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Farscape Frelling Cancelled
Mukaikubo writes "The Sci-Fi Channel has decided to cancel their second largest show, Farscape. Because networks respond better to phone calls and snail-mail letters than a mass e-mail campaign and there is contact info on a fan-run Message Board. Time is of the essence, as the Network wants to tear down props at the end of next week. Help save one of the best science fiction shows on TV today!" Other articles can be found here and the chat log is online too.
They are canceling it because it is too expensive to create. It is much cheaper to put together dreck like John Edwards, or show old B horor movies that will draw a far smaller audience, than it is to be creative.
I am also with the people who have commented that season 4 wasn't worth the time I spent watching it.
That's just my opinion, yours is yours.
-Rusty
You never know...
Farscape is, of course, a space show, so I saw this coming. It was surprising that it stayed on the schedule this season, but not surprising that its stay of execution was only temporary.
And now, for a small question from me... What is the point of a science fiction channel without science fiction?
I never got into the show, but understand why other people did. It's a decent show and probably should continue.
There is always hope. HBO has a rather good record of picking up shows of meritable creative content that do not get network/cable support from the cronies that run them. Maybe you could redirect or cc your support mail there.
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Urrghh... what a way to wake up on a Saturday. Farscape is one of the few shows that I make time to watch.
I'm not usually surprised when a series is cancelled - either it obviously bites, or no-one is watching. Neither seems to be true of Farscape. In fact, I'm so mystified by this, I've spent my Saturday morning writing a letter to the Sci Fi channel in the U.S... I know, I know, I've been extremely polite (just expressing my sincere shock) and I realise that they will probably just bin it along with the thousands of other "fan" letters, but I had to do it.
I've never done that for a TV show before. So maybe that will mean something to the less cynical slashdot readers.
In those cases, they killed off shows that you had to think ( gasp ) to enjoy.. and replaced with mindless garbage. Sign of the times i guess.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Money only sorta.
The problem is that Farscape had an involved story (unlike other TV shows). That's what made it good. But you needed to see all the episodes to make any sense of what was happening.
Combine that with expensive, high quality production and the most incompetent marketing department in history and you have a huge money hole.
They needed world wide distribution to make their money back, but their God damn incompetent marketing dept. couldn't understand that you have to treat a program like this differently than Bonanza.
They wouldn't let outside networks get season 1 & season 2 episodes without which the series made no sense!
100% incompetent marking.
100%
Caitlin Kiernan, the horror and fantasy writer, has a long comment on the cancellation of Farscape along with contact information and actions to take, including contacts for the advertisers on the show. She doesn't have links to individual days, so read the journal and look for the entry for Saturday, September 07, 2002.t mlÂÂ
http://www.caitlin-r-kiernan.com/journal.h
too much like star trek?? You haven't watched the show dude...
Aliens together in a spaceship - yes - but's that where the similarity ends...
I sometimes miss the techno-babble that star trek had, which actually made you buy rifts in space and other warp-sci-trash, but what farscape as over trek is acting. The characters actually bring me almost to tears sometimes, like when one of the chritons was dying. Stuff like betrayel, envy, anger, sparring - trek lacked all of those things. These aren't trained star fleet officers, after all, they are escaped prisoners, under extreme stress.
I also like the way they add in folks like Starke, who is nuts half the time - they do it well. Often, when a nut-sack char. is added to a show, the person gets on your nerves really fast - but Starke was cool...
One good example from the show that makes it stand out is when their shield thingy only half worked, and the weapon the were fired upon with failed, half or so, and they traded bodies. Yes, yes, lame as far as sci-fi goes, but the way they ACTED after was classic.
Chriton felt his breasts - because he was in Erin's body - would that EVER happen on trek? nope...would that be the first thing I'd do - YUP! And then I'd go into the bathroom for several hours, in front of a mirror and...with a video camera...and...
John Edward -- All fiction and no science.
Real science fiction fans deride the use of Sci-Fi as a moniker, I guess it is becoming obvious why. Soap operas in space are not science fiction, 900 number reject asshole "psychics" that scam old people are not science fiction.
Science fiction is about expanding the way we thing about the present, by showing us probable or possible futures, based on the science and technology we currently have. It only barely encompasses the "supernatural", only insofar as the "supernatural" is just science we do not yet understand, which, by definition isn't really supernatural.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
They're also unreasonably expensive. Hey, I can pick up a 2-hour movie for $5-$10. $30 for 2 1-hour TV episodes is a bit steep...
I could never get in to Enterprise.
I found the storyline, while appealing to my like for "history" (even if it is fictional), doesn't really seem to go anywhere. And the characters fail to interest me.
Sure. Decent production. And they seem to do a somewhat admirable job of trying to balance between a "future" defined by our real-life past views of technology during the 60s and the current sense of ethetics that lead to the look of the "modern" Star Trek.
I don't find that a big selling point. Of course, I also enjoyed shows that really required a sequential following (like B5 or Twin Peaks). Having said that - I don't feel that Farscape suffers so much from this. And even if it does... that this is really a such bad thing. Unless, of course, you're a studio manager more concerned with filling in time slots than what your programming actually is.
Farscape and Enterprise are entirely different shows and, honestly, I feel that its rather unfair to try and compare them. The only likeness between the two is that they both have a space sci-fi (sci-fantasy to the purist) background.
And I must admit, it took me a bit to get interested in Farscape. But after watching a handfull of episodes (a couple of different times), I got hooked. Mainly because Farscape is very different. Its chaotic. Its full of very odd concepts and designs - from hardware, to aliens (and I've come to appreciate the occasional anamatronic alien puppet instead of another makeup-and-prostetic alien). And there is a certain degree of desperation that pops up occasionally that I find refreshing (as an example, running out of food and facing starvation pops up from time to time).
Will Farscape be everyone's cup of tea? Hardly.
I liked MTV better when they were the animation channel. LiquidTV, The Maxx, that weird alien-in-the-brain series, etc. Those were some awesome shows.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.