Who followed Supernatural knows well that the series experienced a decisive turning point with the arrival of angeli. The episode “Lazarus is resurrected”, opening of the fourth season, introduces Castiel and definitively opens the doors to a broader, mythological and ambitious imaginationin which the battle between Good and Evil is no longer fought only in American motels but on a cosmic scale. From that moment, Supernatural it stops being just a road trip horror series and becomes an epic tale of the war between Heaven, Hell and humanity.
Yet, not everyone knows that a few years earlier the Syfy channel had already tried to go even further with Dominiona now almost forgotten series that takes the same premise – the rebellion of angels – and brings it to much more extreme consequences. Se Supernatural often plays on the balance between drama, irony and affection for his characters, Dominion choose instead a darker, more desperate and radical path.
Set in a post-apocalyptic future, the series imagines a world in which God has disappeared and the angels, led by the archangel Gabriel, have decided that humanity is a mistake to be erased. The cities have fallen one after another and the survivors live locked in fortified outposts, such as Vega, built on the ruins of Las Vegas. Here a fragile resistance takes shape, worn down by years of war and by the awareness of fighting against infinitely superior beings.
The protagonist is Alex Lannona young soldier who discovers that he is at the center of a prophecy: he is the key to humanity’s survival. Unlike the Winchesters, Alex is not a hero by choice or vocation. He’s a character crushed by the weight of expectationsforced to grow up quickly in a world that offers no redemption. Dominion he insists a lot on this aspect, showing the psychological consequences of war and the human price of a fight that already seems lost from the start.
An element that makes Dominion his is particularly interesting direct link with cinema. The series is in fact the official sequel to Legionapocalyptic horror directed by Scott Stewart. In the film, the archangel Michael descends to Earth to protect a couple destined to produce the child who will save humanity from annihilation. Dominion starts right from there: Alex is that child, now an adult, and the pilot of the series explicitly continues the events of the film, bringing Stewart back to direct the first episode.
Se Legion was received rather coldly by critics, Dominion manages to expand that world with greater depth. The series focuses less on immediate horror and more on the political, moral and military dynamics of a war against Heaven. Angels are not ambiguous or ironic figures, as often happens in Supernaturalma ruthless entities, convinced they are acting for a greater good. This approach makes the conflict clearer and, in some ways, more disturbing.
Also the cast contributes to giving solidity to the project, with numerous faces known to fans of fantasy and television science fiction. Dominion thus fits into that tradition of ambitious series that have tried to reinvent biblical mythology in a modern key, perhaps paying the price of a vision too dark for the general public. Despite a more positive critical reception than the film from which it derives, the series is canceled after two seasonsleaving many story lines open.
Watched again today, Dominion appears like a sort of television “what if”: what would have happened if the most mythological phase of Supernatural had become the exclusive heart of the story, almost completely renouncing irony and the sense of family? The answer is an imperfect but fascinating series, which dares to raise the stakes to the point of questioning the very idea of salvation. For those who still miss the angelic wars, Dominion it remains a forgotten vision that deserves to be rediscovered.
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