Defiance....April 2013

The SyFy channel ran a half hour show last night showing how the series is made, the actors/characters, the sets, CGI, green screen etc. It looks pretty good. An ambitious project for the SyFy channel.

There were a few oddities. For one, we are told that St. Louis is "buried under hundreds of feet of earth". Yet the Arch is still standing and visible above ground as normal, with just some damage. How does this happen ?
There is a mix of unknown and familiar actors. Julie Benz and Mia Kirshner play sisters. Julie's role seems 'normal' within her overall career, as far as I could tell and Mia usually plays "sexual" roles, for lack of a better word, and she fulfills that role here too.

The initial premise as to how the Earth came to be in the condition that it is in 2046, remains to be critiqued after we see the first ep. We do see that massive terraforming went on, large rock formations/mountains around St. Louis, etc.

There are a variety of aliens and some of the actors told/showed how many hours it took to get into their makeup. Of course all the aliens are bilaterally symmetric, bipedal, two arms, legs, head in usual place.

Having a tie-in with a video game is irrelevant to me. I guess it will help to increase their revenue.

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I watched the first 14 minutes at that site. I think it will be a success. Has sort of a Firefly/Serenity/Mad Max/Terranova vibe to it. Not surprising given the premise. Some aliens speak perfect English and some speak their own language which was invented by the same guy that did the languages on Game of Thrones.

I was also thinking this seemed a bit ambitious not just for SyFy but even networks with $$. Remember, the high production costs of Tera Nova lead to Fox putting it on the chopping block. Maybe they will make some money on the video game. I will certainly check it out next Monday. Seems like it has everything it needs to be a good Sci-Fi series... assuming there are Sci-Fi elements besides a few alien races and a post apocalyptic future. Wow, Sci-Fi as a genre seems to be lacking a bit at times.

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How tall is the Gateway Arch? 630 feet, 63 stories, 192 meters, or 7560 inches tall.

Seems like it will be a lot like Firefly...which is not a bad thing.

But with the addition of aliens. Firefly was unique in not having any aliens on any of the worlds where it took place. That was Whedon's decision, I've never heard his reasoning but it was okay with most fans, I think. There were those "Raveners", can't think of the right name, but weren't they some sort of robotic things...? No, I had to look that up....

" In addition, the outlying areas of space ("the black") are inhabited by the Reavers, a cannibalistic group of nomadic humans that have become savage and animalistic.[9]"

This tells a lot about it that I never knew.
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The lack of a FTL drive is interesting. Almost all space-going S-F postulates FTL, warp-drive, hyper-space, etc. But they did the original colonization with 'generation ships' which implies that the great majority of the original colonists leaving Earth never lived to see their destinations. Also I always wondered about all those planets and moons. It makes sense that they were all in the same "solar" (parent star) system. Without FTL that would be the only way for the premise to make sense. Whedon really thought things out.

Reavers
The original theory within the series is that Reavers are men who traveled to the edge of the star system and were driven mad by the open vastness of space. This theory is discussed among most of the crew members of Serenity. In "Bushwhacked", Shepherd Book states that he believes that they are "just men" who have been removed from civilization far too long — men who could be helped. Both Jayne and Mal strongly disagree with the Shepherd's opinion.

The Reavers' true origin is revealed later in the movie Serenity. The crew of Serenity find evidence, in the form of an Alliance scientist's holographic message, that Reavers were originally humans from the planet Miranda. The Alliance government used Miranda as a testing ground for the chemical agent G-23 Paxilon Hydrochlorate, or simply "Pax" (Latin for "peace"). It was added to the planet's air processors in order to calm the population and weed out aggression. The agent worked, but too well: 99.9% of the population became so lethargic that they stopped working, talking and, eventually, eating and moving. They simply lay down and succumbed to death. The remaining 0.1% of the planet's 30 million people (approximately 30,000 total) had the opposite reaction to the Pax, becoming mindlessly violent and extremely aggressive. In fact, the scientist is killed by a Reaver while delivering the message.[9] The scientist noted typical Reaver behavior in the survivors before she herself became a victim of their attacks.

Following the events of Miranda, the Alliance sealed all records regarding the event and deemed the world unsuitable for colonization. When Reavers began attacking outer colonies, only a few officials within the Alliance knew the real cause. This changes, however, when the crew of Serenity arrange for what they have uncovered to be broadcast throughout the system.

Reavers were humans that were exposed to a chemical that killed most of the population on some planet and made the survivors into self mutilating savages that rape, torture, murder, and cannibalize for fun. There you go Berry has it.

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I see that Jesse Rath is in this . He's Meghan Rath's brother, she plays Sally on Being Human. He had a one episode appearance on that too.

Did everyone watch last night? Not too bad and kind of fun. I could criticize certain aspects of the show but I think overall it can be a fun weekly Sci-Fi adventure.

I had to DVR it, will watch tonight. Also missed Revolution because of the NBC special on bombing.

Craig and I watched it. Very fast paced. Something set me "off" on it...maybe I've just grown weary of all the "apocalyptic" stories. It's time for something better. I found it flawed just MHO. But that doesn't mean it can't get better it sure could. Will continue to watch.

