Farscape Fans Produce Commercial

angst writes "Farscape fans have come together and produced a commercial called 'I am Farscape'. In the hopes of bringing more media and consumer awareness that the fans of this show are not happy that it is being cancelled. So far it will be aired in 24 cities nation wide. Look for it the week of Nov. 24th if you are in the list."

Comments

Yikes!

[Overand]

I've seen this commercial, and if anything, it will convince Sci-Fi that Farscape fans are a bunch of untalented fan-boys (and girls) that smell bad, and don't know how to make a commercial. It's... bad.

On the other hand, Farscape is so great that it's taking up 13 gigs of my hard drive... ::blinks innocently::

Re:Yikes!

[Robotech_Master]

I dunno...I'd characterize the commercial as "quirky," but not necessarily bad. And in the end, it really doesn't matter how good or bad the commercial is; the important thing is that it's getting aired and getting publicity for the campaign. These people aren't giving up, and if it gets me more episodes of the show, I have to say more power to them. This thing has gone farther than any save-our-show campaign I can recall...it's going to be interesting to see where it ends.

Re:Yikes!

[kingkade]

I've seen this commercial, and if anything, it will convince Sci-Fi that Farscape fans are a bunch of untalented fan-boys (and girls) that smell bad...

Have that new smell-o-vision, huh?

Re:Yikes!

[Afrosheen]

Probably because you didn't click the 20 other links to other clips by other people. I nearly dismissed it too, but the point has been made: people want their Farscape.

There are actually some decent looking chicks, shocker, I know.

Re:Yikes!

[cribcage]

Not to nitpick your obviously-acerbic wit...

But for future reference, if you decide to recycle this witty little quip of yours: The 'hyperbole' you want is actually something more like, "Two drunken, crippled monkeys twisting bananas into each other's buttocks could have spit onto manuscript paper and produced a better script than this garbage."

'Cause, y'know... If a thousand monkeys at a thousand typewriters could type "Hamlet," I'd think they could manage to trump the Bayville Junior High A/V Team's weekend project.

crib

Re:Yikes!

[enneff]

The guy who says "I'm so and so and I build robots for a living," looks like the biggest dickhead ever. He makes me want to never, ever watch Farscape - ever. He makes me associate Farscape with idiocy and social ineptitude.

Re:Yikes!

[gabec]

I haven't seen the commercial, nor have I watched Farscape since the first season, but I wrote Scifi.com when I heard they were cancelling the show. Why? At Dragon*Con this year (I'm pretty sure it's the largest science fiction / fantasy convention in the world), Farscape had an insanely large following. D*C had to make a special category for Farscape in the costume contest because there were so many people showing up dressed as Farscape characters.

If nothing else can be said for it, this show has one devoted audience. Maybe some of the main actors wanted to leave or maybe it's one of those "the numbers never lie" situations. But nonetheless, to have Scifi toss it away seems like a bad idea.

Re:Yikes!

[Robotech_Master]

Dude, there's no call for that. I never said I hadn't taken action, too. I'm too far from any of the cities that have been having rallies to participate in them, but at least I've written some letters and made some phone calls myself.

with this much support

[Anonymous Coward]

with these many people willing to strongly support it, it makes one wonder why the show is in danger of being cancelled in the first place.

Re:with this much support

[Dallascaper]

I assume you are referring to Nine Network in Australia. Nine thought enough of Farscape to help bankroll it with the Jim Henson Company in 1999. Knowing Australia's bleak history with science fiction, Nine waited until May 2000 to broadcast the first half-dozen episodes. The show didn't do well, so Nine decided to put the show up against the 2000 Olympics. No wonder Farscape hasn't done well in Australian ratings.

My experience with Australian Scapers is that they are among the most vocal and intense Farscape fans out there. Last December/January, when Nine finally broadcast the show's second season, my Farscape site got more hits from Australia than from any other country. My point is that Aussie Scapers may be few in number, but they do have excellent taste in television programming.

Long live Farscape!

Dallascaper
Webmaster, http://www.farscapefantasy.com

Re:with this much support

[anno1a]

Because farscape is an extremely expensive series to produce. Although Scifi gets lots of viewers for farscape, they can make more money, producing a cheap, low-quality show which attracts half the audience. Unfortunately, with this strategy, we get a lot of boring cheap television, which no one really likes, rather than exciting visually stunning television, that everyone likes (or at least a large group of people).

Re:with this much support

[sql*kitten]

with these many people willing to strongly support it, it makes one wonder why the show is in danger of being cancelled in the first place

Let me draw you an analogy. There are (or were) lots of companies trying to make Linux products. The problem was that although many people love Linux, a very small minority are willing to actually pay for it. Like that games company whose name escapes me just now... there was a lot of clamour on /. for Linux ports of games, but at the end of the day, everyone bought the Windows version and dual-booted, so the company went bust.

There's a poster in this topic who says he has 13G of FarScape on his HD, that's how much he loves it. Umm, no, if he loved it he would have bought the DVDs. People like him in fact killed the show.

(FWIW, I thought FarScape was utter rubbish, but I have plenty of channels so I am counting myself as a neutral observer here).

Re:with this much support

[cel4145]

"There's a poster in this topic who says he has 13G of FarScape on his HD, that's how much he loves it. Umm, no, if he loved it he would have bought the DVDs. People like him in fact killed the show."

sounds like you are working for the entertainment industry. haven't you heard? p2p file trading helps to increase the popularity of shows like farscape and push up sales and viewing audience. i've got 20gigs of farscape and own 3 of the dvd packs with a total of 12 episodes bought and paid for, and i'd like to buy more. just can't do it today.

Re:with this much support

[zmalone]

I've heard the opinion that it isn't really in danger of being canceled. The argument behind it is that Sci-Fi feels that they are paying far too much for each episode, and that the calue of the episodes is inflated. By canceling it, they've shown that they are willing to stop carrying the show if the price per episode isn't lowered. I personally think that this isn't too unlikely, and while it could mean that a season could be delayed a year or so, it makes sense for Sci-Fi to do this.

Re:with this much support

[xercist]

I'll second that - I'd never have heard of farscape if my friends didn't download some from some guy's bot on dalnet, and if I wasn't able to do the same (to download the first, second, and third seasons), I would certainly never have been hooked on it just by watching some episodes in the fourth. Farscape episodes are always heavily affected by the previous storyline, and it's really important to know what's going on.

Now I'll go over to a friend's house (who has a service which carries SciFi) to watch 4th season eps as they air. And guess what - I see the SciFi channel's commercials in the breaks.

I hope it works

[Russellkhan]

Farscape is/was a great show.

I mean think about it, Enterprise gets funding and Farscape is a far better show (I know, I know, Farscape doesn't have detox gel)

Re:I hope it works

[sammy baby]

Pfft. Farscape may not have detox gel, but it had plenty of steamy scenes involving Claudia Black, Virginia Hey, and Gigi Edgley (one can only assume that Raelee Hill isn't far behind).

