Author Topic: Defiance (Read 6946 times)

Kaos Arcanna · « **on:** April 16, 2013, 02:48:54 AM »

Surprisingly good. Was not expecting that from a Syfy production.

JWBullfrog · « **Reply #1 on:** April 16, 2013, 03:38:32 AM »

I suppose they had to, but they threw a lot of plot points into this. Almost too many I think. But, In general I agree with you. For a Syfy production, it wasn't too bad.

FatherXmas · « **Reply #2 on:** April 16, 2013, 06:07:02 AM »

Well same guy who did Farscape. And considering ALL the ads and promotions leading up to this you get the feeling they spent a bit of coin so they REALLY want people to watch it.

Tarr's wife, the nearly naked one in the bath scene? HG Wells from Warehouse 13. Yowza.

Characters I like.

I like Irisa and the Doc. Nolan as a Mal/Jayne remix will take a little time to grow on me.

The tropes associated with classic westerns are quite obvious. Interesting twist at the end.

I'm slightly annoyed that they will leak out the back story bits at a time. I don't know why, I usually like that kind of thing. Maybe it's my fear of cancellation before most of the story is told.

All in all it was reasonably good.

eabrace · « **Reply #3 on:** April 16, 2013, 10:18:55 AM »

Quote from: FatherXmas on April 16, 2013, 06:07:02 AM

Tarr's wife, the nearly naked one in the bath scene? HG Wells from Warehouse 13. Yowza.

I thought the face was familiar, but sometimes it's hard to be sure when they're wearing alien makeup.

Mental Maden · « **Reply #4 on:** April 16, 2013, 05:14:42 PM »

Just watched. I'll keep watching. There is enough there for potential; we'll see how it goes.

BUT

1. It feels like I've seen a lot of this before.
2. I'm tired of scifi shows making up alien/future cursing in order to bypass network censors. It's a bad cliche at this point and annoying when people in our world use the terms instead of real world cursing.
3. Nolan recognizes his daughter hundreds of feet below while she's speeding on a motorcycle and with one quick glance upward she sees him and they exchange a nod. Eyeroll.
4. Like Santa, Nolan is going to take a while for me. Just not leading man material in my opinion. And while I really like Julie Benz, her mayor gives speeches that sound more like junior high student council election debates.

FatherXmas · « **Reply #5 on:** April 16, 2013, 11:17:10 PM »

Quote from: Mental Maden on April 16, 2013, 05:14:42 PM

4. Like Santa, Nolan is going to take a while for me. Just not leading man material in my opinion. And while I really like Julie Benz, her mayor gives speeches that sound more like junior high student council election debates.

Well she thinks she's not good at this in the first place and in the twist at the end, others originally thought the same.

And honestly, how many of us ended up with an attractive female high school class president who sounded exactly like that? (Raises hand)

Kaos Arcanna · « **Reply #6 on:** April 23, 2013, 02:06:35 AM »

Second episode held up well for me.

FatherXmas · « **Reply #7 on:** April 23, 2013, 03:20:03 AM »

Agreed. Plus we find out that Luke has the MacGuffin, or the way to find the MacGuffin. Interesting point they made in passing about how the terraformers simply domed over old St Louis rather than wiping it from existence. Why would they do that now do you thing?

Mental Maden · « **Reply #8 on:** April 23, 2013, 03:48:24 PM »

Yep, I'm still in. I wish some of the writing was a little tighter, but it's excusable for the most part. I still don't think Julie Benz casting was the best (although I do like her) and did I mention I hate sci fi made up cursing? At least they don't seem to implement it much on the show, so I'll give them that. The thing I really liked this episode was Civil Twilight's cover of Nirvana's Come As You Are. Fantastic.

goodtime · « **Reply #9 on:** April 23, 2013, 04:33:14 PM »

As someone familiar with St. Louis, I find the idea of a one-horse town surrounded by a hundred of miles of desolation a bit laughable. Not to mention the craggy mountainous terrain. Yes, I know they say it's been "terraformed" - which really should be "votanformed."

