Syfy today announced a third season for its original series Defiance, giving a 13-episode order to the action packed drama, and a second season for the epic supernatural thriller Dominion, which will also consist of 13 episodes. Both series are produced by Universal Cable Productions and are slated to return with all-new episodes in 2015.
Kevin Murphy (Desperate Housewives, Caprica, Hellcats) will resume his role as executive producer and showrunner of Defiance while Vaun Wilmott (Sons of Anarchy) will continue to fill the same posts for Dominion.
Season to date, Dominion and Defiance are the top two cable programs in the Thursday 8-10 p.m. time period among P25-54s. With most current Live+7 data, both series are averaging 2.7 million total viewers, 1.2 million viewers 18-49 and 1.4 million viewers 25-54. Drawing an especially engaged social audience, Dominion was the most social drama on Thursdays across all of TV in tweets (15.4K) and tweets per unique (8.0).
Set in the near future, Defiance features an exotically transformed planet Earth, its landscapes permanently altered following the sudden - and tumultuous - arrival of seven unique alien races. In this somewhat unknown and unpredictable landscape, the richly diverse, newly-formed civilization of humans and aliens must learn to co-exist peacefully. Redefining the transmedia experience, Defiance has distinguished itself with an unprecedented partnership between Syfy and Trion Worlds, by creating the first-ever true convergence of television and online gaming.
Based on characters from the hit theatrical film Legion (2010), Dominion is an epic supernatural drama set in a transformed post-apocalyptic future, 25 years after an army of lower angels, assembled by the archangel Gabriel, waged a war of possession against mankind. The archangel Michael, turning against his own kind, chose to side with humanity. Rising out of the ashes, are newly fortified cities which protect the human survivors. In Vega (formerly Las Vegas), the largest of these cities, two houses vie for control over the people and the stage is set for political upheaval and a dangerous power shift. Meanwhile, a rebellious young soldier begins a perilous journey as the war escalates between the human race and the angels that are hell-bent on destroying humanity. Dominion is produced by Universal Cable Productions and Bold Films.