Under The Dome

Chickens! Cows! And my other farm animal friends! Peanut EmandEm is back for another guest post, this time about Under the Dome. Take it away, Em!

I hate to admit this, but I broke my own cardinal rule when it comes to Under the Dome.  You know the one I’m talking about, “ALWAYS read the book BEFORE you see the TV show or movie based on the book”.  Honestly, I’ve been pretty good lately.  I finished The Hunger Games series before I saw the first movie and I finished The Leftovers just in time for its HBO premier on Sunday, but for some reason I always drop the ball when it comes to Stephen King.  It’s not that I don’t like his books, because I do, but I can count on one hand the number that I’ve read before seeing them produced.  I guess it stems from my childhood.  After seeing The Shining, how could you not devour every other Stephen King story made into a movie?  And to be totally honest, I wasn’t much of a reader as a kid.  So now you know where I’m coming from as I sit awaiting the start of the second season of Under the Dome.  Yes, yes. I’ve had a year. So, I hang my head as I type this…I still haven’t read the book.

My favorite part of season one was that the producers blew the mass majority of their special effects budget on that ridiculous cow.  At least I hope they did since they showed it EVERY episode.  As the dome is dropped over Chester’s Mill, families were separated, strangers are trapped homeless in a unknown community, a truck crashes into an invisible barrier killing the passengers and a cow is cleaved in twain:

Mooove over writer’s room, I got this.  Who needs plot enhancing dialogue?

No seriously, I was getting a bit teary for the loved ones who have lost and then bam; a computer generated cow is grotesquely sliced in half in all its bloody glory.  Then, as if that weren't enough, they showed it every week during the “last week on Under the Dome” sequence.  They were going to get their CG money’s worth, by God. 

      Hey, you can even buy the t-shirt!

Vindication!  It’s only the credits and already my self-worth is through the roof.  Stephen King wrote the premier episode of season two.  Although I haven’t read the book, at least I have seen an episode written by the author.  That’s got to count for something…right?

AP Edit: Totes.

Season 2 opens exactly where we left off, with Barbie about to be hanged from the gallows in the center of town.  Big Jim is urging Junior to pull the level which he finally refuses to do.  We’ll see how long this lasts.  Junior’s major storyline last year was his inner turmoil about whether or not he had to do what his father told him to.  Most often, he bent to his father’s whim.  I can only hope that this season we will see him finally stand up to Big Jim.

Cow.

Just as Barbie is about to be hanged, the dome begins emitting a high pitched sound and attracts all metallic objects near the proximity of the dome.  I actually like the idea of the dome disarming the people of Chester’s Mill.  Big Jim’s gun is whisked away first.  How will he ever control everyone now? 

Soon after, we learn from our newest character (Rebecca, the local high school science teacher), that the dome is pulsing “like a pregnant woman’s contractions”.  Wow, thanks for the visual, CBS.  That’s the best analogy we could come up with?

I’m pulsing like a large, city sized dome!

Unfortunately our dear friend -- and only cool headed law enforcement officer in Chester’s Mill -- is presumably killed while trying to free Barbie, who is trapped by his handcuffs to the magnetic dome.  I say presumably because after we see the truck (with Linda in its path) slam into the dome, no one bothers to check on her.  Maybe she jumped out of the way in the nick of time or maybe she slid under the truck Indiana Jones style.  OK, she probably didn’t, but we’ll never know because Big Jim, Junior, and Barbie all barely react to her death. Instead, they take off to continue their fight for control of Chester’s Mill.

                   Wow, the dome is starting to look like my collection of refrigerator magnets.                   \

           

Barbie and Julia are finally reunited.  At the end of the first season Julia learns that it was Barbie that killed her husband.  She must not have been very into that dude because she forgives Barbie the instant they see each other and we are treated to their first kiss of the season.  Even Barbie agrees with us, “I didn’t think it would be that easy.”  Ouch. ,Sorry Julia, you may be the monarch, but he sure has your number.

Will no one mourn my death?

 Ah, Under the Dome, welcome back. I have missed you in all of your cheesy glory!  I can only imagine what next week has in store for us Domers!  Thank you Stephen King for writing something that I can appreciate as it was meant to be…on the screen!

Oh Julia, you’re so easy.  Wait, what did you say?

Under the Dome airs Mondays at 10 p.m. on CBS.  Full episodes available for download at the Apple app store and on Google play. 