Otherwise, it was okay. It's nice to see the quality of green screen improving over the years.

Mental Maden · « **Reply #10 on:** April 30, 2013, 03:37:21 PM »

Didn't care much for this weeks episode. Feels like it's trying too hard.

FatherXmas · « **Reply #11 on:** April 30, 2013, 07:42:08 PM »

It's an episode built around establishing Irisa. The ability to connect with people to allow her to see past events in their lives as well as seeing them now. It was hinted at in the pilot with her seeing the arrival of the arcs through Nolan's memory.

Although I liked it better in Firefly with River because you didn't see the flashback, you just see a tormented individual saying creepy things that she shouldn't know about.

But it is a way to powerful ability and I'm worried it will become a writer's crutch.

Mental Maden · « **Reply #12 on:** April 30, 2013, 08:14:11 PM »

I would have preferred they draw the story out a little more subtly and over time. They hinted at it (sure....a little), but the reveal and conflict with her dad over it all didn't have the impact in my opinion. And the show has such an obvious deep back story (which is cool, I like that about it) I wish we could get it in better portions. Start small and work into it. Now I realize that's hard to do with it being attached to a game and in our modern tv world where you have to have viewers up front and quickly. I just feel like its too much "Oh look at these weird people, and those weird people and look at this weird thing they do and look at that weird monster and look at that weird gadget and look look look look......." (purposeful runon).

There is something there, I'll admit and I'm rooting for it to be able to tell it's story. But there are times I just wish they'd breathe and tell a good story. I realize this is essentially, an hour long commercial for a game that also happens to be a television program. The problem is it feels exactly like that.

Kaos Arcanna · « **Reply #13 on:** April 30, 2013, 09:13:54 PM »

I'm a sucker for offbeat family units, so I'm cutting them a little slack, but it's not the strongest episode of the show so far.

The internet comment was a bit from left field too as I'm assuming it's been decades since such a thing existed.

Kaos Arcanna · « **Reply #14 on:** May 07, 2013, 11:26:29 AM »

I'm still watching.

At this point, I think we're going to be seeing a lot of smaller, character driven episodes with perhaps one or two "big" episodes a season (assuming they get another season.)

I'm guessing we're going to see a lot of "older tech" like the car the kids were driving due to the infrastructure not existing for the manufacture and upkeep of more modern vehicles.

Wonder if we'll see a biplane on this show?

Kaos Arcanna · « **Reply #15 on:** May 21, 2013, 11:41:46 AM »

Not a bad episode. Glad they handled the "old friend returns and will he betray Nolan" thing with a bit of class.

And it looks like Irisa may have picked up her father's attitude towards relationships ...

FatherXmas · « **Reply #16 on:** May 21, 2013, 04:32:31 PM »

Well we don't know anything about Irathient drives. Yes she has raised by a Human but that may just mean she's conflicted between instinct and cultural mores.

Plus I think Nolan actually cares a lot for Kenya and it takes a big man to not interfere in her work. Of course maybe Kenya really wanted him to but that was a damn if he did, damn if he didn't situation IMO. Either answer could have gotten him into trouble. Kenya dumping him has more to do with her not being able to resolve her feelings for Nolan than anything he did.

Nice bastard of the week. Sort of reminds me of the B5 episode with the war criminal with the secret of immortality. Sorry, nobody gets him.

And does anyone use think the golden disk is putting the whammy on Quentin? Hmm, the remains in the shaft are from 1811. The first earthquake in that region, the New Madrid region (actually that area is south of St Louis by over 100 miles)? But hey, it's not like they can look it up on the InterNets.

eabrace · « **Reply #17 on:** May 25, 2013, 09:03:32 PM »

Random note: I saw on the Steam store page today that this weekend is a free play weekend for the Defiance game. Might be a good time to check it out if anyone's interested but been holding out.

