Is this the wave of the future: Video games and TV series?

From the NYT:

Video games adapted from movies and television shows are, with a few notable exceptions, uniformly terrible. Movies adapted from video games are even worse. Think — or try not to — of “Super Mario Bros.,” starring Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo and Dennis Hopper, or of “Street Fighter,” starring Jean-Claude Van Damme and Raul Julia.

As for live-action television series inspired by video games, there haven’t been enough to ascertain a trend, even by the meager standards required for critical trendspotting. But if “Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?” — a PBS game show for children from the early 1990s — is the exemplar of the form, we’re not looking at something with a long tradition of excellence.

So “Defiance,” a new series on Syfy that will have its premiere on Monday, and Defiance, the new video game from Trion Worlds that made its debut last week, will face considerable skepticism from viewers and players. But this joint project is worth paying attention to, even if it can’t be deemed a success just yet.

Stephanie Leonidas in a scene from the new television series “Defiance,” to be broadcast on Syfy

In an unusual arrangement, neither the show nor the video game is a spinoff of the other. Instead, in a process that took five years and three contracts between Syfy and Trion Worlds, the fictional world of Defiance is a collaboration between the companies. The series and the game were developed simultaneously. Each is designed to be a stand-alone piece of entertainment. Yet they also intersect. Events in the show will influence the game. And events in the game will influence the show.

“You have to play the game in real time,” between episodes of the series, “to get the fullest experience,” said Kevin Murphy, an executive producer for the show.

The article suggests that neither the TV series nor the video game in itself is terribly entertaining…

In combination, however, “Defiance” and Defiance are promising experiments. The first two characters seen in the television pilot — Joshua Nolan and his adopted alien daughter, Irisa Nyira (played by Stephanie Leonidas), begin as characters in the video game. Missions that players can carry out alongside Nolan and Irisa will be removed from the game when the series begins next week. The goal, Mr. Murphy said, is for the show and the game to pass characters back and forth freely.

After each of the first television season’s 13 episodes, a similar series of missions will be introduced into the game, and then retired by the time the next episode starts. After an episode about a plague, for instance, players will have to figure out how to cure the pandemic.

In a decade, might we look back at this particular marriage of media as the start of The Next Big Thing? Or simply a passing fancy?

What do you think?

For more of the article, go here.

And THR with more: NBCU’s $100M Gamble on Syfy’s “Defiance”.