'Nother cow.

One Last Time (We Promise) With Breaking Bad

For the past six years, Walter White has reigned as the king of television on top of his empire of meth. As of last Sunday, the king is officially dead. Whether I mean that figuratively or narratively will be revealed later (I’ll warn you when the spoilers show up), but by any definition, America’s love affair with Breaking Bad has officially reached an end point with the series finale.

No, I'm not tearing up. There's just so much smoke in here suddenly.

But I come not to bury Walter White, but to praise him. And his wife Skyler, son Walt Jr., brother in law and DEA agent Hank, and the myriad of other Rosencrantzes and Guildensterns that made up the show that has been called the best television show ever. Despite a decidedly unglamorous setting (meth labs among unattractive downtrodden people in Albuquerque, New Mexico) and a cast of people who seemed, you know, real and not like caricatures, somehow this taut, tense little show found a way to worm itself into our collective bloodstreams and leave us just as addicted as the wasteabouts we were watching each week.

Through preternaturally solid and consistent writing, precision directing that would make German auto engineers jealous and award-winning acting, Breaking Bad let us see a story that started off utterly sympathetic and turned horrific. The basic premise, that sad-sack high school chemistry teacher Walter White learns that he has terminal cancer and so decides to cook meth with a former student to raise the easy money he needs to ensure his family’s survival after he’s dead, is well known, even for those who haven’t watched the show. What was fascinating though was how much the characters that we initially believed would be the victims, like wife Skyler, turned out to be just as morally ambiguous as the character we started off with. The cheap and easy classification of this show is that it is another in a long line of anti-heroes that we love despite knowing that we shouldn’t. What made Breaking Bad different, though, was that at his core, Walter was never an anti-hero; he was a villain, right from the start. We just didn’t notice it until we, like the rest of Walter’s family and associates, were so deeply enmeshed in the chaos that we couldn’t turn away from him.

In retrospect, we all probably should have seen the writing on the wall.

It’s a testament to how well Breaking Bad did things that the episode that sounds the most dull on paper, Season 3’s “Fly” which followed Walt and Jesse through one long, interminable night stuck in their underground meth lab and unable to leave because of a delicate chemical process all the while being tormented by a single fly that’s managed to find its way into the otherwise perfectly sealed lab, seem interesting and tense. Because no one just talked about the weather in this show and every line of dialogue could be interpreted multiple ways, we as the audience sat through 45 minutes of two men chasing a fly around a lab and couldn’t stop watching because we knew that what was really going on was that Walt was carrying a secret that he couldn’t tell Jessie – namely that the previous season, he was in a position to save Jessie’s girlfriend from dying and actively chose not to, mostly to keep Jessie loyal to him. The continual ratcheting up of tension and dread, which started with a terminal cancer diagnosis for a man who just turned 50 and who’s wife is seven months pregnant, meant that learning that your life is about to end ends up seeming like light-hearted fun by season five.

And so we watched Walter build up his empire, all under the nom de plume of “Heisenberg”, the Mr. Hyde to his Dr. Jekyll. Before long, it becomes clear that Walter has long since stopped making meth, and in the process becoming one of the most powerful drug lords in the southwest, just because he wants money for his family – he’s doing it because it’s the only way to get the respect and the fear that he’s long craved and never been able to claim as a low-paid, disrespected high school teacher. In the fifth season, Skyler, who has long since showed her true colors by helping Walt launder the massive piles of money that he’s acquired, brings Walter to a storage facility that she’s been forced to rent just to house the mound of money, well into the millions of dollars. “How much is enough?” she asks him. “How big does this pile have to be?”

Thus marking the first time in history a wife ever got angry with her husband for making too much money.

Walter agrees to retire, but not happily. We’re led to believe that Walter is corrupted by his experience, turning more ruthless as he amasses power, but in reality Walter was really just becoming what he always was inside. Walter White was the persona – Heisenberg was the reality. Meanwhile, just as he is out for good, his DEA agent brother-in-law finally makes the connection that the meth empire he’s been hunting for the last two years is being run by none other than his own family member, setting into motion a blitzkrieg of final episodes that bring us to the end of our story.

Spoiler-phobes, skip the next paragraph. I go back to spoiler-free mode after it.

