TV

[ffutures]

Warehouse 13 is back, and more or less resolves the big cliffhanger from the end of the last episode. It does so reasonably fairly - it's a fix, but not a total one. BIG spoilers follow!

The biggy is that Lena is apparently going to stay dead, unless someone else goes the metronome route, which is a shame because she was one of my favourite characters. The big plague problem is resolved, though opening up an exciting new can of worms which we don't know much about yet. James Marsters guest-stars as an antiquarian, and I suspect is going to become a recurring character, along with his nemesis. Deliberately keeping this vague since it really would spoil your fun if I said more.

On rozk's recommendation I also took a look at Defiance which I can best describe as Alien Nation crossed with Firefly - it's set after an abortive alien "terraforming" and colonisation attempt has devastated the Earth, and humans and a bunch of aliens of various races are trying to maintain some sort of vestige of civilisation in St. Louis, now renamed Defiance. They're basically doing it as a western, the setup for the first feature-length episode has the hero (a Man With No Name type with an adopted alien daughter) arriving in town just as a big crisis develops, screwing the local brothel keeper while apparently being attracted to the mayor (Julie Benz, aka Darla and Rita Morgan) too, and eventually providing part of the solution to the problem and leading the climactic fight against the banditos somewhat less cooperative aliens. The plot is pretty basic but more fun than I expected it to be, I could wish for a few more strong characters - Firefly's great strength was the crew's interaction - but they might develop as the series continues. For now I'll probably continue to watch, see how it goes.

Comments

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

Apparently the reviews of the video game Defiance agree that it is very very generic too.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Yes, I saw an ad for the video game on the side of a bus on my way in to work this morning. Not very informative at all.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

Apparently it's mostly based around the standard MMORPG cliches of 'go there and kill 10 monsters' 'return with 5 rat tails' 'rescue 4 villagers'. Very little cross-over with the tv show, other than the two leads appear to give out some missions.

I'm no fan of MMORPGs anyway, but there's nothing about this that makes me think it is going to survive in a very crowded marketplace for more than a few months.

And depending how much money Syfy have invested in the game, if it flops (as I think it inevitably will) it might bring down the tv show with it.