In spite of the minor inconvenience of a hurricane, I was able to catch this week’s Defiance live, and I’m glad I did. We have what might be the best episode of Defiance yet, with some pieces of the puzzle finally falling into place and the reappearance of a fan favorite from season 1. Read on for more.

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With the recent news that Stargate will be rebooting into a new trilogy of films, I thought it might be the right time to take a step back and look at the abundance of reboots and remakes we’re seeing of late. It’s been a problem with the film industry for some time, but the expensive nature of the sci-fi blockbuster means that as a fandom, we’re far more likely to have to deal with this problem than your average cinephile. Stargate just happens to be the perfect lens through which to examine the issue. Read more

     Defiance‘s season 2 premiere last week wasn’t exactly bad. A lot of things happened, as one might expect in a premiere. But they happened too fast; plots that would have been better served by bridging them over a few episodes were wrapped up in only a few minutes. This week’s episode slows things down, and is all the better for it.
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     Defiance is a show that’s been frustrating to watch from the get-go; the initial preview released online for season 1, which was essentially the first 5-10 minutes of the show, looked great. Nolan and Irisa, driving along in their souped-up apocalypse-mobile, singing a song, there was a real sense that these two cared for each other. Then, they get stopped by a band of aliens roaming the woods, which eventually force them into the city of Defiance. It set things up nicely.

Of course, we eventually learned that Nolan is an unnecessarily violent and cruel vet and Irisa is both crazy and rebellious in that “I’m only doing this stupid thing to further the plot” sort of way. If I only had one sentence to sum up the problems with season 1, it would be that the nominal protagonists are among the least interesting and most frustrating characters on the show. Read more

Welcome to RetroPhaseShift! This blog will be centered around science fiction, particularly television series but also films, novels, and perhaps some of my own work down the line. I plan to review Sci-fi TV series as they air, starting with Defiance in a few weeks. I may also muse on the state of the fandom and sci-fi culture in general, but that will be much less frequent. I’m also planning to start with 2-3  updates a week, so stay tuned.

Here’s to new beginnings!