Starting with pilot programs in eight Asian and African nations, the ambitious project ultimately is intended to inoculate more than 30 million girls in more than 40 countries by 2020. Given that most women killed by cervical cancer live in developing countries, the project could have a huge impact.

The endeavor was announced Thursday by the GAVI Alliance, a public-private partnership that's worked with drugmakers to deliver affordable vaccines to poor countries to treat childhood illnesses that are big killers.

"This is a transformational moment for the health of women and girls across the world," said Dr. Seth Berkley, CEO of GAVI, which is short for Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization.

"A vast gap currently exists between girls in rich and poor countries. With GAVI's programs we can begin to bridge that gap so that all girls can be protected against cervical cancer no matter where they are born," he said in a statement.

Drugmakers Merck & Co. and GlaxoSmithKline PLC initially will provide 2.4 million doses of their vaccines against cancer-causing human papilloma virus for a fraction of the cost commanded in Western countries.

Merck will supply its Gardasil for $4.50 per dose, and Glaxo its Cervarix for $4.60 per dose. In the U.S., the shots cost well over $100 apiece, and a three-dose series over six months is required.

The vaccines protect against the strains of human papilloma virus, or HPV, that most commonly cause cancer. The virus, transmitted during sex, causes cervical cancer as well as vaginal, vulvar, anal and oral cancers. The vaccines prevent roughly 70 percent of those cancers.

In developed countries, older girls and women routinely get Pap tests to check for cervical cancer or signs of precancerous changes in cervical tissue. They're treated promptly, often before cancer begins, and few die. And increasingly, young girls and now boys as well are vaccinated with either Gardisil or Cervarix, starting as young as age 9 so they're protected well before they become sexually active.

Not so in poor countries.

"They don't have the benefit of screening to catch cancer early, when it can still be treated," Dr. Julie L. Gerberding, president of Merck Vaccines, said in an interview.

As a result, 85 percent of the 275,000 women killed by cervical cancer each year live in poor countries, where HPV is most prevalent.

"It is a disease that has devastating, life-threatening consequences and it is preventable," said Gerberding, an infectious diseases expert who's a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "Our aim is to do what we can to make the vaccine available."

The GAVI project will begin "demonstration projects" administering the vaccines to girls aged 9 to 13, starting in Kenya as early as this month. Then it will be expanded to Ghana, Laos, Madagascar, Malawi, Niger, Sierra Leone and Tanzania.

The goal is for the governments of those countries to show they can set up a national system with medical staff, clinic supplies, distribution systems and supply management all well organized to provide the vaccines over the long term. The program also will bring an opportunity to teach the girls about nutrition, sexual health and HIV prevention.

Already, GAVI is planning to provide the shots nationwide in Rwanda, starting next year.

Merck, based in Whitehouse Station, N.J., is providing 93 percent of the shots initially. It's also agreed to provide more shots at an even-lower price in the future, if higher volumes of vaccines are ordered, as that would reduce production costs.

Merck and Britain's GlaxoSmithKline are among the world's biggest makers of vaccines, and both have long provided many for free or at discounted prices to health programs in poor countries.

GAVI also will work with the heavy hitters of global health and development groups, including the CDC, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Bank. Other partners include the charities, corporations and 18 wealthy countries that help fund GAVi.

In the U.S., the vaccines have become steady money makers since they were launched a half-dozen years ago, but they haven't turned into the mega-sellers initially envisioned.

That's partly because of their high price here, but also because of political fights. Some conservative groups opposed the vaccines, arguing that giving adolescents a vaccine to protect them against a virus transmitted by sexual activity would encourage it.

___

Follow Linda A. Johnson at http://twitter.com/LindaJ_onPharma

Proponents of gun control also asserted that they are in their fight for the long haul and have not been disheartened by last month's defeat of a bill that would have expanded background checks for gun sales.