Say what you will about Farscape, but it didn't lack sex appeal.

Wow

[MacAndrew]

I'd like to see this -- what, no link? -- and have to wonder how Star Trek TOS would have done if it had had *this* kind of rabid support.

But then, how much does Sci Fi care what its hardcore geeks think? There was an interesting article in the Times on how terribly inaccurate the advertising world's obsession with the 25 to 34 demographic is. And it is what the advertisers want, or think they want, that drives commercial programming. (Maybe Farscape should move to HBO -- might even get me to subscribe.)

Re:Wow

[MacAndrew]

True but...

The TOS fanmail campaign helped get it a third season, but then the network turned around and moved the show to a ridiculous time slot like Friday 10pm. Their hearts were not in seeing the show succeed: there may have been enough internal lobbying to extend one more year, but not to package and promote it. For success you need not the fans but people who had not previously watched at all.

Their error in the long run is obvious -- an extra year or two of episodes would have been worth a fortune. Perhaps the show might have even done better first-run, if handled well. But I don't really blame the execs for not perceiving the coming snowball effect. Star Trek was a unique property. And so is Farscape.

Re:Wow

[MacAndrew]

three farscape fans took to the streets in costume and with a big poster of the bad guy from the show

"The bad guy from the show"? Scorpius? Are you sure you're a fan? :)

I agree that there is a large viewer base, one that could be even more mainstream. As for "rabid geeks" I was thinking of fans who create and air their commercials! Better than geeks would be a term equivalent to Trekkers. Farscapers doesn't work for me, and Scapies sounds like a disease. No matter. (You seem to think "geek" is exclusive of "female," which may be mostly true but could hurt some feelings around here.)

Interesting background, thank you. BTW, Star Trek (not TOS so much) also had/has a large female following -- as much as 50% at times IIRC. Both have decent stories, not just space battles and explosion. Shows that are character-driven I think are much more interesting and long-lived, and appeal to a broader spectrum of viewers. Farscape has female characters as a strong or more than ST, and is also unusual for its willingness to rotate characters in and out over the course of show -- Xan, Jool, etc.

Since the show was filmed in Australia but not aired there... Gee, they don't carry SciFi in Australia? After all, the show doesn't technically air anywhere, it is cable-only so far as I know. (Post-TOS, the Star Trek shows share this, they've all been syndicated; no networks.)

IMHO the SciFi programmers have made a deplorable error, going with the likes of John Edward over Farscape. Not an error on the level of some country plunging into an ill-advised war in some other country, all of which shall remain nameless, but still a dumb ill-advised error. Mark my words (!) Farscape has a ton of revenue potential, though that's not why I watch it. Anyhow, would you rather dress up as a Klingon or Deanna (and if the latter, please post pictures) (kidding :).

Re:Wow

[MacAndrew]

he's a Crichton -- blond-haired blue-eyed scientist extroardinaire

Uh-huh. He's reading over your shoulder, huh? Or you broke your glasses. Or messed up your meds ... again.

Kidding! Forgive my skepticism, in my experience most scientists look more like Gollum, at least the ones who don't get out much. :)

my nose isn't right for the total Claudia Black experience

I'll leave "the total Claudia Black experience" to the imagination.

those wellnitzes at SciFi need to get their dren together

I think the problem is with their wormholes.

Crossing fingers for Farscape future ... what was this thread about again?

Why was the show canceled?

[joshua404]

I've seen and read so much from so many fans of this show all over the net, that I keep asking myself - if they have this large and loyal a following, why was this show canceled? What were the ratings like? What was Sci-Fi's reasoning? I don't exactly see a plethora of good original programming on that channel, so why kill off one of the few successes?

Re:Why was the show canceled?

[Twirlip of the Mists]

To put it bluntly, it was canceled because it really began to stink. I mean really. The first two-and-a-half seasons were outstanding, but things really took a dive after that.

As much as it pains me to admit it-- I used to be such a gianormous fan-- it's a good time for Farscape to go.

Re:Why was the show canceled?

[Robotech_Master]

There are several reasons given, depending on who you ask and when. Among the big ones are:

Too expensive: The show costs an awful lot to produce, as SF shows tend to, and apparently Sci-Fi's in a bit of a money crunch. The high production cost wouldn't be so bad, except...

They don't own the show; Henson does, as part of the production agreement (though they each finance half the show's cost). Which means SFC doesn't get the back-end income from syndication and DVD/video and such to recoup their costs. Adding to the problem is the fact that...

The show's fandom isn't expanding: Farscape is keeping the fans it has, but it's not causing more people to come to watch the show. See, that's the problem with shows that build up a lot of backstory...if you haven't watched the first four seasons, you have no idea what's going on. (This problem has been noted in other mega-arc-based shows, such as Andromeda.) SFC wants shows that suck more people in (and get them watching SFC). And finally, it's been said that...

SFC is supposedly moving away from "space-based" shows and heading more toward the "paranormal," in keeping with the latest fads/trends in the TV people are watching. Which makes you wonder why they even bother calling themselves "sci-fi," but there you go.

Re:Why was the show canceled?

[FeloniousPunk]

SFC is supposedly moving away from "space-based" shows and heading more toward the "paranormal," in keeping with the latest fads/trends in the TV people are watching. Which makes you wonder why they even bother calling themselves "sci-fi," but there you go.
I thought the whole paranormal craze tanked with the last few seasons of X-Files? I've been in Europe for a while so I'm out of touch with what's going on back home though, so I could be wrong.

Re:Why was the show canceled?

[DarkZero]

I've seen and read so much from so many fans of this show all over the net, that I keep asking myself - if they have this large and loyal a following, why was this show canceled? What were the ratings like? What was Sci-Fi's reasoning?

Simple economics. The show was expensive to produce, so it needed a large audience in order to justify its existence. Its audience began to decrease, so it started bleeding huge amounts of money every week, and with a budget that high, it probably wouldn't have taken very long for the show to hit the point where it would have to do extremely well on a consistent basis for one or two full seasons just to become profitable again.

But even though that's their reason for doing it, it's still a very stupid reason. As Matt Roush from TV Guide pointed out, Farscape was the only thing that ever got the Sci-Fi Channel any national exposure in the entire history of the channel, and it got it quite a bit of national exposure too. Farscape was the only reason that the Sci-Fi Channel was ever mentioned in TV Guide, Entertainment Weekly, and all of the other national entertainment magazines, and it also got them exposure for their other shows because they from "the channel that brought us Farscape".

It's just a simple, familiar matter of someone basing a decision on nothing but raw statistics and not thinking about all of the other elements involved.

Re:Why was the show canceled?

[NetGyver]

Damn, that was best most well thought out post I have ever seen on slashdot. Seriously, this is no joke. I saw bits and pieces of farscape after Stargate SG-1 was over, and it seemed a bit weird to me and I never got into it enough to keep current with the show.

