Andromeda To Become Less Complex?

Prehensile Plant writes "After 7 years of Voyager and now the godawful Enterprise, the guy responsible for everything good about Deep Space Nine has just been sacked from the show he developed. Robert Hewitt Wolfe has parted company with the last bastion of scifi for people with half a brain - Andromeda. Wolfe said: "Basically, they want the show to be more action driven, more Dylan-centric, and more episodic. They also want more aliens, more space battles, and less internal conflict among the principal characters. Also, they want a lot less continuity so as not to confuse the casual or new viewer with too much backstory." Slipstream has the full scoop.

Comments

My favorite quote

[LordNimon]

from Sorbo: "Robert is a genius, but was developing stories that were too complicated and too clever for the rest of us to understand."

Translation:

"Despite the fact that the average Sci Fi viewer is ten times more intelligent than the average soap opera viewer, we didn't think they'd be smart enough to follow a complex story line. Also, it doesn't make a difference if the episodes are bad, just as long as more people watch them. Only Star Trek geeks have pride in their work."

Wait on second

[the_2nd_coming]

Also, they want a lot less continuity so as not to confuse the casual or new viewer with too much backstory.

isn't that what sitcoms are for?.....SCiFi is for smart people, not for the retard who watched "Jerry" or the pop culture people who watch "will and grace" or "Survivor"

This is old news.

[wadetemp]

This entire season has already been this way. The loss of a writer isn't going to kick the change into motion... the format change was at the start of this season. It all started with the "improved" theme song, and transgressed into many episodes of Dylan running around, jumping off things, and shooting alot; Trance "confessing" to being a sex slave, Rommie's "bad ass android" episode, etc. Has no one already noticed that none of this is "real" Sci-Fi, but ratings garnish? Still, I like the show just fine. :)

Same guys as EFC?

[GangsterDutchSchultz]

Great, are these the same guys calling the shots with Earth Final Conflict? Every season got worse because they kept of 'fixing' the show. Andromeda isn't broke so DON'T FIX IT. They'll keep the strong ratings by keeping the viewers they earned the first season. The first season was great, the second so far even better. Hope they come to their sences.

Keep Majel happy.

FarscapeFarscapeFarscape...

[OctavianMH]

(as I gingerly step onto my soapbox)

Apparently the poster hasn't really been watching all that sci-fi has to offer of late. Farscape has been and continues to be-

1. Very continuity driven, yet accessible through genuine humor. Enterprise has apparently been passing all of the inhabited planets with jokes on them. Farscape succeeds by making the continuity-heavy bits multi-parters (there've been 2, if memory serves, THREE PART episodes), and the less continuity-heavy parts character driven...so even if you're not quite sure what's going on, the interactions between crew members (whether they're pissed off with each other or having mad sex) makes up for it.

Ah yes, Stargate SG-1 gets continuity points as well. Great show. Nearly every episode feels like a movie in itself (okay, that's just because they're no commercials built in, and it has super high production values, but i'm not complaining!)

2. Full of well-acted changing characters. Emphasis on the _changing_. The only other show I can cite where characters change so dramatically and _believably_ is B5. It's such a joy to watch characters you love go through hell and back and come out the other end with scars that they keep with them for episodes and episodes.

3. Unafraid to push boundaries. Farscape, near the end of the 3rd season it is in currently, ran an episode that was almost entirely a cartoon--a looney toon, in fact. It was funny, and touching, even.

4. And on the subject of being touching. Call me what you like, but Farscape makes me cry. Pretty often. So there. B5 did it, but Andromeda? Too bad what potential _was_ there has just gone the way of the dodo. And voyager? Man would I have jumped for joy if Janeway had bitten it...

So that's all. I _hope_ the poster takes the time to look into Farscape...I like to think of myself as a pretty smart guy, and that I've seen enough crappy sci-fi to know that Farscape is pretty darn smart.

Of course, this is all just my opinion.

Octavian

Re:A Sign of the Times

[libre lover]

Some may say that producers should listen to us because we, the audience, are the 'customers' and are always right

We, the audience, are not the customers and whether we are right or not doesn't matter. The advertisers are the customers and the media executives pay the producers to create a product that will deliver the eyeballs to the advertisers. Sometimes the producers, perhaps to avoid boredom on the job, forget about the eyeballs and make something good but if it doesn't deliver the eyeballs the executives will find a monkey who will get the job done.

Re:I don't know

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

sci-fi is all about an escape from reality

How I hate when people spout tripe like this. Sci fi is not about "escaping reality". It is not. It never has been. If it is "escapist" at all, it's about escaping into reality -- into a Universe larger and more awe-inspiring than the insipid little minutae with which we fill our lives.

Science fiction is not about spaceships and little green men, time travellers and miracle cures. It's not about gadgets and gizmos. It's not about a million different outcomes to the roll of the dice. Science fiction, at its best, is about being open to new ideas and new ways of thinking about things ... it's about challenging orthodoxy and imagining that things could be different, even at a fundamental level. It's about understanding what it is to be human by examining those who aren't.

Perhaps three quotes by John Campbell typify what science fiction really is:

• The basic rule of SF is: Set up a basic proposition--then develop its consistent, logical consequences.
  
• No literature is sound, no philosophy of action workable, if it doesn't take a hard look at itself.
  
• (paraphrased) Give me an alien who thinks as well as a man, but differently.
  

TV that doesn't suck (and some that does)

[IronChef]

Of the shows current on, here are some of my ratings. All IMHO, of course.

shows I like with few reservations
24 (VERY GOOD, try it out.)
ER (there's more to life than SF)
Buffy
Angel (I actually far prefer this to Buffy these days, it has a "quirkiness" that reminds me of Herc & Xena)
Stargate SG-1 (best SF currently on, ties with B5 overall, on course to overtake it)
Junkyard Wars
Good Eats (the cooking show that's so good it inspired me to learn to cook)
The Sopranos (on hiatus)
Six Feet Under (on hiatus)
Malcolm in the Middle

shows that I watch despite some pretty serious flaws, though I feel kind of dirty after a viewing
Enterprise
Alias (Sidney has terrible, terrible fieldcraft and most of the tech is totally silly, otherwise pretty neat)
X-Files (increasingly incomprehensible!)

shows I really wish I could learn to like
Farscape (Saw it twice: blue-girl got a cold, and a monster in a cheap-looking mine. Lame.)

shows that even prisoners of war should not be made to watch
Lexx
Andromeda
Earth: Final Conflict
Dark Angel (She has cat DNA, so she goes into HEAT. That was the last of many straws.)

It's late and I have probably forgotten something obvious.