Dominion

Must admit I do not remember having seen the film (Legion) but it did ring a bell so I was up for a new series about, once again, saving mankind. I am a Supernatural fan and that has the same principle, bad angels, good angels, demons, God gone etc but on a more down to earth basis, and it can be really funny. This however seems to be more doomsday. It is well made, at the moment, but that can change. The main characters are OK. I am getting a bit frustrated with the same twists in plots, there seems to be so few surprises these days, you are always waiting for the traitor, the hero, who doesn't want to be a hero, and as always the love interest. If this does make it to a full season I hope the writers will at least try to surprise us. A little bit of humour would be nice too as life in what ever stage is not always deadly serious. Saw that some one mentioned all the actors are British? Not quite true but there does seem to be a a lot of Aussies staring in things these days, I'm all for it, I think they are refreshingly unpretentious, which makes their characters more believable.

Might have to re-vote depending on which way this goes.

First a disclaimer: I have no desire to be a movie critic, and I auto-avoid 'user' reviews made by wannabe critics who like to drop impressive words to show of their knowledge of the dictionary. So, I won't.

Now, here's a secondary disclaimer. I *ENJOYED* the movie 'Legion', and I had resigned myself to not getting a sequel made. A TV series? Better. Much, much better. TV gives an idea room to breathe and evolve over time.

This series took me by surprise, as I hadn't heard about it before. As soon as I finished watching the pilot, I immediately dug out Legion and watched that again. The series is entirely a continuation of the movie, set some years after. The plot makes sense, and the densely packed pilot served to set the scene very well. Then again, I watch for entertainment and don't go looking for errors, so your mileage may vary.

The set, costumes and props are all of a high standard, and there wasn't anything that caught your eye as being out of place or of poor quality. The CGI was very good, with the exception of one high-speed death scene near the beginning which flits by so fast many of you won't notice it.

There is a lot of implied sensuality, though (so far) nothing pornographic other than one costume. I feel they found a good balance there, without being crass for the sake of it.

Now, the acting. I've seen a number of shows featuring Anthony Head (David Whele), and this is his crowning achievement, I believe. In one episode, he gets you to hate him, sympathize with him, pity him... twice I flipped, from rooting against him to siding with him and back again. All this was achieved in a relatively low number of scenes. He isn't the soft touch we've become used to seeing him portray. The love interest, Claire (Roxanne McKee) has shown better abilities than Alex the lead (Christopher Egan) though I think it won't be long before he finds his place once his 'role' in the story is more firm. Casting there was an excellent choice - she even looks like her on-screen father, Alan Dale.

So far, after one episode, this has killed Defiance as it is truly Fantasy/SF, instead of just a Western with SF bits stapled on. Also, it's not a formulaic, monster-of-the-week or crime-of-the-week show... you'll have to follow to keep up.

That makes it expensive, though, and a risk for the studio.

Now. This is SyFy. Call me jaded, but the odds of this not getting canned after one or two seasons aren't great.

There's nothing immediately spectacular about Dominion that has me raving about it, but its entertaining, and has some very nice cinematography. There's a well developed world, and its unique to the premise, and the visuals are no doubt inspired in part by baroque and renaissance art. Its actually quite different from Legion, though it takes place around 2 decades after the events in the movie, it explores a lot more and humanizes the villains and their motivations. I actually like dominion more than the movie because it paints the "8 balls" as they've come to be called, as more than monsters.

Basically the premise is, the archangel Gabriel led the host of lower angels in a war against humanity, basically blaming them for god leaving, just like Lucifer did millennia before, and Michael was the only angel to stand against them and defend humanity, helping to found the city of Vega and protect them from the possessed humans, who basically destroy most of the world, minus a few well protected cities. His solution isn't perfect, and what was meant to be a temporary caste system ends up in a full blown economic segregation leaving the ultra rich living in luxury, with the poor and abandoned living in squalor beneath. Over the years word has spread about a "chosen one" who will save mankind and end the war, with some believers, and some believing it is nothing more than a fantasy. Enter the main character, who grows up a penniless orphan, enlisting in the military just to have something to eat, who finds out he is the child they had spoken of. And then there's the higher ranks of angels who don't have black eyes, and sometimes bear wings, who up until that point hadn't been forced to pick a side.

