Syfy's Dominion - Episode 1.01 "Pilot"
Alex Lannon, destined to lead humanity and end the war against the angels, must balance his love for Claire Riesen with his new responsibility while trusting Michael to help him navigate the new world.
Dominion is a very ambitious series. Almost too ambitious. Except for a handful of well executed action sequences and some fancy special effects, this pilot never really steps up in the way its ambition thinks it does. I don't think there's anything outwardly horrible about Dominion. This premiere is just so clunky and expositional. It takes a long time to set up this world and these characters. So most just because arbitrary archetypes. Alex Lannon is our hero. Claire Riesen is his lover who he can't be with publicly. Edward Riesen and David Whele are the heads of Vega and are in a power match to decide the future of the city. Lastly, Michael is an angel of stature but growing human desires. None of these characters leave these constructs. Thusly, this pilot essentially plays out the way you expected it to go.If it weren't for Anthony Stewart Head, I probably would have fallen asleep watching my screener of this premiere. He's magnetic and having a lot of fun here despite being forced into an American accent. Casting directors, you hire Head in order to hear him in his natural accent not force an American one on him. That non-withstanding, he's a great character here. He has the inclinations of being a ruler and a dictator. Thinking that he knows whats best for the city as everyone else around him is content with not acknowledging the dangers outside the city walls. He brought destruction to Vega by the end of this hour and yet he's still proud of what he's done. He has united the city once again.
Everyone else has the stature and the look of the roles they are in but aren't really doing anything interesting performance-wise for me to go "Wow." Alan Dale is only here to give this series some level of creditability and not simply another science fiction show on Syfy. Plus, the female characters are very flimsily drawn and exist and are defined solely by their relationships to the male leads of the show. Christopher Egan is believable as the unexpected hero but he's doing just enough to keep me interested but not enough for me to care about him or his struggles with being the Chosen One.
However, I think I'm going to keep watching Dominion for the conversations it would like to start about religion and the class system. How the citizens of Vega are separated seems a bit too forced but those divisions could prove to be a powerful motivator later on. More importantly though is the character's stances on what they believe in. The angels came down from Heaven and are in a gruesome war with humanity. God disappeared 25 years earlier. No explanation is given as to why he's gone. But now, what is there left for the faithful to hang onto. One section is still worshiping the angels. They are painted as the bad guys at the end of the premiere. But I'm interested in seeing how that struggle will play out. Elsewhere, most people believed in the rising of the Chosen One to lead them out of this war. Now, he's been revealed and expected to lead. How are their expectations gonna change now that they have a face to put on the myth?
Some more thoughts:
- "Pilot" was written by Vaun Wilmott and directed by Scott Stewart.
- Seriously, the show thinks it's plot twists are surprising but they mostly play as tried-and-true concepts from other sci-fi series.
- Why are the Angels who can only possess humans called 8-Balls?
- After 25 years, Angels still only walk around with blades?
- No one in this cast is American. Egan is Australian. Alan Dale is New Zealand; Head, Tom Wisdom, Langley Kirkwood, Roxanne McKee, Luke Allen-Gale, Shivani Ghai, Rosalin Halstead are English; and Carl Beukes is South Afrian. And yet, there are all asked to do American accents in this.