The debate over gun control legislation has reached a fever pitch in the wake of December's mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in which 20 first-graders and six educators were killed. The expanded background checks bill supported by President Barack Obama and other lawmakers in response to the Connecticut shooting failed to pass in the Senate.

During a fiery and defiant speech Saturday, Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre, the public face of the NRA, said the "political and media elites" have tried to use Sandy Hook and other recent shootings "to blame us, to shame us, to compromise our freedom for their agenda." He said the proposed bill "got the defeat that it deserved" and that the measure would do nothing to prevent the next mass shooting.

"We will never surrender our guns, never," LaPierre told several thousand people during the organization's annual member meeting, which is part of the yearly NRA convention being held this weekend in Houston. More than 70,000 NRA members are expected to attend the three-day convention, which began Friday. Acres of displays of rifles, pistols, swords and hunting gear could be found inside the convention hall.

James Porter, the incoming NRA president, said Obama's gun control efforts have created a "political spontaneous combustion" that has prompted millions of Americans to become first-time gun owners and created a national outrage that will manifest itself in next year's midterm elections.

"The Senate and House are up for grabs," Porter said during Saturday's meeting. "We can direct this massive energy of spontaneous combustion to regain the political high ground. We do that and Obama can be stopped."

LaPierre said the NRA now has a record 5 million members, but he urged for increased membership and added that it "must be 10 million strong" in its battle against gun control.

Meanwhile, across the street from the convention, advocates of expanded background checks and other gun control measures vowed to continue their fight.

Kellye Bowman of the Houston chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, a national grassroots effort promoting gun control that was started after the Sandy Hook shooting, said her organization was not discouraged by last month's failure of the gun control bill. She said its defeat actually increased her group's membership.

Bowman, who described herself as a fifth generation Texan who grew up shooting guns, said her group's primary focus now is meeting with legislators and supporting those who agree with their efforts and using the ballot box to remove those that don't.

"We can turn any mom into an activist. They need to start listening to us," said Bowman, who was among more than 60 protesters who had gathered Saturday afternoon across the street from the convention.

Many of the protesters held up signs that read: "Texans For Smart Gun Regulations" and "90% Want A Background Check," a reference to recent polls that have shown that up to 90 percent of Americans are in favor of expanded background checks.

Another of the protesters, Caleb Rogers, 33, a residential appraiser from Houston, said he doesn't believe the NRA is unstoppable.

"I think their time will come when they have to listen to common sense and do what's right for the country," he said. "I think someday, maybe not today or tomorrow or the next decade, but someday we'll get there, where there is a little common sense about what kinds of weapons we want on the streets."

Gun control supporters have promised to keep pressing the issue and have made significant strides at the state level, including passing new restrictions on firearms in Colorado and Connecticut.

LaPierre implored lawmakers to direct their efforts at enforcing current federal gun laws and sending violent criminals who break them to prison, instead of focusing on new gun control legislation.

But LaPierre added the NRA is preparing for "round two" of the gun control fight.

"They are coming after us with a vengeance to destroy us and every ounce of our freedom," he said. "It's up to us, every single gun owner, every American to get to work right now and meet them head-on."

___

Follow Juan A. Lozano at http://www.twitter.com/juanlozano70 .

Celebrating his 26th birthday, Yamaha rider Lorenzo, who was also fastest in Friday practice, set a best time of one minute 38.67 seconds at the sun-drenched Jerez circuit, with Pedrosa clocking 1:38.92 and Honda team mate Marquez 1:38.971.

Cal Crutchlow of Britain was fourth fastest on his Yamaha ahead of the third race of the season and the first in Europe with a time of 1:39.26 followed by Italian former world champion Valentino Rossi, also on a Yamaha, in 1:39.30.

Lorenzo's job was made easier after Pedrosa, Marquez, Crutchlow and Rossi all suffered crashes during an incident-packed afternoon.

