Why Defiance Sucks

There’s a new show on the Sci-Fi Channel called Defiance. Yawn. Sorry. As I was saying, there’s a new show on the Sci-Fi Channel called Defiance. It sounded like an interesting premise when the ads first appeared for it, but it’s not. It’s missing the one thing that really matters: a story. In fact, this is the real problem with most science fiction shows these days.

There are many ways you can put together a television series. And often, the approach you pick will depend on your genre. Doctor shows are soap operas, and the degree of outlandishness will very according to how dramatic the show wants to be. Cop shows are episodic mysteries. Lawyer shows straddle the line between soaps and episodic mysteries. Science fiction tends to be episodic or they involve the telling of a particular story arc.

The story arc shows are usually remembered as the best, though sometimes episodic shows can break through. Story arc shows are things like Babylon 5, Lost, Heroes, Carnivale and (eventually) The X-Files. Game of Thrones is like this too. These are shows where the writer has a particular story they are telling, and the episodes typically advance the story to some degree each week. What makes these types of shows so strong is that the story arc gives the show a purpose and a focus and keeps people tuned in to see what happens next. Meanwhile the episode format allows the writers to explore a great many ideas while telling the bigger story. That’s a great combo.

Episodic shows are different. Within the episodic show category, you have two types. You have the morality-tale shows like Star Trek and The Twilight Zone and you have soaps. The morality-tale shows can be really good as they offer the best platform to develop a variety of science fiction and philosophical ideas. Basically, each week you can reach for some new idea and explore it. That can make for excellent viewing.

Then you have the soaps. Yeah. Well. . . at least they’re easy to write.

This is the problem with Defiance. It’s a soap and it follows a formula that promises it will be nothing you haven’t seen a million times. The setup begins, as always, with “the outsider” who arrives in “insert strange setting.” He is the supposed fish-out-of-water who finds himself put into a position where he meets all the movers and shakers in town and must mediate between them. This is a writing crutch for weak writers. It basically makes the outsider into a narrator who can interact in the story. That’s about as easy a way to write a story as humanly possible and it typically means you’re dealing with a writer who is neither creative nor courageous. It also tells you that the series is likely to be worthless. Why? Because rather than telling some story, this setup involves throwing characters together with supposed pre-built conflicts who then repeat generic storylines from prior shows like Eureka week after week as the writers hope that the actors can win over the audience with their own personalities. Basically, they are selling you the actors. It’s hard to like a show like that.

I truly wish that someone would start producing real science fiction -- either with genuine story arcs or in the smart episodic format. Science fiction needs to drop the soap format. . . it’s killing the genre.