There's definitely some movie clichés in there, but they play out in a way thats somewhat new and interesting, and touch on some topics that haven't been covered. One of the things that i like about this series is the main antagonist is a part of the ruling bureaucracy, and despite being your cliché diabolical politician, everyone basically sees through his bullshit already and tells him to cut the crap whenever he starts spouting off some lies or blackmail. Its a nice change of pace to see characters who aren't stupid and overly trusting. On the other hand, i wish there was a bit more skewed logic behind gabriel's assertion "its humanities fault god left". You'd expect a bit more from a once near omniscient being thats thousands of years old. Maybe some overly complex overthought justification, nothing near that simple and small minded. At any rate i think the directors can take some hints from the show supernatural, which at some points bears a similar premise, because they've got the angel mindset down to a science already. But its nice to see they're taking it in a different direction, and i'd be curious to see if Gabriel has any plans to release Lucifer from the pit to fight along side him. It'd certainly be in his favor.

All in all, its pretty good. The cinematography is probably the best part about this show, its very deep, saturated, elegant and classical. The opening titles especially reflect the theme, that this show might be something you'd see through the frame of a renaissance painting, rather than something of the modern age.

Dominion seems to be the successor to the 2010 film "Legion".

For those that don't remember it the plot is as follows, God abandons the Angels and they decide its mankind's fault, and thus the apocalypse is born. One angel alone amongst his brethren sides with humanity, and comes to a remote diner to protect one expecting mother whose child is prophesized to be mankind's only hope of survival.

Dominion is set a significant while after the invasion, where by all accounts the demonic (angelic) invasion wiped out all but a few walled off highly defensible cities holding the last of human kind (the one we see bares a strong resemblance to Fallout's New Vegas), and then became somewhat dormant.

The show has believable sets and effects, some interesting stylistic choices on armor and swords and city architecture. The plot isn't incredibly unique, but its not derivative enough that you will know the seasons plot after one episode. Although you likely will guess whats happening throughout the episode 30 seconds before it does happen, nothing is all that surprising.

Decent fight scenes, acting that's up to par, multiple sources of adversity from the Angelic threat to your own people, with one particularly self deluded villain that you will instantly not like. They highlight some social issues like caste systems and economic disparities, which might become important to the story later down the road.

Everything about the pilot is promising, if you're into fantasy entertainment this probably will excite you. Word of caution, only the pilot is released, and its from the Syfy network which doesn't bring its A game often (ever?). The only recently decent show from Syfy was Helix, which started out equally powerfully with no overt mistakes and a promising premise, but the more episodes of it you saw the more obvious it was that the possibilities you imagined in response to all the mysteries the show introduced were vastly superior to the illogical garbled mess the story turned into by the end of the season. I enjoyed the pilot, but if you're short on time wait for a while to see if the show maintains its quality.

I'm so tired of watching these new shows, getting invested in them, only to have them canceled without any kind of conclusion.

It seems to be happening more and more. I'm at the point where I don't think I will bother watching any new show until there is at least 3 or 4 seasons that have been completed. I would rather binge watch them without commercials anyway.

I can list a ton of shows that I really enjoyed, and they simply pull the plug without any attempt to give us some closure. Dominion is another example of this. I agree, that the second season was a bit of a mess, but it was still a good show, and it looked like it was about to get really good again.

However, if they wanted to cancel it, fine, but for the love of all that is holy, they could have given us a couple more shows, and attempt to give us some closure.

Yup, I don't think I will start watching any new shows, unless they have a few season under their belt now. Especially if it is a SyFy show.