Lorenzo and rookie Marquez top the championship standings on 41 points after two races, with Pedrosa on 33, Rossi on 30 and Crutchlow on 24. (Writing by Iain Rogers in Madrid, editing by Ed Osmond)

Derek Ernst wins play-off at the first extra hole

280 Derek Ernst (U.S.) 67 71 72 70

280 David Lynn (Britain) 71 68 71 70

281 Phil Mickelson (U.S.)68 67 73 73

282 Lee Westwood (Britain) 70 68 72 72

Robert Karlsson (Sweden) 69 72 69 72

283 Kyle Stanley (U.S.)74 68 73 68

Bo Van Pelt (U.S.) 74 70 68 71

Kevin Streelman (U.S.) 68 72 71 72

Ryan Moore (U.S.)67 75 68 73

284 Ross Fisher (Britain)70 71 73 70

Charles Howell III (U.S.)72 72 69 71

Vaughn Taylor (U.S.) 70 72 71 71

Rory McIlroy (Britain) 67 71 73 73

Brian Harman (U.S.)70 70 71 73

Nick Watney (U.S.) 67 70 71 76

285 Luke List (U.S.) 71 75 71 68

Henrik Norlander (Sweden)74 70 69 72

Lee Dong-Hwan (South Korea)72 71 69 73

Sergio Garcia (Spain)72 68 72 73

D.A. Points (U.S.) 71 69 71 74

George McNeill (U.S.)69 68 72 76

286 John Rollins (U.S.)69 74 72 71

Jimmy Walker (U.S.)71 72 73 70

Scott Gardiner (Australia) 70 67 76 73

John Merrick (U.S.)74 71 68 73

John Senden (Australia)70 73 67 76

287 Robert Garrigus (U.S.) 67 72 75 73

Brian Davis (Britain)72 74 69 72

Shawn Stefani (U.S.) 69 73 72 73

Robert Allenby (Australia) 76 70 71 70

Lucas Glover (U.S.)68 71 73 75

288 Jordan Spieth (U.S.) 69 71 75 73

Josh Teater (U.S.) 72 73 71 72

Webb Simpson (U.S.)70 74 71 73

Ted Potter Jr. (U.S.)71 70 75 72

Pat Perez (U.S.) 76 69 72 71

Patrick Reed (U.S.)70 74 73 71

289 James Driscoll (U.S.)70 72 73 74

Martin Flores (U.S.) 73 71 72 73

Bud Cauley (U.S.)70 73 73 73

Geoff Ogilvy (Australia) 74 72 71 72

Scott Brown (U.S.) 74 71 75 69

290 Daniel Summerhays (U.S.) 67 73 75 75

Lee Williams (U.S.)73 71 71 75

Richard Lee (U.S.) 73 70 72 75

David Hearn (Canada) 69 72 75 74

Russell Henley (U.S.)69 71 73 77

Rod Pampling (Australia) 69 69 74 78

Brendon De Jonge (Zimbabwe)74 71 72 73

291 Chris Kirk (U.S.)72 71 72 76

Peter Tomasulo (U.S.)71 73 72 75

Ryo Ishikawa (Japan) 73 73 71 74

Stuart Appleby (Australia) 71 71 75 74

Jason Kokrak (U.S.)68 70 73 80

James Hahn (U.S.)72 74 72 73

Nate Smith (U.S.)67 74 77 73

Tommy Gainey (U.S.)74 72 73 72

292 Dicky Pride (U.S.) 71 71 75 75

Boo Weekley (U.S.) 68 75 77 72

Trevor Immelman (South Africa) 70 72 78 72

293 Steve Marino (U.S.)71 72 73 77

Gary Woodland (U.S.) 70 73 74 76

Steven Bowditch (Australia)69 76 73 75

Will Claxton (U.S.)73 73 73 74

294 Zach Johnson (U.S.)68 72 77 77

Roberto Castro (U.S.)71 73 74 76

Hunter Haas (U.S.) 75 71 73 75

295 Casey Wittenberg (U.S.)73 71 74 77

Matteo Manassero (Italy) 71 75 73 76

Brad Fritsch (Canada)71 72 77 75

297 Angel Cabrera (Argentina)73 69 75 80

302 Luke Guthrie (U.S.)74 69 75 84

The catch is that any video game that isn't a complete flop gets a follow-up these days. And as "Dead Island Riptide" (Deep Silver, for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, $49.99; PC, $39.99) begins, the zombie virus has infected the ship that rescued the survivors and they soon wash up on another undead-infested tropical paradise, called Palanai.

