Let's get real- Every new scifi show that comes out gets canceled early and fans scream in agony. So here's what I think about the two biggies this spring.

Continuum-
They pulled in the who's who of scifi for this one, cameos right and left, actor spotting at its finest. Why? I'm betting on the creators desperately trying to keep it on the air long enough to make it through 2 seasons. (Need I make a list of recent RIPs, aka Terra Nova, Outcasts, yada yada, and some of us are still screaming about Harsh Realm and Odyssey 5, my list is a mile long.) But the problem I see with Continuum is that they talk too much. When you have to explain the science in conversational blurbs that whiz by so fast that the general audience either just ignores it or has to stop and replay a scene over and over, and then focus too much on emotional angst (good for fanfic and shippers) at the behest of actual action, the CGI and future tech fans drooling all over themselves don't stand a chance. The show is brilliant. In my experience, the brilliant ones get canceled. It's trying to do way too much. The ones that survive nowadays cater to emos and Gen X grandbabies. Unless JJ Abrams gets hold of this one and lens flares the hell out of it, it's lost on the masses, and I'll be sorry to see it go.

Defiance-
Major major flaws, and I'll tell you why. A general search immediately takes a person to an old war movie, NOT the MMO trying to cross market through the Syfy network. When you do find the website, it's so heavy loading that users with less than optimal streaming tech have to drum their fingers waiting for it to load. Then you get there and find out you have to *invest* in a game for the story, and that the show is only being made to sell the game. How many times has that failed? I'm all for gamers, I love movies based on gaming, but they just don't cross over. If they did, we'd have a rockin' Halo series tearing up the Syfy network, am I right? Until gamers can figure out how comic books crossed over and survived, I think Defiance has a snowflake's chance in hell. Too many tv watchers just don't have an appreciation of the highly skilled art world that goes into creating a show like this, and it's following too closely on shows like Falling Skies and Walking Dead, looks like a smashed fandom kind of creation from the outset.

I've been a loyal Syfy channel subscriber since the 1990's, and if you are, too, you will understand my tongue in cheek challenge to the network to bring the Continuum and Defiance actors into the Smackdown ring to draw viewers...