedented approach to storytelling, Defiance will unite scripted television and online gaming for the very first time. Both the series and the game feature an interconnected world and storylines that will launch in early April with the release of the game and continue seamlessly with the series premiere on the 15th.

Set in the near future, Defiance introduces an exotically transformed planet Earth, its landscapes permanently altered following the sudden – and tumultuous – arrival of seven unique alien races. In this somewhat unknown and unpredictable landscape, the richly diverse, newly formed civilization of humans and aliens must learn to co-exist peacefully. Each week, viewers will follow an immersive character drama set in the boom-town of Defiance, which sits atop the ruins of St. Louis, MO, while in the game, players will adventure in the new frontier of the San Francisco Bay area. The dramatic tapestry of the series and the intense action of the game will exist in a single universe where their respective narratives will inform one another and evolve together into one overall story.

Defiance stars Grant Bowler (Nolan), Julie Benz (Amanda Rosewater), Stephanie Leonidas (Irisa), Tony Curran (Datak Tarr), Jaime Murray (Stahma Tarr), Graham Greene (Rafe McCawley) and Mia Kirshner (Kenya).

If the original Star Trek was pitched as "Wagon Train to the Stars" think of this one as sort of spacefied "Gunsmoke". the frontier town, the new sheriff, the feuding landowners, the plucky mayor, the savvy madam. And add in the aliens and a Romeo and Juliet plot and there you have it.

Some of the CGI effects are great, others not so much but then this is a TV series with a limited budget.

Here is a review of the pilot:

The post-apocalypse is a dangerous time and place. And it’s getting very crowded.

You’ve got your Walking Dead, wandering the wilderness and through crumbling cities, chowing down on ill-prepared survivors. Alternately, you’ve got your Revolution-aries, underground freedom fighters taking a stand against tyranny in an electricity-deprived dystopia.

And now there’s Defiance, a ramshackle frontier community built over what remains of St. Louis following a devastating human/alien war. It is now 2046 and there are seven different alien races living there, along with the surviving humans, all crammed together, trying, and mostly failing, to peacefully coexist.

This is the bleak, yet incredibly colourful, dauntingly complex premise of Defiance, an ambitious Toronto-shot science-fiction series debuting Monday at 10 p.m. on Showcase, also airing on the U.S. cable channel Syfy, and tied in to a fully integrated online game.

Grant Bowler (the Dick of Liz & Dick) stars as Joshua Nolan, a former soldier turned scavenger travelling with his adopted alien daughter (Stephanie Leonidas), who arrives in town and reluctantly signs on as “chief lawkeeper.”

Dexter’s Julie Benz co-stars as Amanda Rosewood, the newly appointed mayor of Defiance. “She’s in a bit over her head,” Benz concedes.

“Amanda’s an idealist. She believes in what Defiance stands for. She believes that seven races of aliens and humans can actually come together and live peacefully as one.

“There are a lot of factions against her . . . but I think ultimately her goodness and her ideals will win out. Maybe.”

She’s not a wimp, Benz insists. Far from it. “She’s a strong woman. She has her vulnerabilities, but she definitely comes from a place of strength. It was not an easy world after the war was over and she survived, as an orphan, and raised her sister. . . . They’re both pretty tough.”

Her screen sister, Kenya, played by Toronto-born Mia Kirshner (The L Word), owns and operates the local saloon/brothel.

Though Kirshner, in defence of her character, takes exception to that label. “I think it’s really important not to call it a ‘brothel,’” the actress says, “because I think the connotation of a brothel is actually something that’s very dark, and demeaning to women, and not safe.

“Whereas this is a place for women and men to express their sexuality as an extension of their emotions. She feels that through sex you can become your best self and express things that you possibly can’t say.

“It’s this kind of sexual utopia that she’s tried to create.”

The multinational cast also includes our own Graham Greene as Rafe McCawley, the local mine owner and pillar of the human community, with Scottish actor Tony Curran (Pillars of the Earth) as Datak Tarr, McCawley’s shady alien counterpart/nemesis. British actress Jaime Murray, from Dexter’s second season, is Tarr’s manipulative wife.

So let’s see now . . . the frontier town, the new sheriff, the feuding landowners, the plucky mayor, the savvy madam.

Overlook the aliens and remaining scraps of future technology and what you’ve got is a pretty traditional western, the kind that dominated the airwaves in the 1950s and ’60s, then pretty much disappeared.

Science-fiction television has since absorbed and adapted many of those traditional western tropes. Star Trek was originally pitched as “a Wagon Train to the stars.” More recently, the cancelled cult favourite Firefly even more overtly evoked a wild and woolly past.

And now there’s Defiance, a spacey Gunsmoke. “It has a western feel to it,” Benz allows. “It’s a western set in a post-apocalyptic Earth with humans and aliens trying to survive.”

“That’s what I think really elevates the show,” adds Kirshner. “The creativity that went into it.”

The Defiance universe, they say, has been at least five years in the making. The detailed history of the changed world, and of the diverse aliens who now co-inhabit it, fills a massive reference “bible” and its own “wiki” website, though in Canada you are automatically rerouted back to a Showcase-sponsored site. If you want the more detailed American version, you can get to it through the portal site’s game background pages.

“Somebody has spent a lot of time creating this mythology,” Kirshner confirms. “It’s just a wonderful testament to what imagination can do.”

And whom. The alien races, though they arrived on Earth together, are as different from each other as they are from the resident humans: albino aristocrats, hairless scaly geniuses, brutish simian labourers, hulking muscle-bound mutants . . .

“What I think is wonderful about what was created is the caste system among the aliens,” Kirshner says. “There is such a hierarchy of status, which I think represents parts of the world today.”

“It’s nice to have a sci-fi show where we actually have aliens,” says Benz. “I mean, we haven’t had that in a while. We’ve had these post-apocalyptic shows where we’ve had kind of ‘robotic’ aliens, but the humans don’t really interact with them, except in battle.

“We haven’t had a show in a long time with real alien and human interaction.”

And for a change, actresses Benz and Kirshner do not have to be the first ones in the makeup trailer every morning.

Particularly Benz, who served her time in the chair as the vampiric Darla on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.

“I’ve paid my dues doing prosthetic makeup, and being the first one in and the last one out,” she laughs. “It’s refreshing to be a human on an alien show.”

[elvis15]

TV series with a limited budget is basically it. Not bad, and I guess being a pilot you can't fully judge it, but it was a little too much like every other TV sci fi show out there. Different plot and all that, and I might get more intrigued as it goes along, but not so incredible that it's a must watch at this point.

I got more into all the other shows out (watching Vikings a lot now, glad Game of Thrones is back on, waiting for SOA, etc.) but for sci fi I'm waiting for season 2 premier of Continuum this weekend.

[GrooveC]

1 part firefly - The thematics

1 part Star gate Atlantis - The aliens

1/2 part Terra Nova - The main characters

1/2 part The matrix - the tech.

My guess is it will last 1-2 seasons because we've already seen this show in it's various parts.