Is Defiance a major flop for Syfy?

[destiny khan]

the only good shows they did were BSG and the continuation of stargate saga... eureka, sanctuary, warehouse 13 are below avg. shows for me... i want SPACE OPERAS with big SPACE BATTLES... i guess we have wait for netflix to come with with something in space or that upcoming halo series...

[Gatefan1976]

the only good shows they did were BSG and the continuation of stargate saga... eureka, sanctuary, warehouse 13 are below avg. shows for me... i want SPACE OPERAS with big SPACE BATTLES... i guess we have wait for netflix to come with with something in space or that upcoming halo series...

Watch more re-runs of transformers

[Nolamom]

For me, scifi does NOT have to be about space. It is, after all science fiction, not space fiction. Some of my favorite authors' stories and various television programs/movies have had nothing to do with space. This doesn't make them any less scifi. (Jules Verne 20,000 leagues anyone? Bradbury, Azimov...I could go on) Equating scifi to space is far too limiting.

[destiny khan]

For me, scifi does NOT have to be about space. It is, after all science fiction, not space fiction. Some of my favorite authors' stories and various television programs/movies have had nothing to do with space. This doesn't make them any less scifi. (Jules Verne 20,000 leagues anyone? Bradbury, Azimov...I could go on) Equating scifi to space is far too limiting.

ofcourse, but i just adore space operas... they have been the best sci fi for me... things like Lost are also a bit sci fi but i don't want scifi like that... and i also hate the "creature" stuff termed as sci fi as well like sanctuary although it has science in it...

[Girlbot]

I gave Defiance a good try, but I've lost interest in it sadly.

[Starfist]

Well as I believe there is a second season on the way. I don't think it was a 'flop' for Syfy.
I still have the last few episodes of season one to watch.

[Briangate78]

I think the show has potential. I have not been following ratings, but didn't it already get renewed?

[Lythisrose]

Hi Briangate, nice to see you in the neighborhood!
Defiance got renewed for a 2nd season starting in June 2014. So quite the wait.

[Briangate78]

Hi Briangate, nice to see you in the neighborhood!
Defiance got renewed for a 2nd season starting in June 2014. So quite the wait.

Hey nice to see you also.

Ok I thought it was renewed, and yeah wow have to wait till June? Typical Syfy, lol.

[Replicator Todd]

I completely missed this and plan on watching it eventually, it would be nice to see a sci-fi show thrive on SyFy!

[Linuxbrandon]

I can't seem to get into Defiance, seems like every episode someone is turning on the town and being revealed as a traitor. This is never surprising, they always reveal who it is at the beginning of the episode.

The whole 'main character is town sheriff' thing is getting old, with Eureka and Terra Nova already perfecting this formula. This show just seems like too much of a copy cat to hold any real value, or being any credibility back to Syfy. It's not terrible, it's just too cliche.

[Sp!der]

in retrospective I really liked "Defiance" of course it has its flaws especially being in its first season but I really really like how they develop a world around the town itself, that they created a own language, that BearMcCreary is doing his own thing in it, the aliens, the earth it self are really good. The stories are sometimes predictable like this romeo-and-juliet-style of show but the setting around it is quite awesome which made me stuck with this show!

June? Really? What about.. April?

[Lythisrose]

Tweet from Craig Engler at Syfy last week:

Craig Engler ?@Syfy 21 Aug
Q) @Dordoris Currently, which scripted show is the most successful on syfy? A) Currently #Defiance is our highest rated scripted series.

[knowles2]

For those not following the ratings this weeks episode, the 9th, pulled in only 1.6 million viewers. During its first season Sanctuary pulled an average of 2.36 million viewers.

With critics giving it mediocre reviews and viewers apparently agreeing, the idea that Defiance would be a major move in reestablishing Syfy as a credible scifi network is over. Despite the money Syfy put into the show its seen as just another so-so effort by the network.

Despite the money, the video game and the hype Defiance hasn't even been a blip on the tv landscape. Shows like Eureka, Battlestar Galactica and Warehouse 13 were noticed and written about by mainstream media. Defiance has dropped completely off that radar.

I guess we can always hope the RDM show Helix will be decent.