So it's time for the old gang Rapper Sam B, hotel clerk Xian, ex-cop Purna and jock Logan, along with a newbie, a Navy cook named John to sharpen their machetes and get back to work. You can play as any one of the quintet, and you can team up with friends online to try to even the odds against the ravenous hordes.

The core zombies, called Walkers, are easy to kill mano-a-mano but can take you down quickly if they gang up on you. Other creatures can strike from a distance, throwing explosives or vomiting acid. The Suiciders, who explode if you get too close, are the deadliest until you scrounge up some firearms. The most troublesome new "Riptide" monster is the Screamer, whose wails render you briefly confused and powerless.

Your weapons start off simple say, a baseball bat or a kitchen knife but as you explore Palanai, you'll discover more effective tools of destruction, from machetes to machine guns. "Riptide" also carries over the original game's clever weapon-crafting system, so you can create increasingly baroque devices like an electrified samurai sword.

This is not a moody character drama like Telltale's "The Walking Dead," the landmark episodic game that won so many industry awards last year. Indeed, it's closer in spirit to the awful "Walking Dead" game Activision published this year it's all about the thrill of lopping undead heads clean off. The unapologetic gore and squishy sound effects are amusing for a while, but start to get old after about five or six hours.

That's when you realize "Riptide" is essentially the same game as its two-year-old parent. There are a few new additions, like motorboats you can maneuver around Palanai's swamps, but almost every mission is the same: get from point A to point B without getting eaten. A handful of sieges, in which all the characters defend a base from undead swarms, break up the monotony, but too often I found myself asking, "This again?"

Deep Silver is justifying the repetition by pitching "Riptide" as an expansion of the "Dead Island" world rather than a true sequel; perhaps its creator, the Polish studio Techland, has some genuine innovations up its sleeve for "Dead Island 2." But that doesn't excuse the fact that "Riptide" is beset by the same glitches that marred the original, including graphical hiccups, goofy artificial intelligence, inconsistent maps and disappearing inventory items.

Despite such sloppiness as well as plotting that's ridiculous even by zombie-story standards "Riptide" is amusing in spurts, especially if you can gather an online posse to deal with the hungry hordes. Still, I wish Techland had spent some time addressing the series' problems rather than just shoveling out more of the same. Two stars out of four.

___

Online:

http://deadisland.deepsilver.com/

___

Follow Lou Kesten on Twitter at http://twitter.com/lkesten

Plenty.

Let me start with the drunks and new parents. Monday night I boarded a very delayed flight fromto . Behind me were four 20/30-somethings boisterously swigging from "coffee" cups. (Our gate was across from a Cantina and you could practically smell the tequila in their paper cups.)

As the boarding continued they grew increasingly animated. Their frenetic energy seemed to wind up not just each other but everyone around them. Fellow passengers were visibly agitated.

Just before the plane doors closed, a young couple came on with a sleeping baby. The last two open seats were amongst this motley crew.

Suddenly, everything changed.

The presence of the earnest and exhausted parents had an immediate calming effect on both the inebriated passengers and those around them. It was as if a mirror had been placed in the center of the plane to remind us all of our humanity.

Enter, Jo Piazza's delicious new book, .

To me, this book is the figurative version of the newborn's parents getting on the plane. It serves as a mirror reflecting back the reality what's in the "coffee" cups of the celebrity scene.