It was okay if not earth shaking. But of course I have my usual questions: And there was a sort of "Hoedown Night at the Flying W Dude Ranch" vibe about it.

If the Earth was terraformed, presumably because of the alien's preferences, what did it accomplish ? They and the humans seem to be able to breathe the atmosphere as normal.

Within the S-F genre terraforming usually implies a desire to affect the environment/atmosphere to an extent as to allow a 'new species' to inhabit the planet which would otherwise be uninhabitable because of an incompatible atmosphere, soil not suitable for farming, etc. . All they seem to have done is create a bunch of rocky 'mountains' and that steep canyon near/around St Louis. Agriculture, what we can see of it, seems to be normal. Out in the 'Badlands' there doesn't seem to be much going on that would be alien-specific or be of any advantage to them, what do those crazy rock formations and 'plants' accomplish ?

So far, we don't know why the aliens ships were destroyed in orbit, leading to the "ark falls" that often impact the Earth, leading to the scavenging efforts by anyone who wants to benefit from selling the debris. We see that the ships carried numerous 'settlers' , many/most of whom died when the ships were destroyed in orbit. Yet many aliens did survive, examples from each of the 7 races, and reached Earth safely. How/why did that happen ?

Were the aliens that attacked St. Louis at the end of the episode the ones that destroyed the ships ? If so, that implies that that race arrived separately. They seemed to be cyborgs or at least not entirely organic. A bunch were wiped out by that 'energy weapon' but did any survive, somewhere ? I suspect some did and will be used in future episodes as an ongoing 'threat'. This could get tedious.

When their 'army' is seen crossing a large bridge the sign says "St. Louis, 125 miles" and the road sign is "US 40", not to be confused with Interstate 40. That would place them just west of Columbia, MO, crossing the Missouri River which would be right about at that point. So far, so good. But....US 40 and Interstate 70 are the same road at that point, I-70 was built on top of the old US 40 over most of its route. So why wouldn't the sign say I-70 also ? US 40 does diverge from I-70 just on the west side of St. Louis and goes through town on the same route as I-64, but 125 miles west it's still the same route as I-70.

Does Mia Kershner have any other girls "working" for her or is she the sole "working girl" in her quasi-brothel, a minor point, but this could get tedious... .

And finally, for the moment, whenever Julie gives her speeches to the assembled towns people as mayor she is standing in front of 'city hall' which says on the front, 'Darby Building 1932.'...........hmmm....I thought, that must be a real building in present day St. Louis which has survived and the producers are using it as a 'continuity feature' or for some other reason. But no, I can find no Darby Building listed in any of the numerous lists online of St Louis buildings new or historic, or any pictures of any that resemble that building although one church is a little similar.

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There was a 19th Century mayor of St Louis named Darby, why a building would be built in 1932 to honor him seems unlikely. So we are left with a possible 'inside geek joke' by the writers to link Mayor Amanda with Mayor Darby and only geeks like me would try to research it.

Are they going to have a "crime of the week" to solve ? It seems to be heading in that direction. The opening scenes made me wonder if the writers have been watching Game of Thrones and endurance competitions on Survivor. Similarities to both. Putting the rocks in the basket to increase pressure on the guy being tortured was a dead ringer for a Survivor competition, except the winners there get tribal council immunity or a food reward.

I think of the Castithans as being the equivalent of Roman nobility what with their bath attendants and all.

These are the guys that they blew up in the canyon last week:

Volge

A race of automatons, disliked by all of the other Votan races, and the closest thing to a straightforward "villain" race. They stand over eight feet tall, are covered in dense armor, and possess integrated internal weapons. They come from a different planet in the Votanis system, Omec, and during the evacuation were intended to be left behind by the other races. No one knows who smuggled the Volge onto the Arks, or why, and their reappearance during the Pale Wars was a surprise to the other Votans. After the Pale Wars ended they retreated to underground caverns, and continue to be hostile to humans and other Votans alike.[7


This site is invaluable to keep things straight:

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How/why Old St. Louis survived underground as it did is a little suspicious, they had a brief explanation, but I guess there are "holes in the roof" to let light in and birds. Also, incipient nuclear bombs in the plot lines seem to be all the rage this season, Revolution has it too...


This is one of the guys that Nolan fought in the ring last week:

In addition to the alien races, another race present in the series are the Biomen (or Bio-Marines). During the Pale Wars, in an effort to match the Votans' superior technology, Earth's militaries successfully developed fully synthetic, sentient life-forms which could be mass-produced as shock troops in the war. Designed to be stronger and tougher than humans, the Bio-Marines were treated as expendable, because they were considered to possess no human rights. Biomen are larger and better muscled than normal humans, with bulging overdeveloped neck muscles. They come in a variety of skin colors, both natural and unnatural (i.e. blue) and have vividly colored eyes. Biomen can be individually identified by the three inch tall serial numbers which have been branded across the width of their chests, with each production run of Biomen was given its own "batch name" based on the first name of a United States President, i.e. "Pierce" or "Ulysses-537634". Biomen have an off button somewhere on their bodies, with the location dependent on their batch. Biomen were designed to be naturally aggressive for the wars, and now that the wars are over they have been rendered obsolete. The Biomen have difficulty integrating into peacetime and are ostracized by baseline humans and Votans alike.