Suvudu Universe

The series premiere of SyFy's latest original series Defiance was on last night. It got a lot of hype for a SyFy series. I saw commercials for it on stations that had nothing to do with Syfy which doesn't happen very often, especially for basic cable based shows.

It has an interesting premise, Earth was attacked by aliens, there was a war, it ended, and now people are trying to make a living in the new world. And o ya, Antarctica is full of beaches apparently. It was full of CG based action sequences which isn't so cool because SyFy CG isn't the greatest, but kudos for trying and not backing down from the violence. It was a two-hour premiere which reminds me of how shows used to be.

There weren't really any actors I recognized in the show, which isn't surprising for a SyFy show, they can't all be like Alphas and pull in David Straithairn. Julie Benz plays the mayor of Defiance, which used to be Saint Louis. I am a Whedonite (trust me there will be many posts about this later) so I know who she is, but I'm not sure if others will, but I'm sure there are many Whedonites who watch SyFy. The only other actor, or in this case actress, is Mia Kirshner who is from many raunchy Hollywood sex scenes. She plays the owner/madame of a bordello, and she has a sex scene, but it's barely PG-13. It has Graham Greene but I'm not sure how long his character is going to be in the series. Other than those, I didn't recognize a single soul, but that doesn't mean the show can't be good. The acting in last night's show was not disappointing.

Overall, I liked the show. It has an interesting premise, the end set up a plot line that could work. It is an action based show which I love mindless violence, but the violence isn't mindless. The effects are bad but that doesn't surprise me so I'm not going to hold it against the show. It doesn't have Terra Nova's budget. It kept me interested but I was not super excited about any particular aspect, so I will keep watching, but I'm not sure for how long