That got me wondering what other financial lessons the author of Celebrity, Inc. might have stumbled across while writing this fascinating book. Thankfully, Jo Piazza was willing to share with us...

Q: Of the celebrities you profile in Celebrity, Inc. whose money attitude were you most impressed with and why?

(2) What surprised you the most about the money habits you observed during your Celebrity, Inc. research?

(3) What personal finance lessons do you think the rest of us can take away from the way famous people live their lives?

In many ways our celebrity culture is like a group of chaotic drunk people. It lurches rapidly from one topic and fad to the next. In the heat of the excitement money can feel like no object. But the financial hangover of being, or trying to emulate, that lifestyle can result in a serious financial crash.

So pick up a copy of Celebrity, Inc. and tell me what you think. Does our national obsession with the lifestyles of the rich and famous ever cause you to do things with your money that you later regret?

[This post originally appeared at .] For more MoneyZen in your life, follow Manisha on Twitter aton Facebook ator sign up to receive Manisha's MoneyZen blog via email .

Yes, the world of "Defiance" features familiar sci-fi touchstones, but it's taken an ambitious approach to how you can experience them: Through both a weekly TV series and an online-only video game.

Five years in the making, the joint project is the most high-profile and big-budget attempt at ongoing "transmedia" entertainment, promising characters and storylines that crisscross between the Syfy network show and Trion Worlds game.

Set in 2046 on a "terraformed" Earth where humans live alongside seven alien species, the series premiering Monday displays a space Western vibe with bar brawls, interspecies politics and love, plus actors familiar to genre fans like Julie Benz and Jaime Murray. The already-released game, a multiplayer third-person shooter, has plenty of guns to upgrade, quests for supplies, and boss battles in which players cooperate to bring down giant monsters.

Though they can be experienced separately, somebody who both plays the game and watches the show will gain an extra layer of insight to each, promises actor Grant Bowler, who appears in both. Bowler said he was impressed and a bit wary of that idea when he signed on to play lead Joshua "Jeb" Nolan, who becomes "lawkeeper" of the city of St. Louis, renamed Defiance by survivors.

"I thought 'Gee, this thing is either going to change the business model of how we make television, and add a new one, or we're going to go screaming down in flames,'" he said. "But either is -- funnily enough -- fine with me."

It's a strategy fraught with challenges. Time and again, games based on successful series or movies have flopped, as have movies or series based on hit games.

"When you take the synthesis of the game and the show together, you're at a whole new level of excitement, you're at a whole new level of difficulty," Bowler said in an interview. "You also increase your chances of blowing it exponentially. Because it's not like one plus one. It's more you're cubing the level of difficulty. Which is why nobody has ever attempted to do it in as integrated a way as we've done it before."

Bowler began his work on the project by doing motion-capture performance for the game-makers. They asked how his character would act before he'd had a chance to consult with a show-runner or writer, "which is odd for an actor. You're used to having a director ... Here it was the lunatics were running the asylum."

Since then, each company created new positions in order to pass information along to the other and bring their production schedules into harmony.

There still were "a lot of occasions" in which ideas put forth by one company were shot down by the other for technical reasons, Bowler said. And at least at first, there's no "interactive" storytelling in which players' choices or actions cause substantive show changes from week to week: Choose Your Own Adventure TV.

"The nature of incorporating ... two very, very different delivery systems is incredibly problematic," Bowler said. "How you would do it in a more immediate, spontaneous way, I don't know. I think maybe our experience, what we're attempting to do, will move us closer to being able to see that idea."

___

Online:

http://www.defiance.com

____

Follow Ryan Pearson at http://www.twitter.com/ryanwrd

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A list of tentative tax reform options was floated on Thursday in the Senate, including repealing the alternative minimum tax and requiring insurers to report more financial data, along with a range of modest administrative improvements.

Focused largely on making the Internal Revenue Service and the tax system generally more efficient, the nine-page list was being circulated among lobbyists and members of the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee. It was obtained by Reuters.