With all this drama, then, it was odd that the series finale chose to go the way of safe television, an unconventional choice for a show that was so bound up in allowing the worst of all possible things happen to its characters. There was no ambiguous Sopranos-style ending here. As such, the episode felt like a victory lap, to use the phrase of my friend who watched it with me. The episode was almost fan-service, showing Walt outsmart everyone that he had to confront and even resorting to an almost Robert Rodriguez-level of ridiculousness involving a hidden machine gun in the trunk of a car. In the end, Walter’s family is ruined – his son hates him, his wife is broken an unemployable due to her association with him and has moved herself and her kids into a dingy basement apartment. The various drug dealers and kingpins are all dealt with, most of whom are killed outright. And in the end, we’re down to Walter and Jessie, the two who started this whole mess, staring each other down and the audience wondering which one is going to kill the other. Walt, knowing that his cancer has returned for good and that there is no survival for him now that his crimes have become public knowledge tries to manipulate Jessie one last time into killing him. Jessie, for once, is able to resist, telling Walt that if he wants to die so badly, he should kill himself and then tearing off into the night in a stolen car, weeping and broken but finally free. Walt however, unbeknownst to Jessie, has already been fatally wounded in the epic shootout that occurred moments before and makes his way over to the meth lab, appreciating the setup that produced the purest form of meth and was his signature contribution to the world. Walt collapses to the ground, dying as we always assumed he would – in his lab, just as the police finally arrive to arrest him for good, thus allowing the Scarface that we knew we shouldn’t like something like a final getaway. And a flight of angels sing thee to thy rest.

"I love you, meth bin. Never leave me."

And maybe it was because the final episode, while powerful and as satisfying as an ending to a beloved show can be, never really hit the high emotional stakes that I wanted to, but for me, the true finale was “Ozymandias”, the episode airing three weeks ago when Walt’s vast criminal empire finally comes truly tumbling down at the same time as several major characters are killed in the desert.  At the moment when Walter White finally allowed himself to rip off the mask and become the monster, the show utterly proved how fearless and rare it was. There have been “the best television show”s before and there will be “the best television show”s again. But here’s one that deserves its moniker, regardless of how monstrous or good the characters were. 

Every Time We Get a Car, This Place Turns into a Whorehouse

So, I didn't watch Mad Men when it aired Monday night, because I thought, you know what, I bet watching Don Draper flail about this week will be equal the normal amount hot messery we've come to know, love and expect. I found myself really groovin this episode. I liked the bad trip dream-like quality about it, and the relative unpredictability of the plot. It felt like an ordinary day-in-the-life, but there was the added element of Don being disoriented (and stoned) throughout, so the timeline was a little disjointed (which I dig) and there was a hint of unreliable narration when the story was being told through Don's POV.  Since he's got a shaky grip on reality, there were some scenes where you weren't sure if they were happening for real or in Don's head, and in others, you could see that what was happening maybe was really happening to the other people in the Mad Men world, but Don had a totally different way of experiencing it, and Don seemed unable to tell what was real and what was not. 

Trippy.

The episode's called "The Crash" and so I started it, sitting there wondering if THIS IS FINALLY THE EPISODE WHERE EVERYONE DIES IN A HORRIBLE, FIERY PLANE CRASH. But nay. I spent most of this episode waiting for Don to drop dead of a heart attack.

The episode beings with Ken Cosgrove shitting his pressed Brooks Brothers pants in a car. He's in said car -- an Imapla -- driving significantly above the posted speed limit, with gun-wielding drunk Chevy reps, who seem to either be in the mob or a frat. They point a pistol to his head and urge him to go faster. Because what doesn't go better with alcohol than a fucking pistol? Cosgrove's level of job satisfaction is sinking at an exponential rate.

In creepy news, Don's stalking Sylvia and chain-smoking outside of the Rosens'. Arnie's back, and Sylvia's back to making him his dinnah.  Draper sucks at stalking, so he legit leaves his cigarette butts out in the hall way, as if this is some nicotine-laden version of pissing to mark his territory.

Cosgrove walks into the meeting at work, limping on a cane and Don calls him a cripple. A. Cripple. It's unclear whether the crash we saw at the beginning of the episode caused him to limp, but that crash we saw looked very much like a head-on collision and I'm surprised that anyone came out of that with only a limp. Is there a worse crash happening later in the episode? Oh God, I hope so. So, while we wait for people to die in horrific ways, let's have a meeting and see where were stand with Chevy, huh, gents?

