Syfy is venturing into some more scripted sci-fi Thursday night with the launch of a new series called Dominion. A sequel to the movie Legion from a few years back, this picks up 25 years after the battle of good angels vs. bad. Now, the world is a different place, with class systems where all people are certainly not created equal – and some of those class types being almost like a monarchy.
Alan Dale (from Once Upon A Time, The O.C., Torchwood, and a million other shows where he usually ends up dying of a heart attack or something) plays one of those higher-class folks, the head of the Class Riesen and father to the main character’s love interest, Claire. He’s a man with a lot of authority that could be challenged by another genre veteran, Merlin and Buffy actor Anthony Stewart Head, as David Whele. Another familiar face we’ll see in the show is Chris Egan (Kings) as Alex Lannon, a character who may be a lot more special than he knows. The rest of the cast is made up of actors I wasn’t extremely familiar with, but those three are good anchors with their respective fan bases to get people to tune in.
The screener I watched of Dominion had unfinished visual effects, but judging especially from the commercials, the angel action looks FANTASTIC. The pilot starts with a confrontation between some angels and the Alex Lannon character, and gets things off to a good start.
Unfortunately, though, it’s not all perfect: The pilot itself does get tedious along the way, perhaps assuming that we all remember Legion more than we actually do. Rather than already delving into the politics and the religious aspects of the series so quickly, I almost wish we had seen flashbacks to what came before — even if it meant using footage from the movie. I would like to know more about the “good” angel, Michael… I’m pretty sure he was around for the movie, but it’s been a few years since I’ve seen it, so I’m a little lost there. I did, however, get the reference to “Jeep,” so there’s some good continuity going on there. I was also a little bit confused by some of the casting, where some of the actors resembled one another so much that I had trouble telling them apart.
On the bright side, despite getting a little boring there around the middle, things do get better, and the series that is set up at the end of the pilot is something I’d definitely be curious to see more of. I love that Syfy is doing more sci-fi, I think it’s cool that a TV series is following up on a movie like this, and I love that Smallville executive producers Todd Slavkin and Darren Swimmer are involved with this series, too, as they did some of my favorite episodes of that Superman series. I’m assuming that once I see more of the show I won’t have so much confusion with the characters, and some revelations laid out in the pilot give the audience a reason to care about these characters.
All in all? I think there’s a good show here, but we might have to get through the pilot to find the kind of show it is going to become.
Dominion premieres Thursday night, June 19 at 9PM ET on Syfy. Below you can find some photos from the pilot:
