The TV half of SyFy's ambitious transmedia franchise premiered last night. The show sets up a future Earth in the aftermath of an alien invasion.
The various races, collectively known as the "Votans" have since declared a truce with the humans, and the half a dozen or so species now live on the planet in a relative peace. Defiance follows a particular pair of people, a young alien woman named Irisa, and her surrogate adoptive father Joshua Nolan, a veteran of the human-alien war. Together, the two are a rough and tumble duo in the vein of Han Solo and Chewie, cruising about in their dune buggy-esque "roller."
Their dream is to head for the beaches of Antarctica, supposedly a paradise; a dream they come awfully close to when they discover a valuable artifact in an Ark, the crashed starships that carried the alien invaders to Earth. Unfortunately, they're soon ambushed by an alien motorcycle gang straight out of Mad Max, and barely escape with their lives.
After a brief run in with some alien beasties, they're taken in by a friendly settlement known as "Defiance." Right there, that should clue us in to the fact that this little city is going to be a pretty big part of the story to come. Defiance exists in the ruins of St. Louis, right under the Gateway Arch in fact. They're able to survive in this hostile world because of an energy barrier that keeps out the gangs and other factions.
It's here the show begins to lose a little momentum, as we jump head first into a ton of exposition. There are a lot of foreground and background politics and maneuverings going on, especially between the new mayor of the city, the Chief Lawkeeper Clancy, and a number of residents including Datak Tarr, a sort of black market mafia boss.
These various (and numerous) character relations are outlined as Nolan and Irisa look for enough money to buy a vehicle and find somewhere to sell the artifact they found. This gets complicated when a traitorous citizen paves the way for army of alien automatons, the Volges, to sweep in and invade.
Nolan and Irisa take the opportunity to high tail it out of there on the way to sell their loot. In true Han Solo fashion however, Nolan has a change of heart, and decides to use the artifact to power a weapon capable of defeating the Volges and saving the people of Defiance. Irisa disagrees, seeing it as Nolan screwing up their plans once again, and leaves him behind.
As the citizens of Defiance rally together and set aside their differences to defend their home, the artifact is being prepared as an explosive trap. The battle turns bleak though when the Volges overrun the city's defenses and nearly destroy the secret weapon, but just in time, Irisa rides in with that motorcycle gang from before to join the fight.
The weapon is successfully set off and the evil aliens are defeated, for now. Nolan is promoted to the Chief Lawkeeper, and it seems like he and his daughter will be settling into their new home for now.
In the end, the episode sets up a bit more of the backroom political dealings we'll be seeing more of, and as a final stinger, reveals that the ex-mayor of the city is the one who plotted its destruction. Apparently, something powerful is buried underneath Defiance, but we'll have to wait for future episodes to see just what.