Chevy has tabled all of SCDP's ideas for the campaigns, so creative has to work the weekend to come up with something suitable. Ted's secretary comes in and calls him out of the meeting, and then the door opens again. It's Dawn! She says Dr. Rosen is on the phone for Don. Eek. Did he see all those cigarette butts in the hallway and put two and two together? No! It's Sylvia. Arnie SAW all those cigarette butts and he thinks she's smoking again. Don tells Sylvia he needs to see her and Sylvia tells him no. She's freaked out about last week and tells Don to leave her alone. Don begs to see her and she tells him she's afraid of him. Then Don throws his phone and destroys his in-office wet bar. Oh, no! Not the wet bar. Then he cries. And then he coughs in a congestive heart failurey way.  Then Dawn calls him on his extesion, asking if he's all right. "I'm fine," he sobs. "I'm just...just...crying because I'm so happy."

Mr. Draper, I've got the Cleveland Heart Clinic on Line 1.

Cue flashback to Don dying of pleurisy at a whore house back in the 30s. Teen Don is banished to the cellar of the whorehouse so he doesn't get the hookers sick. Wouldn't want any nasty chest colds complicating that clap, now would we?

Over at the Fat Betty Francis house, Sally Draper has boobs! Betty's blonde again! Betty hates Sally's skirt because 1) it's too short and 2) she figures Sally got it from Megan.

Betty: "Where did you get that?" 

Sally: "I earned it." 

Betty: "On what street corner?" 

Betty: 1; Sally, 0

Frank died. He did not in fact "beat this thing." 

Frank: 0; Pancreatic cancer, 1. Too soon?

Everyone in creative at SCDP is getting a shot in the ass today! Are they getting vaccinated against polio? Heavens, no. They're all getting caffeinated roids in the office, courtesy of the firm,  "to help the creative process" with Chevy. The doctor, who looks  like two Zach Galifianakises duct taped together, says it's "a proprietary blend." A proprietary blend. OF FUCKING LSD. They're getting this "proprietary blend" of caffeine, wood alcohol, acid and turpentine shot directly into their ass cheeks. 

Now available as a convenient suppository!

Doc asks Don if he has a heart condition. He says no. Ha! That's what you think, Draper! Who cares? I'm sure it's totally safe. 

Anyway, so they're all high. They're all high and they're all going to die. Don coughs some more. Again. Not congestive heart failure. Not at all.

Don spies Peggy comforting Ted, and he spies Ted's secretary, Moira. Moira reminds Don of someone he once knew and he asks her during the episode if he knows her from somewhere else, and Moira coyly responds that she doesn't. 

All this hacking reminds Don of his first visit to a medical professional: Aimee, a lady of the night who works in the brothel where he's living with his stepmother. The hooker diagnoses him with a chest cold and nurses him. You're left wondering at what point this is going to turn into sexy time, because Don is disoriented and keeps having flashbacks. His cough reminds him of being ill as a child, and being nursed through it, not by a mother or a stepmother, but by a PROSTITUTE. Aimee brings him soup and keeps him in her bedroom until he is well. Ahem. Yes, although gumpy and sickly as a lad, Dick Whitman grew to be a handsome and powerful man, with the help of a bowl of Campbell's and the love of a hooker named Aimee.

Paul Pfeiffer, is that you?

So, everyone in the office is stoned, except for Peggy (who later gets drunk) and Ginsberg. A wigged out Cosgrove tap dances for Don and does a spoken word piece about all of the work he has to do for Chevy and how he has to kowtow and be a yes-man for Chevy and for SCDP. In case you missed the metaphor, Cosgrove is tap-dancing for Chevy. Don tells Cosgrove that this is his job. Apparently, everyone who works for Chevy is a drunk idiot and they're taking Cosgrove out every night, exploring the world of gang bangin and liver failure. 

Don is totally disoriented. He comes into the creative workspace, free associates with his fellow smackheads, leaves, has a flashback of Aimee, and somehow he's missed an entire day. It's now Saturday and he has no idea what is going on. Peggy and some of the other employees are back from Frank's funeral and Don wants to talk soup. There is also randomly a hippie girl doing the I Ching in creative. Don wants Peggy to go into the archives and go into 1958 - 59 for soup. SOUP.