And your right-on about the kind of shows that build up so much back story in their early seasons. Again, Stargate does a shitload of this as well. Which is something I just can't understand since it recently moved to the Sci-Fi channel at the start of its 6th season. (As a side note, Season 7 is also underway)

So perhaps your idea of too-much-backstory-loses viewers-who-watch-later-seasons idea isn't really much of a factor.

Another good point you made is that the sci-fi channel is turning to a paranormal-horror flick channel. I got my overdose of that from watching the x-files and it gets very wornout after a while. (by no means am i knocking the x-files, it's just...well...it really drug out)

It's sad, really sad to see that happen. Remember Sliders?

Granted it never was quite the same after the professor left, when Wade got replaced by a Rambo-babe, and and Quinn dropped out. The only guy left standing is Rembrandt. I really dug that show, but it should have died, considering 3/4's of their orginial cast was gone.

VR-5, Babylon 5, TNG, Viper(hey, i liked it), Earth: Final Conflict, Adromida, (and other great shows that i'm missing) should all be reborn via re-runs and put into a mega-block spot on one channel.

Since i'm going hidiously off-topic with my idealist rants, I may as well add my thoughts on the "network-no-one-thought-could-be-so-good"....

TNN certinally turned my head, airing old TNG episodes at least once a day, and 4 back to back episodes on sunday nights. Did any of you see that HILAROUS (and pretty outragious TNN commercial they'd air during the show?

The one with the klingon woman and the exec asking the other if he'd do her. That one really cought my attention, I can't remember when i laughhed that hard at a commerical. In any case, need to get back on topic:

The level of outcry for Farscape's return is inspring to hear about. Alot of people here on slashdot sneer about it, but hey, they're putting hard-earned fan money towards a show that they loved, and their entitled to doing it. There's a certian respect in that, and I'd be the first one to sign a patition and donate some money if my favorite sci-fi show was dying too.

Re:Why was the show canceled?

[spectecjr]

There are several reasons given, depending on who you ask and when. Among the big ones are

These are all the reasons given by SciFi.

They also have all been - to greater or lesser extents - debunked.

For example - too expensive? SG1's budget was increased for their 7th season, and is way more than that of Farscape.

($2.5MM for SG1 vs. $750K for Farscape, per episode)

Simon

Re:Why was the show canceled?

[Nogami_Saeko]

Ugh. Paranormal. Yawn.

Possibly my least-favorite genre, although anything to do with massive conspiracy theorys comes a close second.

The first few seasons of X-Files was pretty good, but I stopped watching when it started getting really wierd.

Re:Why was the show canceled?

[Lumpy]

I used to be a rabid farscape fan... the show was absolutely awesome and I wouldn't miss it for anything.... Until season 3... they started the touchy feely crap, the show no longer "felt" like farscape. and what finally did it for me was the fact that the new show count and production schedule was cut in half... what the hell is that? I like reruns of a show I realllly like. but when you see 4 rerusn between each new show... screw that.

Re:Why was the show canceled?

[Bobulusman]

I did not have so much of a problem with Season 3 as Season 4. I really like this show, but it seemed like in this last season that the plots would be really contrived. It also seemed like they could not keep a character's attitude the same from episode to episode.

I guess what it felt like to me was a patchwork of stories: As if they had seperate teams writing the various plots, completely blind to each other, and then stitched them together at the last minute. Obviously, this isn't the case, but you know what I mean.

Re:Why was the show canceled?

[Chanc_Gorkon]

The paranormal and the sop opera stuff is why I have not turned on Sci-Fi in about 3-4 years. Even Farscape is a bit of a strech to me. This is why I did not like B5. In those to shows, I can't sit down and watch it and understand it like I can Enterprise and ST:TNG. If I wanted a soap opera I would not be working 9 to 5! :)

The Paranormal stuff just does not interest me and, in my opinion, a great amount of normal folks. Personally I watched more Sci-Fi when they were all about repeats. Buck Rogers, Battlestar Galactica, The HORRID Glactica 1980 (yeah it sucks, but at least it's not Kolchak the Night Stalker)....good Sci-Fi I grew up with. Even Trek replays were better then what's on now. To me, the paranormal is NOT Sci-Fi. What science is there in Ghosts? We don't even have proof Ghosts exist! I know I know, Warp Drive doesn't exist either, but you know, it might exist. Anyone can see that it could possibly happen. They said we'd never break the sound barrier yet we now have fighter aircraft and passenger aircraft capable of doing just that. They say we will never be able to travel faster then light, but I do believe it will happen (maybe not in my lifetime, but it will happen). Sci-Fi needs to drive Science. Faster then light travel should be a goal of ours if we ever want to see anything outside of our solar system. How does paranormal Sci-Fi drive science? It doesn't. At least not near as much as Star Trek and other shows do. Only thing paranormal Sci-FI does is reduce Sci-Fi's cost to produce shows. Not near as many effects are needed for these types of shows. That's why they are going that direction. It has nothing to do with what's popular.

Re:Why was the show canceled?

[Vagary]

See, that's the problem with shows that build up a lot of backstory...if you haven't watched the first four seasons, you have no idea what's going on. (This problem has been noted in other mega-arc-based shows, such as Andromeda.) SFC wants shows that suck more people in (and get them watching SFC).

So what kinds of shows don't suffer from this problem? What tips could we give to producers to allow their fandom to continuously expand? Can we abstract a quality that long-lived SciFi shows have?

Re:Why was the show canceled?

[vanyel]

($2.5MM for SG1 vs. $750K for Farscape, per episode)

Where did you get those figures? Farscape News quotes CNN quoting Jim Henson TV that Farscape is $1.5M/episode, though they also say that Buffy and Enterprise are in the $2M range. All the estimates I've seen for SG-1 are in the $700K-1.5M range too...

This has been done before

[packeteer]

with mixed sucess... i know freaks and geeks fans tried to get it back on but they werent successful... does anyone know of any shows that did comeback this way?

Re:This has been done before

[Minna Kirai]

Now I feel really old. Kids today... no attention to history.

Heard of Star Trek? The campaign that ressurected the cancelled original series is what inspires all of these latter-day fan-intervention imitators.

Re:This has been done before

[DarkZero]

Star Trek. Once and Again, for a time. Roswell, for an additional season on another network. Forever Knight, which was revived twice after it was cancelled after both its first and second seasons. I'm pretty sure Buffy the Vampire Slayer was, because tons of mail was sent to UPN urging them to pick it up after The WB dropped it after its fifth season. And I'm also pretty sure that the Freaks and Geeks campaign sort of worked... weren't previously unaired episodes aired after the campaign, completing the first season?

This is done every time a show is cancelled. The difference is that only the shows with a truly dedicated fanbase survive. Farscape might have that.

