Defiance
SyFy has a new series coming out called Defiance. This is the first time in as long while that I’ve been really intrigued about sa new SyFy series. The last time was Stargate Universe, and we all know how that ended. Last year everyone was interested in the fantasy characters in the real world shows, this year looks like it is shaping up to be the post-apocalyptic year. With December 21st 2012 quickly approaching go figure. On a side note, way to be ahead of the curve Steven Spielberg’s Falling Skies!
Defiance is set 35 years in the future. An alien craft full of refugees, animals and terraforming gear has crashed and terraformed the Earth. Humans and Aliens must now share a completely reformed earth, and as we all know humans aren’t too good at sharing.
Now the interesting and worrying part about Defiance is its multiplatform nature.   You see its not just a TV show, but also an MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) game. Events in the series will shape the MMO world, and things players do in the MMO will affect the TV show. This sounds really cool, but I also wonder just how dedicated they will remain to allow game events to affect their series once the writers get their story arcs in place and production starts down that line. How quickly will they be able to adjust the TV show’s production to fit events in the MMO, or will it simply be impossible to keep up with the online gaming community? Comedy Central’s Southpark manages to produce a single episode from idea conception to final product in 6 days. But they are using fairly simply drawn characters and have a handful of actors doing the voices, and this is an astonishing feat. I can’t imagine a live action series that has to build sets and do an enormous amount of post production effects being able to have a turn around like that. Plus with the show only on for 20(?) weeks out of the year, and the MMO going year round will they be able to do the traditional end the season on a cliff hanger? I don’t see how as there are no telling what changes might take place in the MMO for the rest of the year.
You also have to take into account that we are talking about the online gaming community here. A lot of these guys/girls live on getting around things in games and would love to do anything they can to make the series writer’s have to jump through hoops to fit something in to the TV show.
I applaud SyFy and the Defiance production team on trying something new and innovative, but I just don’t see how this could possibly be managed properly. Unless the MMO is so locked down with what affect gamers can have on the series, that nothing they do has any real or lasting impact on the show. If that is the case I can’t see the game lasting very long.
I’ll be tuning in to see how the show fares, as it does sound like an interesting premise of for a series. I don’t really have time for an MMO, so I’ll have to hear how that goes from the gamming community.