Don goes into his office and the random hippie girl is there, being all love childey. Rainbow Sunbeam stole a stethoscope from one of the doctor's offices upstairs (prolly Rosen's; he can't keep track of his shit) and listens to Don's heart. She says, "Oh, I think it's broken" and Don says, "You can hear that?" No, you silly rabbit. It's the stethoscope that's broken. 

Don calls home and gets Sally, surprised that she's there, apparently forgetting that he has the kids on the weekend. Megan tells Don she has to leave, but Don can't come home. Megan is leaving so she can see a play with her agent, and she leaves Sally to babysit so she can earn herself some boots.  Meanwhile over in creative, Ginsberg, Peggy and Stan playing drunk/stoned William Tell. Ginsberg stabs Stan in the arm. This is exactly what Don meant when he said, "Go look up soup."

Peggy drags Stan away to patch him up and then he starts hitting on her. She drags out the old "I have a boyfriend" plea and snogs Stan. MOAR in-office action for Peggy. FTW. Stan wants her to sex him, and becomes maudlin and relates the story of his cousin Ralph getting killed in Vietnam.

What? No pity sex for ole Stan?

Peggy says she's had hella sorrow in her life, but you can't dampen it with drugs and sex. 

Like hell you can't.

Stan compliments Peggy's ass and she leaves the room. Go look up soup, Peggy!

Don't creeping around outside the Rosens' instead of being home with his children, and Sylvia just has the radio playing, likely because she knows Don is out in the hallway, listening at the door and...being weird. 

So, it's now the middle of the night, and there's a strange black woman in the Drapers' apartment. Megan isn't back yet, and Don is still...somewhere...looking up old soup ads and obsessing about Sylvia. This woman says she's Sally's "Grandma Ida" and that she raised Don. She's lying. She didn't effing raise Don. The hookers raised Don.

"Grandma Ida" knows enough generic rich white people trivia to get Sally to trust her enough to let her stay, but she's conning Sally. Grandma Ida tells Sally that Don gave her the key and told her to come over. Yeah, in the middle of the night. We all know Don's losing it, but it wouldn't go quite that far, even if she did somehow know him in his Dick Whitman past. But, Sally is still very much a child and isn't mature enough to handle situations like, you know, breaking and entering. 

Don's down in the archives looking up soup ads, and he comes across and ad, featuring a woman who reminds him of Ted's secretary/Rainbow Sunbeam/Aimee. In the flashback, Dick's recovered from his illness, and Aimee stars hitting on the lad in a molesty way. So. Don got raped a bunch.

Hey, Teenage Dream. You got my heart racin' in your skin tight knickers. . 

Bobby wakes up and finds "Grandma Ida" trying to steal the television set. "Grandma Ida" scams Bobby into telling her where Don keeps his watches. Sally decides to call the police, and Grandma Ida catches her and takes the phone away from Sally. Grandma Ida takes the hint and skedaddles, and Sally gets up to (hopefully) lock the door. 

Don writes up a prospectus and calls Peggy and Ginsberg into his office. He's sweaty and passionately pitching his idea. Don reveals he actually has not been working on Chevy, but has been working on a way to get Sylvia to acknowledge his existence. He asks for their opinion on his campaign, and they tell him it's great. He runs out, presumably headed off to Sylvia. Also, Rainbow Moonstone or whatever her name is banging Stan in one of the offices, and Cutler is watching! Peggy gives up and goes home.

Back at the apartment, an incoherent, sweaty Don is practicing what he's going to say to Sylvia. He plans to stop into his apartment to get some smokes, and he finds way more than cigarettes waiting for him. Don finds Megan there, and Bobby, Sally and Genie are up. There are also two cops there. This would be bad enough, if it weren't for the fact that Betty and Henry are also in the apartment. The cock, he is blocked. Grandma Ida is some kind of klepto and she robbed a bunch of people in the building and Don has to go down to the police station to ID his stuff. Betty yells at him and Sally says she wants to go home.

Then Don passes out. 

He has another flashback to the whorehouse, where Aimee's having an argument with her pimp. The pimp tells her to get out, and she claims she's owed money. She says she "took that boy's cherry" and that the pimp owes her five dollars. That's all it was worth, Dick. Five. Dollars. Don's stepmother asks him if that is true and he denies it. Wicked Stepmother doesn't believe him and beats him with a wooden spoon.