Re:This has been done before

[Babbster]

Good examples except one: Buffy the Vampire Slayer was dropped because Mutant Enemy wanted more money per episode than the WB was willing to pay - UPN picked it up before any groundswell of fandom had a chance to build up. No fan intervention necessary. UPN felt that they needed more than one franchise show (Enterprise), so they were willing to pay the green necessary. The WB, on the other hand, still had Angel to keep a lot of Buffy fans watching, Smallville getting a following, and had Birds of Prey in their sights (a WB property via DC, as is Smallville) - I think they figured BoP would meet their "hot fighting chick(s)" requirement.

Re:This has been done before

[DarkZero]

Nah. It works out enough to give the show some closure, or maybe even another one or two story arcs, which is all that the sane fans are really asking for. No one expects a cancelled show to go on for another four or five seasons. All that most people expect is another season or just another handful of episodes, like the eight episodes that La Femme Nikita got to close out its plot.

Re:This has been done before

[NeMon'ess]

When NBC cancelled The Pretender, there was enough fan support to convince the producer of the show to make several two-hour mega-episodes/mini-movies which continue the plot.

really, now....

[nostromo_42]

In many of those cities, the ad may air only once, and it may be in the middle of the night on an undisclosed channel.

would it take that much extra work for them to specify which channel, or at least which network it's an affiliate of? i'm a little skeptical of the claim that "it doesn't matter what channel", since the mainstream media isn't exactly going to rush out headline stories about this unless people see it.

Re:really, now....

[Photon Ghoul]

I agree that it would be nice of them to list channels and times (harder) that they've bought for the spot.

You are dead wrong on the fact that the "mainstream media isn't exactly going to rush out headline stories about this unless people see it." CNN - which we can all agree here is about as mainstream as you can get, right - has already aired two 'lengthy' stories on the fan response to the show being cancelled. This was done when there were websites first popping up and the letter-writing campaigns were just getting started. If I recall correctly, there were stories in many other places as well. So, it stands to reason, that fans caring enough to produce (even supposedly amatuerish) commercials for *any* television series will be news. It really is groundbreaking in the history of television if you think about it.

Still, I'm skeptical the show will be granted an extended lifetime for other reasons....

Re:really, now....

[Lumpy]

bah, it amazes me how many people know absolutely nothing about ad insertion...

Yes they bought 1 Ad slot on one channel at the cheapest time slot. what that does is shovew them into the "auto fill" pool. you notice the Ad's for cable tv? or that local station? Those are filler ad's to fill up spots that were not sold. if one paid customer get's sold on that channel in a contract that specifies that they dont care when they get aired and autofill is ok... they will be airing like crazy on every network they have 1 spot on.

It's a stroke of genius on the part of the person that though of buying their ad'space that way.. and the funniest part.... Sci-Fi is a tier 3 channel and is almsot one of the cheapest to buy ad' insertion on.. and cince they are cable... just buy the ad' space from a cable company... flip Sci-fi the bird.

Awareness

[faeryman]

I walk around in leather and say I'm a Peacekeeper and try and drum up interest in the show. It doesn't work that well though..people just smack my ass, so I'm all for the new TV commercial to succeed in getting people interested.

how it will be saved

[Drunken Coward]

Apparently, the only way Farscape will be saved is if UPN picks it up for season five. This will only happen if the remaining season four episodes get high ratings, which doesn't seem likely without publicity. So write to UPN and encourage non-geek friends (or those who happen to have Nielson boxes in their homes) to watch the show.

They need a catchier line

[DarkHelmet]

That just won't do... How about:

Farscape:
Because botox on vulcans is illogical.

It's very ironic

[JessLeah]

that the first "grassroots" (as opposed to "astroturf" ;) ) protest commercial I've ever heard of involves Farscape. I've heard a lot of good things about this show-- but still, where are the "the environment is going to pot and the politicians don't care" protest commercials.. or the "drug companies are keeping patents to life-saving AIDS and cancer drugs under lock and key, while millions die" protest commercials?

I'd love to hear about (I'll never see it unless someone puts it online, since I don't own a TV, nor do I want one) MORE protest work on TV. It's about time that the "little guys/gals" claimed their piece of the television pie. Nowadays, it seems that 90% of the content on TV is dictated by the Fortune 500 companies...

Does anyone know of any other efforts to produce true 'grassroots' commercials like this?

Personally, I would love to see a grassroots commercial that advocates re-opening the Federal case against MS. But hey, that's 'cuz I'm one of those evil Unix lovers your mom warned you about.

Is there a 'grassroots marketing forum' anywhere?

Re:It's very ironic

[packeteer]

Nowadays, it seems that 90% of the content on TV is dictated by the Fortune 500 companies...

hate to break it to you but its about 3 companies that own 90% of it all... kinda gross...

i wonder if one company owns more than 1% of all the web content?

Re:It's very ironic

[JessLeah]

Unfortunately, it's not really relevent what percentage of the Web is owned by any given c orporation (or set of corporations). What's relevent is what percentage of total minutes/page views of actual Web surfing time of any given body of users is spent on corporate sites.

I have a sneaking suspicion that there are millions of people out there who wake up in the morning, read their (AOL) e-mail, go to www.cnn.com (also owned by AOL) to get their news, go off to work and read msnbc.com (Microsoft) and time.com (more AOL), occasionally dipping into si.com (yet more AOL). Then they go home and load up their copy of AOL Instant Messenger (no, not Trillian, not gAIM-- the actual real deal from AOL, complete with annoying adverts) and chat with their friends, who tell them about something they read in (insert AOL-owned magazine) today...

And so on, and so on.

I'm sure that somewhere in the US, there is a person who gets 95 or more percent of all the information they partake of (in media form, perhaps even including movies) from AOL/Time Warner.

Re:It's very ironic

[indiigo]

http://www.adbusters.org

The have tried several times to get spots on CNN and other media formats, with very little reception.

Re:It's very ironic

[packeteer]

AOL/Time Warner is very bad but there are 6 coprorations that is considered to own pretty much all media the average american gets. AOL/Time Warner, Viacom, News Corp., Disney, General Electric and Bertelsmann are the companies in no order. 5 years ago it was about 10 companies and 20 years ago there was 50. You can find a list of who owns what in the world of big business. Just look at the freakishly long list that is owned by only Viacom.

It makes me glad i dont watch tv. Although slashdot is no suppliment for an all enclusive news source it sure fills the most time of my news reading in a day.

Re:It's very ironic

[JessLeah]

And even sicker is that anyone who dares protest this state of affairs is branded a "communist" or a "hippie".

This is not how capitalism is supposed to be.

We need a sound balance of capitalism and socialism-- and a heavy dose of fairness. Unfortunately, lots of people do not have the Buddha-nature and are quite selfish and greedy. (And I'm sorry, I don't care how much of your $billions you gave away to charity, BillG, wanting/insisting upon 100% market share in every market you touch does make you "quite selfish and greedy").

Re:It's very ironic

[WhaDaYaKnow]

I don't own a TV, nor do I want one

Followed by:

it seems that 90% of the content on TV is dictated by the Fortune 500 companies...

