Defiance Pilot Part 1 2
This series begins with only the merest hint of explanation as to why a slightly futuristic Earth has been catastrophically altered and is furthermore inhabited by a total of eight races (including humans) as well as lots of mutant and alien, animal species. Right from the start, the focus seems to be more on the characters, specifically those inhabiting a ruin that was once St. Lois now named "Defiance"... enter Josh Nolan and Irisa. he is a tough, yet easygoing veteran of the recent human/alien wars and a talented tracker while she is an adept, female warrior from the Irathient race as well as Nolan's adopted daughter; they are two of the show's central characters and their arrival in Defiance is a lot like a couple of Old-West gunfighters taking on a troubled, frontier town.
Let me just say that although the sets, make-up, costumes and CGI (the final battle was nothing short of amazing) are all worthy of a feature-length film; what really stands out on this series for me are the actors (there's some great chemistry here). Kudos to the casting director because I don't think I've ever seen a show where I liked every single actor before, in fact it's cast to almost perfection and I say kudos to the writers for not attempting to go for the emotional scenes on the premier, as I've seen shows do so many times in the past, after all we've only just met these characters and we can't have that level of investment so early. It's also readily apparent that some serious attention to detail went into the making of Defiance even without watching all the making of docs Syfy has on their site: each alien race has a unique appearance (no generic "filler" aliens like Star Trek used to do) with distinct social characteristics not to mention they actually created two complete languages just for this show, the political atmosphere at the micro level is relatively complex providing an excellent background for the story to unfold, lots of wonderfully imaginative weapons (like the game ) and the earth-based sets and brief space scenes are nothing short of visually stunning. Personally, I could live without the love scenes (only two BTW) but I realize that the producers are trying to appeal to as large an audience as possible and I suppose some peeps can't equate mature drama without a little voyeurism thrown in.
I'm already seeing comparisons being made with some past, monolithic sci-fi series and I'm not gonna continue that trend because I truly think Defiance is a well-crafted production in its own right with a high level of originality, a very engaging beginning and almost limitless potential as far as being a character-driven, epic saga and If the rest of the season lives up to the pilot then possibly a few years down the road it could be the benchmark against which excellent television is judged. :o)
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