It all makes sense now.

The next morning, Don runs into Sylvia in the elevator. He is stoic and doesn't talk to her, and thus begins the longest awkward elevator ride in the history of television. Sylvia seems as though she about to say something, but Don's attitude is like, "Whatever, bitch" and they don't speak. At FBFH, Sally wants to talk to Don. He reassures her that he didn't have a heart attack. Sally says "Grandma Ida" sounded like she knew a lot about Don, but, as Sally says, ""Then I realized I don't know anything about you." Don, sympathetic to another child having her trust and innocence violated by an adult, tells Sally it wasn't her fault. Don says he left the door open and that it was his fault.

Don't worry, children! This looks like a job for Captain Subtext!

Monday morning and zero work got done on Chevy. Don (who showered) enters Ted's office with Cutler (and if you haven't noticed Cutler is played by Harry Fucking Hamlin, Cutler is played by Harry Fucking Hamlin). Rainbow Sunshine Moonbeam was actually Wendy, Frank's daughter. It was Frank's daughter that Stan screwed. HAHAHAHAHA!!  Don promises to continue on Chevy on his function as creative director, and he says that's all he can do. Then he walks out of Ted's office.

Booyah.

Yes, children. That is what. After witnessing years of Don acting like a complete cocklord to his wife, his children, his ex-wife, his mistresses, his coworkers and his bosses, you keep rooting for the SOB. 

Don. 

Draper. 

For.

The.

Win.

Stay tuned for more office intrigue next Sunday. 

Who, me? Just biding my time, Daddy-o.

Syfy, My Time of Not Taking You Seriously Has Come to a Middle

NERDZ! 

I call your attention hither! 

We may or may not be a group of diverse individuals who set aside our differences for the common good.

It has finally arrived. The much-hyped, overly advertised, heavily plugged premiere of Defiance! What could be more anticipated, you ask? I have that answer. Joe Rogan is getting paid to do drugs in various countries and Syfy is filming it!! Yes, in addition to randomly throwing every sci-fi genre at nerds in Defiance like some sort of geek Jackson Pollock painting, the network that is also bringing you Deep South Paranormal  (not kidding) is also in direct competition for that coveted What Would Ryan Lochte Do demographic. This is a zenith for television. Nay. A zenith for humanity.

But how HOW can we get Joel McHale to mock MORE clips from our network?

But I digress. Until we can watch Joe Rogan do peyote in Peru (BECAUSE IT'S LEGAL THERE), we will have to content ourselves with the teevee event of April.

Thus it is. Defiance.

We all know this show was hatched in a board room and that's it's been created to sell action figures and video games, so I'm giving it a large amount of leeway. Suffice it to say, Defiance is the bastard child of Firefly, Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, with some steam punk thrown in for good measure. Because why the fuck not? 

Anyway, the offspring of this mash-up is living on a film set in Toronto. The production values are high and the look and feel of the show is very cinematic. Syfy is drunkenly throwing money at this production like a sailor at a strip club. As this is the pilot, we need two hours to meet and greet the characters, as well as stick around long enough to follow their exploits in their first adventure.

Our Mal Reynolds character is Joshua Nolan (Grant Bowler). We meet him as a boy, as his day at the park with Mum and Da is interrupted by a pesky alien vessel hovering overhead. 

And mom's always complaining about ants.

(Disclaimer: This shot is not in any way a reference to ET.)

These alien folks are known as the Votans and all you really need to know about them is that they suck. They fought humans in this epic war and then they finally called a truce and there was peace and stuff like that there. The Votans are actually a collective (yep) of several races all mashed together, and they live on Earth like some social experiment gone bad.

Thirty-three fun-filled years later, Joshua is attempting to flee to the tropical paradise that is FUCKING ANTARCTICA, apparently after having mistakenly used a married alien female for a penis cozy. Oopsie. There were some wars and stuff, so the planet was such a hot mess afterward that it had to be terraformed. Yes. They terraformed Earth. How. Meta.

Accompanying Mal is his adopted redheaded stepchild alieny teenagerish daughter, Anne of Grumbly Attitude. Actually, her name is Irisa (Stephanie Leonidas), and she's narrating the show via her journal. She is our Plucky Young Ingenue. She is Irathient. I'm uncertain what that entails, but she seems rather feral. Also, Josh murdered her parents. BTW.

The planet has gone to SHIT, but there's still Johnny Cash. Thank God Almighty, there is still Johnny Cash. There's also still GPS and satellite radio somehow. Apocalypse FTW. Since there is all sorts of space junk flying around in Earth's orbit, the planet gets jiggy with wrecked spaceships on a frequent basis. This is known as "Arkfall." Ship debris crashes over head, and Josh and Irisa investigate to see if there's anything salvageable. Josh takes out his sonic screwdriver and somehow activates Plot Point 1: the Blue Buckeyball of DOOM. Josh and Irisa take the Blue Buckeyball of DOOM but are interrupted by a steampunkalicious group of thugs, also known as Spirit Riders. 

Yep. I am wearing a top hat and goggles. That is happening.

The Spirit Riders attempt to kidnap Josh and Irisa, although they escape, but not before Irisa gets her bad self shot. They escape into the woods, where Josh has to fight off giant beetle-warthog-rat-spider thing. They are rescued by some nice humans and make their way into what was St. Louis -- Defiance. Earth is a mere shadow of its former self, but the Gateway to the West is still standing. Defiance is a rollicking frontier town, with eight alien races a-feudin'. We meet Lady Mayor Amanda Rosewater (seriously, that is her name), emo Castithan teen Alak and his parents, Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy, and our friendly local mine owner, Rafe McCawley (Graham Greene).

Millions of light years across the galaxy and still all these pesky poors. 

Lucius doesn't like Rafe and vice versa, but it sucks a bunch because Alak Malfoy is in love with Rafe's Pretty Daughter (j'accord).  Plot Point 2. There are also other Castithans in Defiance. Apparently, there are castes of Dirty Malfoys and Snooty Malfoys. The Dirty Malfoys  (band name? I think yes) approach Lucius and Narcissa and Narcissa is nice to them, and we learn from this exchange that Lucius is not at all shady. Like. Not at all. Josh and Irisa find themselves in the local Redi Care, tended to by a doctor from another alien race, Dr. Ywell. She's of the Indogene, and Indogenes look like Uncle Fester, except their skin turns into Quilted Northern when their emotions are running high.

A lot of this is just unabashedly ripped off from Firefly. They speak mostly English, but their language is peppered with some Chinese-Russian sounding hybrid, and cuss words are spoken in said creole.  Fuck you Thanks, Joss Whedon. Much like Mal, rough-around-the-edges-but-lovable Josh is a veteran of the epic war, and was a member of some elite division of Space Team Six called the Defiant Few. Defiance is a rough frontiery town, the type of which you would see in a predecessor of this genre. I'm sure there's a cantina around here somewhere. There is for sure a whorehouse! There's also a teen club where things get all West Side Story up in there between Alak Malfoy and Luke McCawley. 

What tired Romeo and Juliet storyline? Where?

Mayor Amanda (Julie Benz) is torn. Does she wants Josh or does she want Josh and Irisa to leave town?Or both? Josh is broke and needs to earn money. Since the show is called Defiance and he is in Defiance, it's safe to assume he'll be sticking around. Perhaps the mayor has some holes he can fill?

Audiences, put your hands together to welcome your sexual tension.

Anyhoosle. He meets the whorehouse proprietress, Kenya (Mia Kirshner), who tells him to get into cage fighting to earn some ready cash. Also, for those interested, Kenya's sister is Amanda. Yes, Josh wants to bang sisters. Which one will he choose? The younger, rebellious, free-spirited one, or the practical, hard-working, responsible older one? Oh, cliches. You and your unpredictable twists and turns.

Kenya's hero is Inara, and while she may be "inspired" by the Whedon character (wardrobe and all), in the first half hour or so, she's the most likeable and interesting character we meet. Josh is scrappy, so he fights a big blue muscley guy and predictably knocks him out. Then Josh takes his earnings and has a bunch of sex with Kenya. Because why the fuck not?

Meanwhile at the Ape People Ranch, apeshit gets real and Redneck Ape Guy sees a flash of light and finds Rafe's oldest son, Luke, who has gotten died. This starts folks a-feudin' because Younger Son tells Rafe that Luke was fighting with Alak Malfoy. Things quickly digress into Hatfields and McCoys realness. Josh alibis Alak, Irisa pulls out her shiv, people throw punches, Rafe's Pretty Daughter confesses that Alak was in her pants at the time of said death, and the Lawkeeper ends up also dead. 

