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

[pauldormer.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I thought Defiance was fun, and was reminded of Firefly. You could see all the Western genre clichés being wheeled into place. Will certainly watch again next week.

In one of the ad breaks on Syfy, they had a trailer for Warehouse 13 so I'll wait for it to turn up on that rather than look at your spoiler.

[i_kender]

Agree on Defiance - I actually enjoyed it much more I thought it would, but it could definitely do with some stronger characterisation. I did enjoy some of the second-tier characters though, like the Doctor and the Deputy.

Let's hope it picks up some, rather than flail and fail!

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

The deputy is a good example of the problem - he has no real characterisation at present, he's "young black deputy guy" and that's about it.

Nice to see that Darla / Rita Morgan has reincarnated again!

[i_kender]

I was very amused by io9's "first impressions" review... hang on...

Here: http://io9.com/defiance-is-not-as-good-as-syfy-hoped-it-would-be-yet-473355032

Just highlights for me how one-dimensional the characters are so far!

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

It was quite a lot more basic than I expected it to be, thought it had a smidge of Deadwood mixed in along with the Firefly and Alien Nation. The frontier town, the tart with a heart, the warring factions. Terribly terribly derivative of many things.

Little shocked to learn it cost them so much, mostly on the SFX. Because I was watching it wondering who on earth did their effects because I thought they were just awful. Really really bad. (Though some were nice. It was weird having a smattering of good effects shots, lumped in with the dross.)

Also a little concerned that it's launched alongside an MMO video game, because a lot of the effects looked like they were lifted from a video game.

Hmm. I'm talking a lot about the effects, possibly because there isn't much to say about the characters. But hopefully that will improve with a few more episodes.

[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.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

I thought it had a touch of Eureka about it myself.

What did start to annoy was his accent. His US one is pretty poor, which explains why he's been the generic guest Aussie in everything else he's done. That really ought to be retconned away, or spend some of that $100m budget on a decent accent coach.

[pauldormer.livejournal.com]

His accent didn't annoy me, but it amuses me the number of Aussie actors turning up in stuff on US TV now.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

I suspect that now I live here I'm more sensitive to what are rather like the 'cor blimey gov, stone the crows' style of accents that people in the UK get annoyed at Americans for doing.

[heliograph.livejournal.com]

"His US one is pretty poor"

But his FUTURE US one is GREAT!

[pauldormer.livejournal.com]

I recall there is a real medical condition called something like Foreign Accent syndrome, where a person wakes up one morning and starts talking with a foreign accent. Maybe he can have that.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

That explains everything - Spike, you have a medical condition!

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Works for me.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

It isn't HUGELY spoilery, though there's one thing you would probably prefer to find out watching the show.

[pauldormer.livejournal.com]

Incidentally, I presume you noticed that Stahma Tarr, the white haired alien woman in Defiance, is H.G. Wells.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I thought she looked familiar - should have spotted her.