Will Dominion Dominate Fanboys Hearts?

Lately I haven't really been watching anything new, lack of time has meant that I am barely keeping up with what I used to watch avidly. But the time has come, I'm actually paying attention to the most popular shows that are on streaming websites that I've visited in the past (all legal websites, and all for research of course). One that kept popping up quite frequently was Dominion, and all I actually knew about the show was that it was developed by SyFy and was a spin-off/continuation of the film Legion, which in all honestly I know nothing about and don't particularly have much interest in it. For some reason I decided to watch the pilot in a fit of boredom. Sure I have a whole list of things that I'd like to watch which has been building for years, yet I pick an untested SyFy show which I haven't actually done any research on. Was I going to be wasting an hour of my time? Possibly, I've never really like SyFy original dramas, they always feel cheap, cheesy (just look at the poster below, ergh) and unoriginal but I plowed through the episode.

I didn't exactly have high expectations for the show, so it was nice to be pleasantly surprised. I'm not saying that the show is excellent, not at all, just saying it beat my expectations. As I mentioned before I hadn't watched Legion so it could've been really easy of me to not understand and stop watching the show after 10 minutes. However the writers of Dominion aren't complete fools and figured that not everyone would have watched the film (I'm pretty sure almost no one watched the film), so they did give the viewers a recap of the film at the beginning of the pilot. It explains how God has left the building and now the Angels are at war, some (namely Gabriel) trying to eradicate the Earth of vile creatures we call Humans while Michael (good angel that is helping the humans, played wonderfully by Tom Wisdom). I can't be the only one who thought Supernatural right? Maybe I am. I do tend to think Supernatural constantly. Well anyway, thanks to the recap I managed to watch the episode without having gaps in my knowledge, I didn't feel like I had to go back and watch the movie which is good for the TV show as it shows that it can stand alone.



Angel vs. Angel is quite a intriguing storyline (of course I would think so), and it could be fun to see the War unfold. We did get glimpses of it and thankfully SyFy didn't completely cheap out over the action sequences and the SFX like they usually do. It did look like it was put together pretty well and the angels that were possessing humans were creepy as intended, so I'd mark it as a positive of the show. Sure, the wings of the Angels and the costumes were a bit on the cheesy side, I mean the Warrior angel that fights Michael was wearing red PVC right? It didn't look like armour, it just looked wrong. And I think the fact that the wings disappointed me were Supernatural's fault. They were just wings. There was nothing wrong with them but there was nothing special about them either, so perhaps that's not Dominion's fault. Another thing I took issue of was how easily killed these Angels are. It's ridiculous. You should have to nuke the bastards to kill them, not just a stab! How exactly are they superior to humans? Well hopefully as the show progresses you see more of the War, and more of Gabriel. There was only a glimpse of him in the pilot, and yet I found him quite intriguing, I do hope he is quite good and the show hasn't raised my expectations for no good reason. I'm pretty sure he won't get killed by harmless bullets.

The show has not only set up the war of the Angels, but has also kicked off a plot for a possible human War. The main sect of humans the series follows, located in Vega, seem to be under a totalitarian rule. Members of the government, particularly Edward Resien (played by Alan Dale. Seriously the guy wants to be in everything), are trying to turn it into a democracy but we will be seeing a power struggle between him and David Whele (Anthony Head. I flipped out when he appeared on screen). The least compelling members of the human characters are unfortunately the leads, Alex Lannon (Christopher Egan) and Claire Reisen (Roxanne Mckee). It probably has more to do with the acting than the writing, the performances seemed flat. Even when Alex held his dying father in his arms I felt nothing. Roxanne Mckee has been wooden in everything I've seen her in, so that wasn't really a surprise. Seeing as though the have such a large cast and multiple storylines in play hopefully they won't be too prominent on the show. I know, of course they will be, Alex is predictably the chosen one and Claire is his love interest. It's such a shame.

All in all the show did exceed my expectations, and I probably will watch at least another couple of episodes before deciding whether it's for me or not. It does have quite a lot of potential, and the visuals in the pilot were quite good so hopefully it'll keep it up. They have tried to cram quite a lot in the pilot and it felt quite rushed so hopefully they'll amend that in following episodes. I'd rather have the show be a slow burn rather than be afraid to blink or go to the toilet in the middle in case they kill of a few eight balls. If they could change the leads as well that would be great. I know, that's not going to happen but maybe they'll settle into their roles and actually blow me out of the water? Ok, that's not likely, maybe they'll get acting lessons? They must feel quite embarrassed about being out acted by the supporting characters, so that could happen.

Live Long and Blog!