Max Baucus, the committee's Democratic chairman, has said he hopes to produce tax reform legislation this year, along with his Republican counterpart in the House of Representatives, Ways & Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp.

Analysts said the options in the Senate document were fairly small steps that would go only a short way toward streamlining the massive and highly complex tax code.

Still, the document said it was "the first in a series of papers compiling tax reform options that finance committee members may wish to consider." More, tackling more complex topics, are expected in coming weeks.

The document said the options listed were not endorsed by either Baucus or the committee's top Republican. Other options included requiring better data collection by banks and revoking passports for seriously delinquent taxpayers.

The prospects for a comprehensive tax code rewrite - which has not been accomplished since 1986 - are murky. Democrats and Republicans are deeply divided over tax-and-spending policy, as well as the future role and size of the federal government.

One problem targeted is the tax gap, or the tens of billions of dollars in taxes that go uncollected each year.

The document also lists as an option a repeal of the individual and corporate alternative minimum tax systems, parallel tax regimes that ensure a minimum tax is paid.

Another option listed is repeal of two provisions that seek to limit tax benefits for high income taxpayers, known as the personal exemption phase-out (PEP) and the phase-out of itemized deductions, known as Pease.

Both of these provisions were included in the New Year's Day fiscal cliff legislation. The phase-out of personal exemptions and itemized deductions apply to couples with income above $300,000, or individual income above $250,000.

(Additional reporting by Patrick Temple-West; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick)

It also, according to Nigerian authorities, could spark violence and potentially threaten national security.

The 30-minute film called "Fuelling Poverty" has been online for months, but only recently Nigerian officials have refused its director permission to show it publicly in this oil-rich nation of more than 160 million people. While free speech is enshrined in this democratic nation's constitution, an ever-increasing drumbeat of complaints and critical articles about the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan has seen authorities increasingly target journalists and others.

The film, sponsored by Soros Foundation's Open Society Justice Initiative for West Africa, focuses on the protests around Jonathan's decision to remove subsidies on gasoline in January 2012. Life in Nigeria ground to a halt before unions backed down. Later, a report by lawmakers demanded businesses and government agencies to return some $6.7 billion over the subsidy program.

Ishaya Bako, who directed the film that features civil rights activists and Nobel Prize laureate Wole Soyinka, later applied for the right to show the film publicly. In a letter dated April 8, Nigeria's National Film and Video Censors Board told Bako that the documentary was "prohibited for exhibition in Nigeria."

"I am further to inform you that this decision is due to the fact that the contents of the film are highly provocative and likely to incite or encourage public disorder and undermine national security," the letter signed by board lawyer Effiong Inwang reads. "Please you are strongly advised not to distribute or exhibit the documentary film. All relevant national security agencies are on the alert."

Tanko Abdullahi, a spokesman for the board, initially told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the film wasn't banned, but was "denied classification." Later, in the same conversation, he acknowledged it couldn't be shown over unspecified "security issues."

"What is national security for Nigeria is different from that of the U.S.A.," Abdullahi said. "We made that determination because of the content of the film. That's why you have regulators."

The government's decision has seen more people watch the film online. It also has sparked outrage from human rights activists and press freedom groups.

"Instead of banning the documentary 'Fuelling Poverty,' authorities should look into the important questions it raises about corruption and impunity in the country's oil sector and at the highest levels of government," Mohamed Keita, an official with the Committee to Protect Journalists, said in a statement. "We urge Nigeria's National Film and Video Censors Board to overturn this censorship order."

The move to ban the film comes as Jonathan's government, which many voted for believing he would change the engrained interests and corruption of Nigeria's government, has grown increasingly unpopular as extremists carry out bombings and the state-run power company cannot offer stable electricity. During the strikes, government officials put increasing pressure on broadcasters not to show images of protests, which at one point saw tens of thousands in the streets of Lagos.