Alrighty then :-) You just picked that up from waiting at the bus-stop in front of Circuit City I bet, uh? ;-)

Re:It's very ironic

[JessLeah]

No. No, they won't. They would have already.

I think you grossly overestimate the intelligent/sophistication/wisdom of the average human being.

Go pick a random 25-year-old college grad and try to bring up any topic not related to sports, sex, beer, fashion, movies, celebrities or currently popular music. You'll see very quickly what the core of the problem is.

Re:It's very ironic

[CommieLib]

How about a "doctors are selfishly spending time away from the hospital when they could be saving lives" protest commercial?

Scarcity sucks.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Commercial Will Reach Wrong Audience

[fuzdout]

Unfortunately for the FS fans, more than likely their efforts won't work and if anything cause a lot of snide and humorous jokes about their commercials on SNL, Jay leno and such. Even if simply because the lack of quality.

It's nice that they are willing to try and make a point about their dedication but it probably will just reach the average TV viewers and NOT anyone in control of FS's life-span.

Re:Commercial Will Reach Wrong Audience

[Sarcasmooo!]

A TV commercial trying to publicize the search for a TV network to save farscape.......that has to be approved and aired by TV networks.......won't reach the right people.....?

Link

[MacAndrew]

A-ha, they do in fact have a link to the commercial itself -- hosted at mac.com, I note with pride. (Yeah, I dropped my account like most people when they started to charge, but still.)

Gee, I'm glad these people are all Farscape, but what does this prove? Also, I suspect they didn't write their own lines other than the [insert name here].

I repeat my earlier "insightful +5" assertion that Farscape rocks. It is a professional, cool, well-written alternative to the ST rut and the Star Wars commercial nightmare. And is has real characters people care about. Don't we all want to see the Scarrans whupped?

Only fools would pass on picking up this show

[blincoln]

Seriously, has *any* series ever gotten this kind of rabid support? Even Babylon 5 didn't inspire loyalty on the same level.

Since I don't have cable, I never saw FarScape, but any marketing department in their right mind would kill to have fans so willing to spend their money on a given product that they'd pay for their own ads to be aired.

If SciFi was concerned about profitability, they should have started cranking out the merchandise, because this is a bunch of people who are obviously willing to put their money where their mouths are.

Re:Only fools would pass on picking up this show

[ajs]

Babylon 5's fan base was quite active and vocal, but there was no need for the sort of attention-getting that one has to go through to get a show put back on the air. For the most part, with Babylon 5 the largest problem fans had was getting syndicators to show it in a stable time-slot, and that was done market-by-market.

So, I think you're comparing apples-to-oranges when you say, "Even Babylon 5 didn't inspire loyalty on the same level".

Speaking of which, I just got my B5 DVDs in the mail for season 1. I'm going to see if I can get some decent video-editing software and create that 3-hour "all you need to know about season 1" tape that I've been threatening. It's basically:

Midnight on the Firing Line -- Large chunks
Soul Hunter -- A bit, mostly intro
Born to the Purple, Infection, The Parliament of Dreams -- A few scenes
Mind War -- Intro of bester
The War Prayer -- Bits
And The Sky Full Of Stars -- Some of the war
Deathwalker -- Ending
Believers -- Bits
Survivors -- Bits
By Any Means Necessary -- None, I think
Signs and Portents -- 30 min or so
TKO, Grail, Eyes, Legacies -- None, I think
A Voice in the Wilderness part 1 & 2 -- Bits
Babylon Squared -- Bits about B4
The Quality of Mercy -- Bits
Chrysalis -- 30 min or so

I can edit that down to 5 hours easily, 3 hours if I'm very, very harsh about cutting out stuff that is amazingly cool and interesting, but not part of the B5 story arc.

When I do, I'm going to get all of my friends who keep saying "I'd love to watch, but I don't have time" and strap them to chairs for 3 hours :)

Re:Only fools would pass on picking up this show

[blincoln]

So, I think you're comparing apples-to-oranges when you say, "Even Babylon 5 didn't inspire loyalty on the same level".

What I was thinking of is when B5 was going to be cancelled at the end of Season 4. People wrote letters and so forth, but they didn't pay for their own ads. IMO the only reason it ended up getting the final season was that Ted Turner liked it.

Re:Only fools would pass on picking up this show

[ajs]

The thing was, we'd gotten the story we wanted. Farscape could go on for decades and never end. B5 was designed to be a single story, and while it was initially 5-years long, Straczynski cut it down to 4 mid-season 4 because of the chance that it would get cancelled. One of the reasons that so many fans are *not* fans of the 5th season is that it has very little in the way of story left to tell. He'd filmed the final episode of Season 5 during season 4, and all that was left was tell the story of how we got there.

I ranted to my local station at the time, but I never bothered to get involved when it came to season 5. I was happy with what I'd gotten and there were rumors of a big-screen movie to keep me happy.

Of course, the landscape has changed a lot. If you want good, continuity-based storytelling, you can watch Aaron Sorkin's shows, Joss Whedons or even Straczynski's on Showtime. Back then, B5 was it, and while it was sad to see it go, I think season 4 would have been a more graceful exit.

Re:Only fools would pass on picking up this show

[DunbarTheInept]

If they'd cancelled Babylon 5 after season 3 or so, you bet there'd have been a very active fanbase pleading for it to continue. Much more so than Farscape, I'd imagine, becasue Babylon5 is all one long continuous story. (Except for when JMS was told he'd have to hurry up and finish by season 4 because he wasn't going to get 5 seasons like he thought, and so he did speed up the plot to finish it, and then got season 5 awarded to him after all, which then ended up feeling like a drawn-out epilogue instead of an integral part of the story, because he'd hurried up an finished the interesting stuff in season 4.)

The big difference between B5 and Farscape here isn't fan loyalty, its that one was in a situation of having the show cancelled, and the other was in a situation of having the show end its run in the way the scriptwriter wanted it to, so it felt "done".

Re:Only fools would pass on picking up this show

[ajs]

I was never a fan of Michael O'Hare's or Claudia Christian's acting, but you have to admit that Mira Furlan, Andreas Katsulas and Peter Jurasik did an amazing job, even through all of the makeup and given the occasionally bad dialog that plagued the "off" episodes of the first season.

Take a look at Signs and Portents, Chrysalis and The Coming of Shadows for examples of just how good television can be when the likes of these actors team up with the likes of JMS at his writing peak.

The Story So Far...

[Soulslayer]

Strange Horizons had a great write-up on the corporate shuffling that has killed Farscape.

Personally I think Vivendi-Universal/Sci-Fi Channel has sorely miscalculated the resolve of the highly technical and intelligent Farscape fanbase. Despite the explosion of tech industry careers at all levels and the susequent rise in demand for genre programming no one has really provided quality television for them. The watchable genre shows can be counted on one hand. Of them Farscape was the most consistently daring and well written, appealing to wide (by sci-fi standards) demographic. I don't think Vivendi and company realized exactly how attached this fairly ignored market segment felt to that show. The longer they hold out, the more foolish they look.

