Defiance: Alien DJ, Great Music, Star Wars Bar on Earth

I caught the first season of Defiance over the past few nights.  The new SyFy post-apocalyptic drama joins The Walking Dead, Falling Skies, and more in this now flourishing television genre.   But Defiance has a few special facets going for it:

• The music is just fantastic, starting with the Johnny Cash - June Carter "We Got Married in a Fever" (aka "Jackson") in the first episode to Raya Yarbrough's outstanding cover of Cindi Lauper's "Time after Time" near the end - and even a fine cover by Yarbrough of The Five Stairsteps' "Ooh Child" somewhere in the middle.   Bear McCreary, of Battlestar Galactica fame, has done his customarily brilliant job with the music throughout.
• Speaking of BSG, there's a lot of its flavor and feel in Defiance, which I take as a good thing.
• There's even a kid in a radio station in Defiance - making a pair with the DJ in Under the Dome - but in Defiance the kid is an alien.   Anything that harkens to Alan Freed, Murray the K, and Wolfman Jack is a plus in my book.

But speaking of aliens, there's a tad too many of them - seven different alien species, that is, which came to Earth as part of the Votan collective.   I'd be happy with just the three major brands, Irathient, Castithan, and Imogen.   The additional species, including Earth mutants which add to the seven, give Defiance the ambience of a Star Wars bar scene, and an everything-but-the-kitchen sink effect, which has the unintentional consequence of giving Defiance a slight touch of parody.

The sex, though, is pretty good - between Castithan Datak Tarr and his wife, and Irathient Irisa and Tommy, her human lover.   Thanks to our childish, unconstitutional FCC, we see no real skin - and the Castithan custom of bathing privately in bathing suits is inconsistent with their otherwise hedonistic culture.   But expecting our television networks to stand up to the FCC is a hopeless case, even if the FCC has never tried to exercise power over cable television.

The plot works well, with a good mix of unexpected heroes and villains, and characters you can care about.  I'm looking forward to season 2.

#SFWApro

The Sarah Connor Chronicles: 3

Episode 3 of The Sarah Connor Chronicles was excellent, and brought back most of the exciting complexity of the pilot.

First, to bring these reviews up to speed - because my intro review was non-spoiler - our trio of heroes used a time machine in the bank to travel to our present. Which opens up all sort of possibilities.

And the trio is Sarah, John, and beautiful Cameron Phillips (yes, homage to James), a new terminator model played fetchingly and cold-bloodedly, sweetly as in innocent and angel of death, as needed, by Summer Glau. Cameron is a fine addition to the Terminator crew, and even brings some continuing lines of humor to the story, as Sarah reminds Cameron in just about every episode to keep her clothes on when at home. (Sarah doesn't John want to get too attracted and who knows what else to Cameron. I say - go for it, John.)

But don't let the humor fool you. Episode 3 and The Sarah Connor Chronicles in general are deadly serious, and grapple with profound moral dilemmas much like Battlestar Galactica - which, come to think of it, bears a kinship to the Terminator universe, if only because of the flesh-and-blood and "toaster" model interplay that characterizes both series, in different ways. (And Bear McCreary also does the superb music for both series.)

The moral issue in tonight's Episode 3 of The Sarah Connor Chronicles is as wrenching as it gets: should Sarah kill a guy who is working on a life-like chess program, which could well be the basis of the killing machines. Of course, one of the conceits of all the Terminator movies is that, however much we humans and good Terminators try to prevent Skynet from arising, something always slips through someone's fingers in the past or present, and Skynet happens anyway. Still, it's fun to play this game, and when you add into the mix that stopping Skynet will likely erase Cameron (Phillips not James) from existence, and we wouldn't really want that - she's much more lovable than Arnold - we get a nice, complex story. (By the way, is it only me, or do you feel like you might be using something connected to Skynet every time you make a call or IM on Skype?)

And there are other dangerous things brewing in this series - including a really bad Terminator (maybe the bad Terminator from T2) who is trying to get some meat on him, and sort of reminds me a little of Darth Vader, another good movie resonance.

The Sarah Connor Chronicles is touching a lot of good bases, juggling a lot of flaming pins, and I'm very much looking forward to more.

See also: The Sarah Connor Chronicles 1 and 2 ... 4: A Robot Primer ... 5 ... 6 ... 7 ... 8-9: Terminate with Puzzles, Surprises, and Soul

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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

more about The Plot to Save Socrates...





Read the first chapter of The Plot to Save Socrates .... FREE!

Galactica Dylan

Battlestar Galactica this season was a sandwich in which the bread was spectacular but the meat was, well, chicken liver. 

The opening sequence of episodes in the Fall were among the best of anything I've ever seen on television. Picking up perfectly from the stunning events at the end of the second season, the first shows this past Fall put BSG easily in the company of the best of Star Trek. The last few minutes of the season finale on Sunday were similarly superb. We'll be talking all summer about how those four people - four! - on Galactica could really be Cylons, and who the fifth still unidentified Cylon really is. 

And the Dylan song was prime. Viewers have been speculating what "All Along the Watchtower" from the 1960s says about the timeframe we are now seeing on Galactica. Of course, there have been so many covers of that song, from Hendrix, U2, Neil Young, et al - and so many more likely to come (maybe some inspired by its role, now, in Battlestar Galactica) - that there's no reason to assume that the BSG rendition came from 1968. 

And something to keep in mind: ships travel faster than speed of light in Galactica's universe. So there's really no telling how far into the future Galactica's story is taking place, based on the song. And when you add in the possibility of time travel - which, admittedly, we haven't seen on Galactica, but hey, this is science fiction - then Battlestar Galactica could still be taking place in the distant past, even with the Dylan song heard by the Cylons. I actually doubt that time travel will be the way this will be resolved, but even just thinking about this is precisely what made this part of BSG great television. 

As for the rest - well, let's not dwell on it overly. After the opening arc of episodes, BSG gave us show after show which didn't really move the central story forward, a few good personal interactions - but not the stuff of soaring television. Fortunately, that's all in the past now. The finale did what it was supposed to do, and I eagerly await the resumption of the story in 2008. 

 
20-minute podcast with further analysis, and some choice musical samples

Bear McCreary's explanation of the Dylan song in BSG he did the musical arrangement for the song on BSG Battlestar Galactica - The Bob Dylan Connection Jon Lachonis, BuddyTV How Star Trek Liberated Television

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 The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly
"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News
"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book