Warehouse 13 and Eureka both dropped from the main stream media pretty quickly after they launched , I never seen W13 mention in MSM at all, hell SGU got more coverage that W13 ever got in it 3 seasons, mainly thanks to Robert Carlyle. BSG only gain MSM in the first couple of seasons, when it was one of the best shows around, it disappeared when it went all crap in season 3 and 4. An it receive more coverage because of the well known directors and actors and producers than what was actually put on air, same could be said for SGU as well.

Syfy ratings in everything that isn't an reality TV show has been plummeting, but that because they have treated their audience that like scifi like **** and most of that audience has long as abandon Syfy channel. Plus most of it programming, minus defiance and Haven is ****. You can't rebuild a brand base on one decent only decent show, if they want to rebuild their reputation for good quality Science fiction and rebuild their audience they will need more high budget shows like Defiance, hopefully shows that have more interesting stories and characters.
Helix sounds terrible. Personally I suspect we will see that type of story done a lot more better in Last Boat than we will see with Helix, plus I don't trust RDM to produce anything descent after the mess that was BSG s3 and 4 and Virtuality was a pile heap of ****.

What defiance is missing is a true rivalry, sure they set up that alien drug lord and miner but we never saw any of these schemes play out of screen. There need to Frenemy relationship.
An it was way too soon to have the town invaded, especially as we haven't even been introduce to Votanis Collective yet, that really felt like a story for season 3 or 4 .

[knowles2]

I think people who don't recognize that Defiance has been a major failure for Syfy are probably the same people who so strongly supported Stargate:Universe.

Without knowing what they wanted no outside of Syfy can declare this a failure. I am saw they would love 5 million viewers but that not going to instantly happen and it very unlikely to happen on a network that has only 1 descent show.

Defiance was put forth as a "game changer".

That because it the first large scale transmedia project, where the aim from the beginning was to use different mediums to tell the story. Budget wise this is nothing new, SGU had a similar, if not bigger budget, so did BSG.

A (relatively) big budget return of Syfy to real science fiction. Yet, the shows ratings are dramatically lower than previous flagship shows on Syfy.

But then many these shows were support by 2 or 3 other quality shows shown on the same night, Defiance is fighting the good fight alone surrounded by crap or content that appeals to a different audience.

The show is on Mondays which is, iirc, the second largest primetime audience of the week. And yet the numbers are far less than Stargate: Universe or BSG or Stargate:Atlantis, etc. Those shows were often on Friday nights which is the well known "Friday night death slot" for its very low numbers of people who watch on Friday.

Which means all the other networks are showing there **** off as well. Sundays and Friday are proven big number nights for science fiction and fantasy programmes, it where Stargate and BSG got some of their best ratings on Friday night. Walking dead and Fallen Skies are doing excellent business on a Sunday Night. Wrestling have taken up Friday night slots on Syfy, leaving Sunday night, which as other networks spotted the success of WD and FS have had, are increasingly put the same kind of content on Sunday, once upon a time , leading to more competition that night. Just like networks spotted Syfy former success at having 3 hours of science fiction on Friday night and decided to compete by putting out original content on Friday night.

The critics and viewers all agree the show is a big "meh". Of course there are the people who argued that Stargate: Universe was a well made and a great show. They are clearly over represented in a scifi forum. And they are actually hurting quality scifi programming. When you can throw any thing up on the air that is scifi and can depend on the usual suspects praising the show and the hard core scifi viewers to watch, there is no incentive to make a good show.

I would argue it a good show. It just not an excellent, award winning show, yet, but then none of the shows release this year in the US have been excellent this year, they all been meh. It seems that the golden years of US television are coming to an end, along with a lot of shows release during those golden years.

As I predicted a few weeks ago I thought that Defiance would bottom at 1.5 to 1.6 million viewers. And the second season is going to have even less viewers.

That not guaranteed and very much depends of how Syfy continues to keep pushing and promoting the show throughout the year, especially via the computer game, which has had pretty good reviews and I enjoyed playing that for a couple of hours than I did the TV show. An Defiance is hardly the first show to have a rough first season, Babylon 5 and DS9 all had poor first seasons. An numbers aren't always guaranteed to be lower, WD and Fallen skies both increase their viewers in the second seasons.

The argument that Defiance is a success because Syfy is making money off the video game means nothing to me. I don't judge a tv show by how much it makes off a game.

Then you are being stupid. This is a transmedia project, then is success should be judge by all the different media it is represented in, not just by tv. An different media should be allow to support each other.