Nielson and digital cable...

[Sarcasmooo!]

Does anyone happen to know whether or not digital cable customers get factored in when they measure ratings these days? I mean, I know they watch what the customers are watching. Why wouldn't it be?

Re:Nielson and digital cable...

[Gutzalpus]

The only people that get "factored in" are the Neilsen families:

http://www.nielsenmedia.com/FAQ/ratings.html#How do you figure out the ratings?

Didn't follow the link, eh?

[Russellkhan]

1. The commercial didn't remotely resemble your description.
2. The only pretension here is yours. There was no namedropping in the commercial, but your first paragraph sure seemed full of it (pun intended).
3. Just because you don't understand something (because you haven't bothered to try) doesn't mean it's an attempt at individuality.
4. These people putting their time and money into supporting something they like. Is that too superior for you? Would the world be a better place if everyone took your attitude and just sat back and criticized everyone else if they tried to do something that challenged their tiny little worldview?
5. Did it ever enter your mind that there are people out there who do things for reasons other than conformity or rebellion? No? Don't worry, in about 10 years, when you hit 25 or so you'll grow out of that attitude.
6. Not even going to address the Windows/Linux part of your post - it's clear enough that it's nothing but a troll that refutation is unnecessary.

FarStoned

[Ehsan]

I was like.. watching a show.. on the tv... and it was like boom.. and then like.. the show was gone.. and I was like hmm? it devoured devoured.. my show.. and it was a really good show and I had to watch another show and it wasn't as good..

it's kind of..

.. a bummer

A show?

[jonr]

An excerpt from the pilot:
Crais is the captain of a command carrier ship belonging to a military empire known as Peacekeepers. Peacekeepers are an oppressive, human-like species known for keeping "peace" and "stability" with the use of brutality and military cunning. One of their jobs is the assassination and imprisonment of political dissidents and trouble makers.

Hmm... haven't I seen this somewhere else recently...

Their Eyes Are Bigger Than Their Airwaves...

[cribcage]

Another show which boasts rabidly loyal fan support bites the dust. Just yesterday, Comics2Film reported rumors that the Batman-inspired "Birds Of Prey" won't be renewed by the WB network.

These networks need some perspective. They're never going to be NBC, and they're never going to produce "Friends." The absolute best they can hope for is to attract a couple of million die-hard fans, who tune in week after week -- guaranteeing a specific demographic to sell to advertisers.

So, "FarScape" only attracted a bunch of geeks and nerds. That's what's called a "high-saturation demographic." Sure, it's not very appealing to advertisers trying to sell basketball shoes; but for the company selling video games, or computer software, or pocket protectors...advertising on "FarScape" is money well-spent. You're pitching to an audience which might be 90% favorable to your product -- as opposed to betting on the more mixed demographics watching, say, "Trading Spaces" or "Emeril Live."

Old marketing adage: Figure out your strength, and play it. As long as these cable channels keep trying to compete with The Big Three, they're going to keep tripping over themselves.

crib

That's a very small focus of the show.

[Sarcasmooo!]

It's mostly centered around the predicament of John Crichton, who goes from a confused good guy lost in space, to a good guy wanting to get home, to a good guy pushed to the brink of insanity by enemies he never wanted to make, to a man pushed too far that'll do just about anything to get home, to a sort of apathetic guy who lost his way and doesn't care what happens, and finally the cynical hero type trying to get the job done.

That's my synopsis anyway, and what I really think makes the show great. Then again, I just eat that kinda stuff up. To me it's Dirty harry, John McClain......Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon 1.

Alcoholics Anonymous

[Cheese Cracker]

Did someone else get the feeling of an AA meeting when you watched the I Am Farscape commercial?

coming to a grocer near you

[!splut]

Did anyone else interpret that headline as announcing a Farscape-sponsored commercial for fruits and veggies?

"Farscape oranges. They're out of this world."

Money, and all things like it

[Thenomain]

Personally, I wish these people could have saved the money in advertising costs to bribe a UPN exec. From looking at the commercials, it'd have to be a lower exec, maybe a kid in the mail room, but I think the money could have been better spent.

Re:Money, and all things like it

[Thenomain]

Yeah, getting attention is good, but the ads come off as an unserious effort to me. TV spots are expensive, even without the production value (and if there was a production budget for these ads, I'd be interested to know how much). Even with low-rent equipment, these ads could have had a cohesive look and feel or even a decent white-balance.

I don't mean to complain; I am a huge Farscape fan and will be doing my part to get as many TVs tuned in later this year, even in households where people plan to be absent during the show. I just ... wish they spent their money in other attention-getting ways. Of that I wasn't joking.

It's all 20/20 hindsight, though, and I hope I'm wrong and these ads do pique much corporate interest -- which is, even if indirectly, what they are out to accomplish. I really do hope so.

Different applications of the same concept

[shivianzealot]

I'm sitting here wondering why we Slashdotters aren't raising money to air our own awareness ads regarding DMCA, SSSCA, and other Bad Things. We need a geek lobby. Now.

Re:Different applications of the same concept

[GoofyBoy]

Sure. Lets do it. Now.

LEXX

[_ph1ux_]

All i could think of (and was hoping to see) was Xenia Seeberg from Lexx - when she does that commercail "This is Sci-Fi"

Jeebus this girl is hot.

the commercial is a success!

[herrd0kt0r]

this commercial has already converted one person to tune in to farscape. how?

all i gotta say is that if that graphic designer chix0r is farscape, then _i_ wanna be farscape too!

Commercials..

[[cx]]

I've seen commercials for Farscape made by people who _MADE_ the show and I wasn't interested. Some fan effort is going to lack funds, and therefore lack the effects and quality of the actual commercial(s).

I hope that people find more innovative ways of trying to revive their old shows that quickly become cancelled because of the niche audience's problem with weekly viewing.

I personally think the old spider man needs some new episodes, but is that going to happen? NO. If i made a commercial would anyone care? No.
Maybe slashdot, but i think anything that goes away that was once nerdy and "unique"(same as the rest of those nerdy shows) is front line head page just to rally even more support to a lost cause.

My advice, save the time, farscape didnt cut it. wait for the next show you like to come out and watch it get cancelled.

Babylon 5 showed me that it doesn't matter how insanely popular a show is, it won't last.

[cxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Re:Commercials..

[hplasm]

Babylon 5 showed me that it doesn't matter how insanely popular a show is, it won't last.

True, but at least B5 was allowed to play to a logical ending point. (well, sort of logical...)

Re:Commercials..

[kalidasa]

Um, B5 was always intended to run only 5 years.

Re:Commercials..

[T.E.D.]

Babylon 5 showed me that it doesn't matter how insanely popular a show is, it won't last.

WTF are you talking about? Babylon 5 was going to be a five-year show from the start, and it ran for all 5 seasons. It ended after that not because it got canceled by network types, but because the story was over.

Re:Commercials..

[bay43270]

WTF are you talking about?

