TV - Defiance = Fallout Lite?

AWB has been watching a bit of Defiance lately.
For those not in the know, Defiance is a SciFi tv show as shown on the cable channel Syfy and developed by Rockne S. O'Bannon, a man who lists the wonderful FarScape on his CV.
The premise is simple.
Alien arc fleet arrives and is embarrassed to discover Earth actually has a population.
Oops.
Tensions rise.
War breaks out.
Terraforming engines run out of control.
Peace stumbles along.
Cats and Dogs living together.
As you do.
The other gimmick is that the TV show is apparently linked in with the MMORPG of the same name where apparently actions in the game can effect story lines in the TV show. Ooooo!
AWB must confess to a LARGE amount of cynicism about this claim and seriously doubts a multi million dollar TV show will ever let itself be dictated in any way shape or form by a bunch of suicide gankers running around teabagging Noobs.
(Although, as a post modern piece of metafiction, a TV show deliberately set inside a MMORPG world may be amusing, especially if they make a few of the characters Korean based Gold Miners who are just in it for real world cash...)
So, AWB has watched a few episodes and to be honest, isn't really all that impressed. The feel here is that the show wants to be Fallout. Both have societies rebuilding between bouts of tribal factional fighting with mixtures of homemade, pre war and bleeding edge advantaged tech. The Bioman the show's lead hero fights in the pilot was so similar visually to a Super Mutant Nightkin, right down to the self mutilation scarring/serial number across it's chest that AWB was actually majorly disappointed when it didn't start arguing with itself and fire up a Stealth Boy.
Unfortunately that is about as far as it goes and there are not blue/yellow numbered jumpsuits or two headed battle cattle. There are also no aliens.
Okay there 'technically' are aliens, but they are either dialog less background dressing or latex headed humans with different hair. The major one are effectively what you would get if you ever decided to dip a goth in a hell of a lot of really strong bleach, and the others are rangas with latex nose bridges and funky contact lenses. There is also a semi cyborg race doctor character who you half expect to suddenly come out and rant "Dammit Jim, I'm an Alien, not a Caricature!" which frankly would make the character a lot more original and interesting.
Visuals aside, they are all humans, even down to the sweet little romantic sub plot between the son of the lead NegaGoth and daughter of the human mine boss.
Let's step back for a moment and muse on just how 'strange' that is. If, in the non sci fi 'real world', one was to hook up say with a sheep... well... we think we all know where that joke is going. However, at least it could be said that both humans and sheep are at least both mammals from the SAME planet. Love may conquer all, but most Xenobiologists agree that it does very little to ensure you and your new life partner from another planet have interconnecting dangly bits or even that you blood isn't mutually toxic.
On the plus side to this issue, at least the show is Syfy and not HBO or not only would we be seeing a lot of alien love, but a screenful of Alien Space Boobies each week as well.
In summary this show has clearly aimed high, and credit for trying that as the investment to set up a complete alien based SciFi show cannot be cheap. It is also a show that wants to be taken seriously. This is perhaps the biggest disappointment as to AWB at least the show has failed to make orbit. It is filled with humans with funny hair and voices instead of real aliens and mildly predicable plots (so far at least) that could be lifted and transferred in and out of just about any other TV show. Strangely, or maybe most disappointingly, O'Bannon's previous show, FarScape, a show that almost listed batshitcrazy as it's mission statement (as well as a ship, a living ship...) managed to provide us with aliens that we believed were aliens. FarScape gave us a plant as a main character FFS!
Defiance, however, just really comes across as a bit bland.