Defiance is another pleasant surprise. At first it felt like just an amalgamation of elements of various other SyFy shows (the sheriff and daughter come to town like in Eureka, there's a bunch of space refugees like in Battlestar Galactica, aliens and humans have differences to work together like in Babylon5, the aliens seem mostly humanoid with weird hair and eyes like in Farscape). And it is that, but in this case they create something at least equal to the sum of their better parts. I like the actors. I like things that are cliche (the children of two rival families fall in love) and the things that aren't (the parents of "Romeo" are somewhat horrible people who encourage the wedding so they can kill Juliet's dad and brother and take over her inheritance once their son marries her). No one's hands are clean here, but one's hands are completely dirty, either. Two episodes in and I'm already looking forward to the next one.

I've started watching this as well. I wasn't expecting to like it as much as I have. It's all the things you've described. And if what ever the mystery object is buried beneath the arch....it reminds me of the Rachel Morgan series by Kim Harrison. If there's a demon under the arch...I'll be dipped. lol

I've seen the ads for the show and have considered checking it out, but for some reason haven't taken the plunge. Your comments on it make me more interested though and will have to check it out.