Syfy's Legion spinoff: Dominion

[FaxModem1]

So, remember that Paul Bettany movie Legion? Nah, me either. But apparently Syfy wanted a TV show out of that, so behold: Dominion.

It's...very confused. 25 years after the events of the movie, people have all huddled up and made city-states so that they can survive. For some reason, people thought Las Vegas would be a great place to settle, and made it into a Roman Republic style state with the two highest and most powerful houses taking over Caesar's Palace and the MGM-Grand So, game of thrones style politics mixed with chosen one prophecy stuff mixed with angels declaring war on us, all set only 25 years from the present.

Now, I never saw Legion. But this show feels like a really strange blender of shows. Hey, Game of Thrones is popular, so let's have Houses all competing in a city state for power, with them all acting as if they've been doing this for centuries, and not for only a couple decades. Hey, that Christopher Egan kid played the messiah who happened to be a soldier in Kings, and he was good in that, let's cast him as our messiah who happens to be a solder in this. Hey, Battlestar Galactica was popular with it's "Who is a cylon?" plots, so let's say that any human in the city could be an angel, so we can have that kind of drama.

I've watched the first five episodes on Hulu, and I figured out why it's irked me. Take a silly action movie. Let's say, for example, the Vin Diesel movies XXX.

Now, imagine someone took XXX, and made a TV spin-off style show of it. Only, not as a action TV show, but as more of a West Wing style show, with politicians and heads of state dealing with the consequences of the movies. It's so off kilter and different from what it should be. I mean, great on them for trying to examine the consequences of such, but who felt that it was deserving of a serious character drama?

Has anyone else watched it?

[White Haven]

Sounds like someone really, really liked Fallout: New Vegas.

That said, one of my favorite fiction exercises is to go long on examination of consequences and the fallout of events (especially when their original presentation gave few fucks for details like that) so the overall idea of the show actually interests me quite a lot. I might have to go have a peek.

[Meest]

Too bad the production value and soap opera acting and writing ruins it. No offense to South Africa but it's comes off as a low rent British/Australian soap opposed to something closer to District 9 in quality.

[FaxModem1]

Well, the season's over. A short, very brief 8 episodes. I don't think it'll get another season.

Honestly, it works better in my head if this takes place in the Stand or Left Behind universes, as the humans feel like they're the villains of another show made as the protagonists of this one, fighting against the forces of God and his army, with a chosen one plotline tacked on. Frankly, it's more a morbid fascination at watching this hodgepodge of characters, stories, and oddities thrown together than actually enjoying the show that makes me watch it.