Defiance

Defiance is not just a smart, well-crafted TV show with a good cast and an adventurous flavor, it's also indisputably science fiction, which is a relief.

There's a lot of genre-bending in this one but some real entertainment value, dramatic potential and, hell, if it can be half of what Battlestar Galactica was, that's a winning combination.

Much of the casting is disappointingly flat, and the character development as shallow as in any video game.... Still, ambition counts for a lot in this expansive genre, and Defiance gets better with each episode.

The pilot is so busy establishing its new world, performances are afterthought generic. But Defiance gets more distinctive, and dramatic, through its next two hour episodes.

Defiance wants to be that crossover science-fiction show that appeals both to true believers and general audiences. If "Terra Nova," which aimed for that same ground, didn't succeed, I can't see "Defiance" doing it either.

Moments in the first episode suggest Defiance could be filled with the kind of minutiae "Star Trek" and "Star Wars" fans love. But its plot is so thin it could float away.

Defiance the TV show may not break new ground in its two-hour premiere Monday, but it does stand on its own as a watchable sci-fi series, with a Wild West vibe mixed with a bit of "Farscape"-meets-"West Side Story.

The show’s pacing, particularly in the first hour, could trigger a nap.

The ripping good special effects of Syfy’s Defiance harken to Fox’s recently failed and likewise futuristic Terra Nova, which also popped the eyes. In each case, the bigger your DVD screen, the better. Another shared trait: the scripts and story lines tend to be cliche-heavy and sense-dulling predictable.

Defiance is less gritty than Syfy's best series, "Battlestar Galactica," and the characters aren't as well drawn as on the superior "Farscape." "Defiance" lands at a slightly higher end of the murky middle ground of quality.

Not only is the production harmed by its overloaded pilot and just fleeting moments of originality, its visual effects and alien makeup design are wildly inconsistent. Despite all this, Defiance grew on me the more I watched.

The visionary environments are without blemish, and the sound design is on the level of some of Hollywood's heavy-hitters. Yet the stodgy inaction between each explosive set piece is so often bereft of substance that to endure Defiance is to lamentably scour its orbit for any exiguous points of engrossment.

There are only fleeting moments when you feel you're seeing something brand new in Defiance, but in its imitative way, it's fun to watch, thanks to some competent CGI effects and decent performances.

Possibly as a result of the hybrid project’s longer-than-usual development process, the show’s fictional world, in which humans struggle to coexist with seven alien races, is satisfyingly coherent and the stories are relatively crisp and well shaped. What Defiance lacks, though, is any shred of originality, or any of the conceptual audacity that could keep you involved in “Battlestar Galactica” or “Stargate Universe” despite their ticky-tackiness.

Defiance isn’t any worse than some of the so-so international imports Syfy has picked up to add original spice to its lineup, but the ingenuity that went into the process of conceiving the game and show together--as well as the nifty look, visual effects and makeup--simply aren’t matched by similar effort regarding story and plot.