Dominion has all the earmarks of a ”good” SyFy series – you know, not the Saturday night dreck, not the quirky, jokey, self-referential stuff like Eureka or Warehouse 13 (RIP, guys), and not even the half-decent, oddly soft-edged Canadian imports like Lost Girl or Bitten. This promises to be one of the standouts like Battlestar Galactica or Stargate SG:1. Just like Defiance or Helix were supposed to and most emphatically weren’t.

The clips and trailers show us one thing for sure: it’s visually one of the most impressive things SyFy’s done in years, head-and-shoulders above the game-graphics of Defiance.  There’s also a wonderfully twisted scenario in there, about a whole lot of violently pissed-off angels working out their political problems on a devastated earth. Brang it own.

The oddest part of all of this is its origin in Legion, an actually pretty cool little apocalypse-in-a-diner film from 2010 starring Paul Bettany as the buffest angel you’ll ever see, Dennis Quaid in his now patented role as a rumple-y diner owner. And Adrianne Palicki, the Wonder Woman who never was, has never been better than she is here as the unexpected, undeserving mother of the Earth’s last, best hope.

A host (not heavenly, just a host) of great actors that have gone on to bigger and better are on hand here, too, including Tyrese Gibson, Charles S. Dutton, Jon Tenney and even Kate Walsh of Private Practice (have you seen her turn as a greedy stripper-widow in Fargo? You have to love this woman.)

If ever a film deserved a cult following, Legion does, but it only made about $40 mil on a $26 mil budget – not bad, but nothing awesome. And if you ask most moderately well-informed horror fans  about it today, the answer’s likely to be “Legion?  Oh, yeah, that was pretty good. Huh.”

Until now…and even weirder, it’s actually kind of hard to find legitimately. Not on Netflix Streaming, not on Amazon Instant Video. You can buy it but you can’t download it. And the Dominion story does pick up years after and miles away from the opening events of the angel-war, so there don’t seem to be any continuing characters or actors – at least not yet (hey, we can hope for an Palicki or Bettany cameo, can’t we?).

Early signs are encouraging. Scott Stewart, the director and co-writer of the original Legion, is an exec producer here and directed the pilot.  (Her also, interestingly enough, directed Priest, Dark Skies, and the two-part pilot for Defiance not so long ago). He’s also a long-time special effects dude for a lot of class projects, so it seems as if we’re in good hands. It’s certainly worth a look, beginning Thursday June 19 at 9:00 pm on SyFy.

There’s also one other positive point: the reviewer from The Hollywood Reporter hates it. He called it “one of the dumbest, worst-acted, most poorly written series I’ve seen in ages. In no way should this encourage you to tune in hoping to rubberneck this bit of awfulness in hopes of creating some kind of new drinking game…The whole planet could be wiped out. Or drunk. Speaking of drunk — who thought “Dominion” was a good idea? Life’s too short. And you will choke on your own vomit and die alone. Don’t be a hero.”

For that reason alone, we’re feeling positive — so positive we’ll be recapping Dominion starting Friday morning. After all, that worked out so well with Believe…

Meanwhile, watch Dominion and let us know what you think. Oh, and another season of Defiance premieres just before it, at 8:00 pm on SyFy. So…there’s that.