Today, journalists at a newspaper face forgery charges over a story that claimed the presidency would try to disrupt opposition parties. Security agencies have harassed reporters at a weekly newspaper that wrote about abuses by the military in its crackdown against Islamic extremists. And workers who ran a call-in radio show in the northern city of Kano face charges over talking about rumors surrounding polio vaccinations in the wake of at least nine women vaccinators being killed.

Despite the outcry, however, the apparent crackdown continues, only fueling more of the same apathy for Nigeria's government seen by those featured in the documentary.

"We don't have government. It's a whole big banana republic," barber Emmanuel Tom Ekin says in the film. "They've been coming telling us story all the time, deceiving us. And right now, in our faces, they are still deceiving us."

___

Online:

The "Fuelling Poverty" documentary: www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVq10BwzQoI

___

Jon Gambrell can be reached at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP .

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Science-fiction drama "Defiance" wants to go where no television series has gone before, weaving a show with an online video game to achieve the elusive goal of parlaying success on one entertainment platform to another.

The new series, which premieres on U.S. cable channel Syfy on April 15, tells the story of frontier town Defiance, formerly St. Louis, in the near future following a 30-year war between humans and seven alien races.

Syfy last week released a multi-player, plot-based video game, developed with Trion Worlds, that lets users build their own personas and explore the landscape of a reshaped Earth in the San Francisco area. The game is made for Sony's PlayStation 3, Microsoft's Xbox360 and PC.

Spinning a film or TV series into a video game, or vice versa, is nothing new. But producers say "Defiance" is the first to weave both game and show together at the same time. The video game alone took some five years to create.

Known in the entertainment industry as the "second screen," the concept lets viewers engage with a show on a second platform on which networks pin hopes for additional advertising sales and cementing a dedicated fan base.

"What's unusual about what we're doing ... is we're building the second-screen concept into the actual DNA of the show-game combo," "Defiance" executive producer Kevin Murphy told Reuters.

"We're working to make a terrific serialized drama that stands on its own, but we understand that what has people watching us is the fact that this cross-platform promotional is something very, very desirable."

"Defiance" will be a guinea pig for the viability of merging media like video games with TV shows.

"Nobody has done this before, that's the scary part," he said. "The wonderful part is that there's nobody to say, 'No, no, no, that's not the way it's done.

"It's something (Syfy President) Dave Howe always refers to as the holy grail of entertainment," he added.

Syfy spent about $100 million to develop the game and show, and the network expects about 20 percent of viewers and players to cross over between the two platforms.

"We're very cautiously optimistic," Howe said, adding that it will still take the standard four or five weeks to know if "Defiance" will be renewed for a second season.

'OLD-SCHOOL' SCI-FI

The "Defiance" cast is led by ex-Marine and vagabond Nolan, played by "Liz & Dick" star Grant Bowler, and his adopted alien daughter Irisa (Stephanie Leonidas).

The two finally become tied down helping Defiance Mayor Amanda Rosewater (Julie Benz) defend the town from invasion.

Murphy, whose past credits include writer and producer on TV drama "Desperate Housewives," said there are plans for several crossovers between the series and game, including adapting user-created personas from the game into subsequent seasons of the television show.

Murphy said he wanted to depart from the recent popular television series of dark, dystopian sci-fi, such as AMC's "Walking Dead" and Syfy's "Battlestar Galactica."

"I think this is sort of a tip of the hat more to the old-school science-fiction like 'Star Trek' and 'Star Wars,' which were very hopeful, optimistic worlds," Murphy said.

The show often reflects American challenges of an ethnically diverse and often divided society.

In the pilot, polyglot alliances are tricky as humans and some races of aliens must reluctantly brush aside differences to protect the town from automatons known as the Volge.

"On our show, the aliens are not invading us," Murphy said. "The aliens are part of the melting pot .... They each have their own sort of social mores that they left behind and have been challenged because they've come to a new world."

Syfy is a unit of Comcast Corp.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey, editing by Jill Serjeant and Cynthia Osterman)