Well, shit.

So. That's the set up for Hour Two. After all of this exposition, we get to the meat of the episode.

Josh volunteers to play Dog the Bounty Hunter to find Luke's killer. Josh reveals he's a "tracker" by trade (this means he can do CSI) and they lock up Irisa as collateral. The Malfoys are in some weird bathy sex cult and Lucius wants to kill Rafe's Pretty Daughter. Narcissa wants Kristy (her actual name) to marry Alak so they can get control of the mines. The mines! The mines!  BWAHAHAHAHA!

Sherlock Josh deduces they are looking for an Indogene with a bad leg. We know Amanda has one of those up her sleeve because earlier we saw her assistant, Ben, limping. Plot Point 3. Not only is he a great secretary, but Ben is also a serial killer. They give chase and Rafe shoots Ben and he collapses into an Indogene Heap. He dies a bunch, but not before he can warn of an impending attack. 

There is also an army of Evil Cylon Robot Orcs headed up Defiance way. They are called the Volge and they are attacking for an unspecified reason. Defiance prepares for the Battle of the Volge. Ben, ass that he was, destroyed the stasis net around the city, so they are vulnerable.

Josh plans to leave with the reward money and Irisa, but he decides to return and fight.  Remember the Blue Buckeyball of DOOM? Josh retrieves it from the forest and devises a plan for the Indogenes to use it to rig up a superweapon. The battle is a typical "hold the line" until reinforcements/superweapon/Gandalf the White arrives to save the day narrative. The Spirit Riders steam punk their way into Helm's Deep (avec Irisa) and lend their assistance. This battle is rescued by the Blue Buckeyball of DOOM, which in this case, only spells DOOM for the Volge. It goes off and knocks them all on their asses. Nasty buggers, those Volge. Defiance is saved! Awkward group cheering scene! Josh stays and becomes the new Lawman in these here parts.

In the train-car-turned-diner (see, the post-apocalyptic world still has hipster hang-outs), the former mayor, Evil Judi Dench, and her companion in DOOM, Random Steampunk Man, unmask that it was their pro-DOOM plot to send the Volge into Defiance. For whyses to be revealed in due course. Motivation likely along the lines of chaos, panic, anarchy and DOOM. 

DOOM! Because why the fuck not?

As pilots go, this was more or less average. I wasn't bored to death, but I wasn't blown away or overly engrossed. It's heavily influenced by other media of this genre, so, sad to say, I didn't see anything terribly unique or original. I am a little confused as to whether they are ripping people off or if these are les homages. Clearly, the show owes a huge debt to fallen comrade Firefly and I guess there's a lesson to be learned about where networks' priorities are when they decide to put their money and PR machine behind a show. Much like Earth's gravitational field, Defiance is littered with the corpses of what came before. It has elements taken from Firefly, and maybe it's an unfair comparison, but Defiance isn't as good. I feel it wants to be good, and considering that this is the network that brought us Mega Python vs. Gatoroid, that is a step in the right direction.

That said, the show has kinks to work out, but it has promise. It is more or less entertaining,  but it remains to be seen if it will become the huge, iconic cultural phenom that the rabid execs at Syfy are foaming at the mouth for it to be. It has its production values up to the level of the class of program it wants to compete in, so it very well could become the next Battlestar Galactica, albeit significantly less depressing. I gave the pilot a lot of wiggle room because it is a pilot, but this fledgling series really should only be going upwards, based off what I saw in the series launch. If it headed in the opposite direction, it would be a waste of potential. And money. Lots and lots and lots of money.

Positive points are lack of pretension and, much like its leading man, the show doesn't take itself too seriously. But has Syfy moved on from its days of man-eating shark movies featuring Joey Fatone? Defiance could become one of the few bright spots on a network continuously devolving into Under Fae. If not, there is always Haunted Collector.

P.S. Due to all the nerd titillating, I am really hoping for George Takei to show up at some point.

P.P.S. Oooh, myyy.

Defiance picks up the time slot normally occupied by Being Human (in hiatus until the premiere of Season 4 in 2014). It airs at 9 p.m. on Mondays on Syfy. The pilot is also on the Syfy web site, which was awesome for me because my cable box, much like Indogene Ben, is way dead.