He's probably talke about the fact that season 5 almost didn't get made... or that the second series only lasted a season... or the third never made it off the ground.

Re:Commercials..

[kalidasa]

Exactly. This is what saves a series from rotting into a goo pond once the fire goes out of it.

And I think a five-year (22 episode year) run for Farscape would be just about right. (Or Enterprise. Or Voyager ... oops, too late.

Glad we agree on that one.

The clear ringing sound of common sense.

[peterpi]

Surely the TV companies know what's making them money and what's not? If the show was as good as all these fanatics claim it was then it wouldn't be getting canned in the first place.

Re:The clear ringing sound of common sense.

[visualight]

Personally I think the people who run the sci-fi channel deliberately torpedoed the show.

They run ads for sg-1 everyday. They hardly ever run ads for farscape.

Sg-1 is on for like 16 hours a week. Farscape?

They put farscape in the absolute worst timeslot there is - friday night at 10pm. At that time the world is asleep or well on their way to oblivion.

I recently polled nearly all of my non-geek friends (I'm a commercial fisherman so I have a more than a few) and not a single one of them had ever heard of farscape. But they have all heard of sg-1.

For the commercial though, they should of hired Chiana (gigi edgley), the

sexiest.girl.ever.

Re:The clear ringing sound of common sense.

[ErikZ]

"For the commercial though, they should of hired Chiana (gigi edgley), the sexiest.girl.ever."

You do realize that she doesn't have a curve on her body, and that the appearance of breasts was solely a makeup trick?

Re:The clear ringing sound of common sense.

[Doppleganger]

Hmm.. if only I had a working scanner, I could post up a copy of the nude poster of her that I have. She's really not all that bad, though a little thin and young-looking for my tastes...

Nobody else sees this but me?

[The Rolling Blackout]

A gang of geeks obsessed with their favorite TV show put out a broadcast-ready promo in order to keep it on the air.

WTF. We can't do the same for the politicians we support or in opposition to those bills we know will create a totalitarian state in the U.S. A.?

WTF again. Where are our FUCKING PRIORITIES? Farscape is just a little bit less important than preserving civil liberties of American citizens, and for that matter, the peace of the rest of the world. If for no other reason than to preserve the freedom of our (possible) children, we should be exerting these efforts in favor of STOPPING NIXON-ERA FORIEGN POLICY TACTICS and electing officials who will make this planet habitable for the next two centuries at the very least.

Thank you for your time, I'm going to bed.

Re:Nobody else sees this but me?

[derrickh]

I'm sure your computer can edit video just as well as the Farscape fans can. So where's your foreign policy commercial?

It's easy to say 'FUCKING PRIORITIES'. How about doing something about it. they did. So can you.

D

Re:Nobody else sees this but me?

[milovoo]

It's easy to agree on something fairly harmless
like bringing back a TV show. I can enjoy the
company of other fans, even if they are republicans
or what have you. I would not want the same group
to decide issues of foreign policy or economics.
(might be better, might be worse, but that's not
the point)

I agree that the whole planet is headed for the
toilet, but after a long day of doing what I can,
I like to put my feet up and watch something
reasonably intelligent, and fictional.

There are plenty of places that offer their take on the
problem and propose solutions, you must decide on
your own which of these you believe in and then go for it.
(consider for example; the NRA, the EFF, PETA, the
green party, the AFL-CIO, NOW, etc, etc, etc,)

I suggest you learn how to spell "foreign policy" and
switch to decaf, as it is now, you are difficult to take
seriously, even with your good intentions. Then
get out there and make a difference!

-milo

Re:Nobody else sees this but me?

[bay43270]

This does bring up a good point though. How are we supposed to get our issues out there? The EFF just fights the court cases. Occasionally, someone shows up for an interview on Tech TV, but for the most part, they rely on word of mouth.

Shouldn't there be a little more of a public awareness campaign for these issues (maybe something a little less grass-roots than the Farscape thing)?

DMCA is relevant to ordiinary people.

[hughk]

The Mickey Mouse(tm) protection act and the DMCA are both examples of legislation that affects everyone. I have seen some very good arguments here against both mentioned here and another place. Unfortunately those arguments are not reaching enough people.

Farscape was a great show and I hope it will be brought back. Maybe some of the techniques used by the 'scapers will be interesting for us geeks on other themes like the above. Think of it, an ad showing someone being arrested for using a VCR!!!

OT NOT!!!!

[hughk]

I disagree with you but I disagree even more with the idiot who modded you down.

The PK thread in Farscape is definitely reminiscent of the behaviour of various colonial powers up to and including the Bush government. Regrettably, entertainment may be the only way of campaigning against it. Michael Moore certainly didn't get very far did he?

Possible farscape Switch ad...

[whiteranger99x]

Here's one they need:

I was watching a sci-fi show...

and it was like...beep beep beep beep beep...

and then...like...the entire show was gone...

i was like..uh?

sci-fi channel devoured it...it was a good show

It's kind of...(long silence...) a bummer.

I'm Ellen Feiss and I am a farscape fan!

Re:Someday in the future...

[Photon Ghoul]

Unfortunately, that's the truth.

No, you're thinking of ...

[cascadingstylesheet]

An excerpt from the pilot: Crais is the captain of a command carrier ship belonging to a military empire known as Peacekeepers. Peacekeepers are an oppressive, human-like species known for keeping "peace" and "stability" with the use of brutality and military cunning. One of their jobs is the assassination and imprisonment of political dissidents and trouble makers.

Hmm... haven't I seen this somewhere else recently...

No, you're thinking of the plot where the crazed billionaire loser convinces a bunch of young poor religious fanatic losers to be suicidal mass murderers, while he hides in the far reaches of the galaxy ....

Easy mistake to make though.

Re:"I am farscape" ... "I am free" ?

[Photon Ghoul]

No, but who is? Freedom is a constant struggle.

As far as US television being bad news coverage and nothing more than a means for painting a pretty picture of our lives so that the advertisers between stories can sell more products... no kidding! Try getting your news and information from other sources. The 'people' that own television news sources are in the entertainment business, not the information business.

I do have a question - are three dudes at the bar drinking ale between hash hits talking about how bad the world is any more free than entertainment-obsessed television fanboys and fangirls putting their time and effort into doing something about that which they care about ("important" or not)? How so?

Re:Expletive Deleted

[spectecjr]

We have laws in this country which allow prior restraint of publication for materials which a company claims it has a copyright for. The government is building a database of information about you, run by a convicted felon, in order to protect your "safety". The FBI confiscates the computers of your neighbors when the cable company accuses them of service theft. Habeas Corpus is suspended for U.S. citizens who are accused of 'terrorism', while the C.I.A. uses unmanned drones firing missiles to assassinate 'terrorists' that have been tried in no court of law. The country is run by a man who was elected purely by fraud, and the news media doesn't bother to report that in the 2002 elections (this month!) more than 100,000 legal ballots weren't counted in Florida (again!).


