2023/04/15

It has been 10 years already since Defiance first aired on April 15^th, 2013 on the Syfy channel. Created by Rockne S. O'Bannon, Kevin Murphy & Michael Taylor. Of course, we know Rockne S. O'Bannon from Farscape and SeaQuest DSV, which he also created. When it was announced in 2012 or something, I have to say I was really excited! I’ve talked about this more often, between 2011-2015 there wasn’t much SCI-FI on TV, there was some, but not set in space and although from the beginning it was clear Defiance was set on future Earth, I still was excited and of course hoped that there occasionally would be scenes set in space. Defiance was cancelled after 3 seasons on October 16^th, 2015. Mostly due to financial reasons because the show was very expensive to produce. It is a shame it got cancelled because it was a good show, but it was extra painful because at the end of season 3 it was sure suggested that the next season would be set in space. At that time, I also read an interview of someone connected to Defiance, who suggested that the 4^th season would have been set in space.

You can perhaps describe Defiance best as a western set in the future with different alien cultures. It had a Sheriff’s office, a pub, the doctor’s office. No character on this show is a typical hero like you see in most shows, they all have their own stories, their own secrets, more thinking about themselves than about others. These characters are not black or white but grey, which is way more interesting of course. You want to see characters who have a dark side, who make you guess what they’re gonna do. Characters like Londo in Babylon 5 or Garak on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

Funny thing is, or funny, Defiance, which is of the air for 8 years now when this is published, from the moment when Defiance was cancelled there hasn’t been a show which has had better ratings on Syfy! Only Childhood’s End, miniseries, has a better rating than Defiance, all other shows which came after it, have lower ratings! So yeah, Dark Matter, Killjoys, Resident Alien, The Expanse, Helix, Haven, Continuum, all these shows and more, didn’t had the numbers Defiance had. It is mindboggling if you think about it, so Syfy cancelled their most successful show they had in the last decade!

Perhaps Defiance wasn’t perfect, but it was a good, decent show, capable actors, good stories on a whole, the CGI was okay, not great but still way better than the CGI on Sanctuary or the V reboot of 2009. It was a decent show that deserved at least another season although the current series finale is one you can live with as a viewer I guess.

Syfy channel is one of the few networks who still releases their TV shows on Blu-ray. I don’t know for sure if I should give Syfy the credit or perhaps this is differently organized but what I wanna say, shows that air on the Syfy channel still get released on Blu-ray while this isn’t the case for most other networks nowadays. This is also the case for Defiance, all 3 seasons have been released on Blu-ray in a number of countries or continents like North America, UK, France. I always recommend it to watch it on the best available quality, that is still Blu-ray.

Final Word:

So, although Defiance is not set in space it is still a good piece of SCI-FI and in that time period, as I said, there wasn’t much SCI-FI on TV, you cannot compare it with the present day because today there is almost everyday something on TV with SCI-FI elements. Those 4 years between 2011-2015 was a real SCI-FI drought which we never want to experience ever again!