Kaos Arcanna · « **Reply #18 on:** June 04, 2013, 03:07:45 AM »

And tonight's episode wasn't too bad though I do think they really need to follow up with the Irisa "You're not my REAL Daddy" tantrums she has with Nolan.

eabrace · « **Reply #19 on:** June 04, 2013, 06:30:50 AM »

I was just amused by seeing Jaime Murray in all that makeup on Defiance and then far more normal on Warehouse 13.

FatherXmas · « **Reply #20 on:** June 04, 2013, 08:18:11 AM »

I guess all the HG/Myka shippers are somewhat disappointed over WH13. Well they did get a little action on Defiance.

Nanites, what can't they do. Also, "Wait! They have dragons now on Earth! Neat!". Well, maybe they were just psyche allegorical dragons.

eabrace · « **Reply #21 on:** June 04, 2013, 02:43:41 PM »

I thought that was just a hideously mutated bat.

Mental Maden · « **Reply #22 on:** June 06, 2013, 04:28:52 PM »

I always feel like I missed an episode (but I didn't). The show does a pretty bad job of filling in the gaps between episodes in my opinion.

Kaos Arcanna · « **Reply #23 on:** June 11, 2013, 11:04:28 AM »

Last night's episode wasn't too bad. I enjoyed the Nolan/Tommy moments.

Other things of interest: The Votan arrived in 2013, and even though the Pale Wars didn't officially start until 2023 the Indogenes were already abducting humans in order to create Trojan Horse Assassins.

eabrace · « **Reply #24 on:** June 11, 2013, 03:06:17 PM »

Quote from: Kaos Arcanna on June 11, 2013, 11:04:28 AM

The Votan arrived in 2013, and even though the Pale Wars didn't officially start until 2023 the Indogenes were already abducting humans in order to create Trojan Horse Assassins.

I would like to state here, just for the record, that I am not an Indogene assassin.

FatherXmas · « **Reply #25 on:** June 12, 2013, 08:08:13 AM »

I was hoping that they could use the whole "man out of time" to bring the rest of us up to speed about the general history of the last 30 years. Sadly all we got is a Twilight joke and some Father/"Boyfriend" banter.

Kaos Arcanna · « **Reply #26 on:** June 12, 2013, 10:46:25 AM »

Quote from: eabrace on June 11, 2013, 03:06:17 PM

I would like to state here, just for the record, that I am not an Indogene assassin.

Of course an Indogene assassin WOULD say that.

eabrace · « **Reply #27 on:** June 12, 2013, 11:25:47 AM »

Quote from: Kaos Arcanna on June 12, 2013, 10:46:25 AM

Of course an Indogene assassin WOULD say that.

Note to self: Add Kaos Arcanna to the list.

Kaos Arcanna · « **Reply #28 on:** July 09, 2013, 09:17:27 PM »

So last night was the season finale.

For the most part I have enjoyed the show.

I think that an 11 month gap between season one and two is a bit of a bad idea though. That's a long time for people to find something else to watch.

FatherXmas · « **Reply #29 on:** July 09, 2013, 09:55:09 PM »

Oh yea but it's ~~SciFi~~ SyFy. They've always done this with their original series. At least this season wasn't broken into two parts with a 6-12 month gap like Eureka and Warehouse 13. Even their much praised BSG had irregular gaps and season start dates. Why should we be surprised that Defiance is any different.

But there also may be an additional reason. Folding Season 2 plot elements into the MMO.

Well they certainly left it as a clifthanger. Hate that.

Razy · « **Reply #30 on:** July 09, 2013, 10:49:45 PM »

Season finale not bad at all.
So...

Stahma Tarr killed Jenni.....

Brightfires · « **Reply #31 on:** July 10, 2013, 11:03:35 PM »

I'm just curious to see how Datak's going to worm his way out of that little... problem... he caused for himself. That could be pretty amusing, even without any witnesses to complicate things.

News:

Author Topic: Defiance (Read 6946 times)