New in town (from left): Tony Curran and Jaime Murray as Datak and Stahma Tarr. (Ben Mark Holzberg/Syfy)
Here’s a scene from the video game “Defiance.” (
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There’s no more engaged audience than video gamers, eyes glued to the screen, hands riveted to the controls for hours at a time, only lifting their heads from their keyboards long enough to grab another handful of Cheetos or a sip of Coke.
TV programmers long for that kind of loyalty.
That’s why, five years ago, SyFy set out to create “Defiance,” the first TV show to be developed in tandem with a massively multiplayer online (MMO) video game. To accomplish this lofty goal, SyFy partnered with video-game developer Trion Worlds, maker of “Rift.” On Monday, at 9 p.m., the world will have a chance to experience the result.
Creating a TV show from scratch is tricky, but developing a video game is arguably trickier. “The game is not called an MMO for nothing,” says Dave Howe, Syfy’s president. “It’s taken five years to build. There are hundreds of different characters and species.”
Making sure both entities could exist independently while remaining deeply integrated was a daunting task. It’s possible to play Defiance, the game, which became available for PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation on April 2, without ever seeing the TV show, which debuts tomorrow night, while a sci-fi fan could thoroughly enjoy the series without ever setting foot in the game. Both versions of the story are set in the same world.
“We want to make sure that we don’t force the audience and the fans to participate in both the TV show and the game if they don’t want to,” says show executive producer Kevin Murphy. “But if you are a super fan and you immerse yourself in both sides, there are greater rewards.”
The world of “Defiance,” the series, is set in a small town in an area where St. Louis, and its signature arch, once stood. The post-apocalyptic Earth Republic has been terraformed — sci-fi lingo for reshaping a planet’s topography — and occupied by seven alien species who have taken their places among humans. Some of the races have integrated in a mostly civilized way; others pose constant threats.
The series stars Grant Bowler, the Australian actor who played Richard Burton opposite Lindsay Lohan in the “Liz & Dick” Lifetime TV movie, as Joshua Nolan, a Han Solo-like character who lives on the periphery of society but quickly gets entangled in Defiance’s politics and problems.
Nolan has an adopted alien daughter, Irisa (Stephanie Leonidas), with red hair and a strange-looking nose. Murphy calls Nolan “the science fiction version of Ryan O’Neal in ‘Paper Moon’ with his snarky alien daughter who helps him rip people off.”
“ ‘Defiance’ is a really strange piece to me,” says Bowler, who joined the show well before a final pilot script had been written. “It’s true sci-fi, but it doesn’t read like that. There’s something about it that’s a blend of genres.”
His character lives on the edge of the law, although he’s not exactly a criminal. “The most fun I can have as an actor is playing what I call ‘impact characters.’ Those characters are an incredible amount of fun,” Bowler says.
“I want to cause as much drama as I can before they put a bullet in me,” says Bowler with a laugh.
While the series focuses on the town and the humans’ struggle with the Votans, the video game is set in San Francisco and involves a different set of characters.
“The world of San Francisco Bay and the game is a lot more dangerous and violent. It has more cutting-edge technology and a bigger Votan presence,” Murphy says. “Our town, Defiance, is a sleepy backwater with a rustic feel to it. We want to tell melting-pot character stories and we don’t want this intense level of violence. A TV show that felt like a video game would be a very boring show. And if a video game had long scenes about people talking about betrayal and honor, players would get really bored of that.”
And here’s a little trick that gamers will love: “We’ll give help to the gamers by offering clues in the TV show,” says Murphy.
Players of the video game are asked to take on tasks that ultimately affect the residents of “Defiance,” the TV show. For example, at one point a plague hits the town, and its denizens ask the outside world for help. A vaccine arrives by missile — it’s been sent by a player in the game.
“In the show, you don’t need to know how the rocket got there. You just know that a rocket is coming in,” says Murphy. “If you are playing the game, it’s very germane. You are viewing what’s happening from a very different perspective.”
“We’ve created these crossover events in the game and in the TV series. Some are subtle, others are profound,” says Howe.
As both properties prepare to premiere, Syfy’s Howe says everyone is finally ready to put them in front of the public after so many years in development.
“We haven’t made any compromises. If you spin something off you have to retrofit it, but we’ve created these two on parallel tracks. We’ve made no compromises other than to understand what you can do in a game and in a TV series.”
DEFIANCE
Monday, 9 p.m., Syfy