Defiance Season 1

DVD Wholesale Quick Overview:

My favorite scene in the first episode is the one in which the lead character, Nolan, and his non-human daughter Irisa are driving along in a wasteland barely recognizable as a future earth. (The earth has been damaged during a prolonged war with aliens, and much of the flora and fauna are no longer recognizable.)

Nolan starts out apologizing about some nonsense with a married woman he didn’t know was married… presumably things were hot and heavy with the woman, her husband showed up, and they had to hit the road with little time to pack. His daughter isn’t giving him the time of day. He apologizes, promises never to mess ’round with women again, then turns on the equivalent of the future ipod, and puts on the Johnny Cash song, “Jackson,” a wonderful, timeless ballad about something men and women have been hassling over for generations. (The song is a duet between Cash and June Carter.)

Nolan starts singing along. Irisa gives him a sidelong glance, starts softening a little, and joins in singing on the second verse. By the end of that verse, enough is forgiven, and they’re connected with each other again. We see the love in their relationship, that gets them through things. In about a minute and a half of the first episode, their relationship is laid bare.

All this, without any wasted dialogue or exposition, expressed through glances, a few awkward words, and a song. When I saw this scene within a scene, I knew I’d love the series.

Now, having just finished watching the first season… it was excellent, by and large. The relationships are interesting, particularly Nolan’s and his Irisa’s.

Some people dislike Defiance, and have been openly critical about it. One criticism is that it resembles Serenity. There is a surface resemblance, but for those who miss Serenity, that’s not actually bad. And it’s only evident really in the first season.

One newspaper reviewer said the show was incomprehensible. He must have been in a severely altered state when watching it, because I don’t think anyone intelligent could watch it without finding it clear and understandable. I suspect he just doesn’t like science fiction and can’t be bothered to try to get his head around its concepts. No pleasin’ reviewers like that.

The partially terraformed earth, built and growing on the ruins of our world, is beautifully realized.

There were a couple of things I didn’t like, in the first season. One was the relationship between the human teenager and her alien fiance. It was okay but dragged a bit, and lacked emotional tension, maybe because the girl was written as nicey-nice, endlessly adaptable and forgiving. (Irisa is a far more believable teenager.)

Another thing I didn’t care for was the relationship between the mayor’s sister, a prostitute, and an alien woman, which moved very quickly from the alien asking her for some sex tips, to seemingly gratuitious excuses to show the two beautiful women in bed. Not having sex, but suggesting it. I have nothing against lesbian relationships, but this one did felt gratuitous and contrived, thrown in to titillate male viewers who swing that way. I’m not objecting to their relationship being lesbian, but I don’t like the insertion of sexually provocative scenes that have little to do with the story arc or main characters. I also didn’t care for the way their relationship ended, which again stretched credibility. One character meets her end in a way the audience would have seen coming long before; she was portrayed as intelligent, so it’s hard to see how she couldn’t have seen it coming.

But these are minor gripes. All in all the show is fun, creative and wonderfully imaginative.

– Nils

I love this show. Too bad it is only 3 seasons. Wish it could have been longer, at least 5 seasons. Chupping SYFY! It’s definitely Bullshtako!
I read that it was too expensive to keep the series going. It does remind me a bit of Firefly and I also loved that one.
If our planet had aliens and we Co existed with them this is how I would imagine it would be. The characters, even the bad and nasty ones , you can learn to like because of their experiences. The way every one is classified by race is so believable and distinct that you will understand why each one is so different. This was the only show I really loved from this network. Oh Rayetso!!!! Lol

– sierra8017

Although a lot about this show is utterly ridiculous there are some excellent individual performances and some powerful/funny moments that make it worthwhile. The best characters are Day Tak Tar (probably spelling it wrong), a sort of mob boss looking for respectability and his wife, the principal brains behind the operation. The actors that portray these two characters are unbelievably good, and any scene involving the female character and her race’s alien bathing ritual is certainly worth a watch. Another character worth watching is the alien adopted daughter of the main character, a human bounty hunter turned law keeper dude for the town of Defiance.

Aside from the individual performances, one thing the show should get credit for is in the effort made to develop alien languages and culture. Some of this is really, really good. I watched Defiance as an Amazon recommendation after watching Falling Skies, which I think is superb. This is really a very different show from that despite a quite similar pretext…not as good, but still worth watching.

-John D. Blakey MD

DVD Wholesale Main Features:

Actors: Grant Bowler, Julie Benz
Format: Box set, Color, NTSC, Widescreen
Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
Subtitles for the Hearing Impaired: English
Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only.)
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Number of discs: 3
Studio: Universal Studios
DVD Release Date: October 15, 2013
Run Time: 559 minutes