BSG’s Bear McCreary Joins Farscape Creator’s New Syfy Show As Music Supervisor
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Is the upcoming Syfy show Defiance on your radar? If not, it should be, because it’s the creation of Rockne O’Bannon, the man who gave us one of the greatest, and most underrated, science fiction shows of all time in the form of Farscape. Since that show wrapped up with the Peacekeeper Wars miniseries in 2004, O’Bannon served as consulting producer on ABC’s V remake, but we haven’t seen any new shows actually created by the man. Thankfully that’s changing with Defiance, a project that just became even more exciting thanks to the announcement that Battlestar Galactica/The Walking Dead composer Bear McCreary will serve as the show’s music supervisor.
The word came via a tweet from Syfy senior executive Craig Engler, who didn’t provide any more details beyond McCreary’s involvement. Defiance is set in the near future, after a “universal war” has ravaged the Earth. The show follows a group of survivors as they attempt to build a new society in the aftermath. Game producer Trion Worlds are working in partnership with the show to produce a multiplatform shooter MMO that will connect to the show and debut at the same time. Supposedly the show and game will interact in various ways, forming “a single universe where their respective narratives will inform one another and evolve together into one overall story.”
McCreary’s involvement isn’t the only BSG tie-in. The show’s producers include Battlestar Galactica veterans Paul M. Leonard, Michael Taylor, Bradley Thompson, and David Weddle, as well as former Caprica exec producer Kevin Murphy. Fingers crossed that all that talent can carve through the bad reputation Syfy has earned from its treatment of, well, actual science fiction. The network’s schedule is still cluttered with lousy “reality” shows, but it’s also managed to produce several quality shows in recent years, such as Being Human and Alphas. What it doesn’t have right now is a show that honestly and unapologetically embraces the science fiction genre. And while the ridiculous name change is just one way the network has seemed determined to distance itself from the very identity that built it, it would be great to see another SF series of the caliber of BSG or Farscape added to Syfy’s schedule.
Defiance won’t arrive until Spring of 2013, but in the meantime here’s Bear McCreary’s haunting version of “All Along the Watchtower” from BSG to get you excited.