If you care so much about those things, start a campaign. Maybe take a few pages from the Save Farscape campaigns books and follow their lead.

Meanwhile, don't diss other people for putting their passion to good use. Is this as important as those other things? No. Does that give you the right to complain that people are wasting their time on it? No - it's their time, not yours.

That's the whole point of America. It's meant to be a free country -- which means We choose what We want to do.

Re:This has to be said...

[spectecjr]

There are MANY other causes (insert ANY anti-war/hunger/etc... effort here) that are far more worthy of the kind of attention that this TV SHOW is garnering.

Yet you're wasting your time posting on slashdot instead of supporting those far more worthy causes.

Don't you think that's a bit hypocritical?

Why save it?

[Gray]

I didn't think it was the great, and appearently Neilson families feel the same. Show's not making its rating targets, which means it costs more then it makes and nobody's doing this for art.

"Gee mister advertiser, my show getting terrible rating, but all these nerds on the net promise they like it. Please pay me as if I was pulling real numbers, cause kinda weak SF shows don't pay for themselves ya know."

Besides, I'm much more depressed about Futurama.

We *have* a geek lobby

[Spoing]

We need a geek lobby. Now.

There are actually multiple lobbies for tech related issues. Some are just starting out, though most have some efforts occuring right now.

The first that has to be mentioned -- even if some moderator is hostile to it -- is the grandaddy Free Software Foundation, though there are others if that one is somehow not to your liking;

Bruce Perens has 3 efforts at the Global Technology Policy Institute.

The folks at The Linux Show often promote two efforts; GeekPac and American Open Technology Consortium

...and I'm sure that is not a complete list. If you can't support one, support one of the others.

Didn't I just see a commercial for a new season?

[motardo]

I could have sworn that I saw a commercial for a new season of farscape. I thought to myself when I saw it "it ought to calm those fanboys/fangirls down". I guess that didn't happen either.

Has this not been address?

[McFly69]

Here William Shatner's reponse to "Do It Yourself Media."MBR>
William Shatner: "Get a life ... will ya, people? I mean, for cryin' out loud, it's just a TV show."

Aired on Saturday Nigth live, late 1990's.

Re:Has this not been address?

[Rand Race]

1987

Re:Has this not been address?

[McFly69]

To answer your 2 questions.. Yes, get a life =)

Re:Has this not been address?

[McFly69]

You missed the point. I was just joking on your comment. The Shatner one was just a joke. But seriously if you wish to answer me the orginal question.

It's very easy to criticize, isn't it? Yes it is because one it is online and second it is freedom of speech protected by the consitution (./ and myself are in the USA). Third, I find it realyl funny for a bunch of people makign a commerical to get a TV show back. Corparate America; once it made a decision it will stay unless reversing that decision will make additional profits for them. If there are a few Americans that like it, so what? They can voice themselves all they want. If they really wanted to make a producting measure is the write several letter to the executives and the producers on how they will make more money for them? For example, promise to watch more of their commericals and but there crap.

If one were to hold your hobbies and interests up for scrutiny, would we all be impressed? Interesting question but I can not answer it. Perhaps a theorist or a theologian would be more suited for that.

Is everything you do fascinating, deep, and socially conscious? Of course not, anyone saying otherwise would be lieing through their teeth.


My son, I hope this helps you out on yoru road to wisdom =)

Re:Has this not been address?

[Ulwarth]

I actually ran into Ben Browder (plays the main char on the show) on Halloween night in Hollywood. He was talking to a couple of people who were dressed up as characters from the show and carrying "Save Farscape" signs. What's amazing is that he was standing there expressing his incredible gratitude to these geeks for showing such devoting to the show. Now _that's_ a counterpoint to William Shatner, or in fact most Trek actors. Actual gratitude toward the audience, instead of contempt!

Amazing.

Re:Has this not been address?

[McFly69]

Umm yea... I am a troll with a +5 funny with Excellent Karma. How you? Not even a +1 moderation.. and I am willing to bet you are just good. Keep at it... one of these days you might become a good troll like me =)

Whatever happened to Lexx?

[emil]

I really didn't care for some of the later stuff on earth, but I really liked the earlier shows.

missing the point

[gumpshrimp]

Many of you seem to be missing the point as to why the uproar about it being cancelled. I as well as most of you realize that all good things come to an end. But, the problem here is that Farscape was signed up for 5 seasons and got cancelled at the end of season 4 with no warning. So there will be no closure at the end of season 4. We will all be left wandering, just like at the end of every season finally. This is was pisses me off, not the it was cancelled, but there will be no closure to the long developed story line.

"I'm a pirate, but I'm not a Terrorist"

[disc-chord]

Showing support for one's favorite show (not mine, Farscape hurts my eyes) serves mearly to make a stand.

Showing support or opposition to political issues requires advocacy. A bunch of geeks saying "I am not a terrorist." doesn't help. Noone becomes aware of the issues involved.

Look at Political Ads, they never tell you wtf the issues are, aside from showing support for the top 5 focus-tested party lines. In order to raise awareness and enlighten the nearly comatose masses you would need alot more than 30 seconds.

Now let's say you ran a 3 min nationwide spot on Survivor (the total cost of which would probably require every /.ers salary for 4 months) and you make a solid presentation of the facts. The facts don't mean jack shit to most americans because they identify with being "Democrat" or "Republican" and will simply dismiss anything that doesn't appeal to them as "pinko hippy nonsense".

I wish there was a way to stop this, but there isn't. Every day we sink deeper. I just hope I can get a job over seas before they build the wall.

Adbusters [Re:It's very ironic]

[Seanasy]

Adbusters is what you want. They have professionally produced -- i.e. really good directors/writers, even some from the ad industry -- uncommercials. They'll send you a broadcast quality tape if you buy the air time.

Re:Adbusters [Re:It's very ironic]

[sulli]

Yes, except that they are mind-numbingly annoying. "TV Turn-Off Day" and "Buy Nothing Day"? Puh-leeze.

Mirror

[RudeDude]

I think the commercial is a done a bit poorly, especially the audio (maybe it's better on a TV instead of as a QT?). But I had Mr HOSTBOT grab it for mirroring anyway.

FinalCommercial.mov (934 KB).

Re:"Lie, Damn Lies, and Statistics"

[Gaijin42]

If the sample is random, very small numbers give accurate results.

Re:Didn't I just see a commercial for a new season

[Doppleganger]

Actually, it's half of a season left. The last 11 episodes of the fourth season start airing on Sci Fi in January. And, thanks to Sci Fi not informing them about the cancellation until the last day of filming, they end on a "To be continued.."

Re:a more likely scenario

[sql*kitten]

I second the opinion that you must be some sort of entertainment industry hardliner.

Not really. I just understand that even if a thing can be reproduced for near-zero cost, it doesn't necessarily follow that it can be originally created for near-zero cost. FarScape, like any other product, cost money to produce, and it's being axed because the investors could not recoup their money from selling the product. Any true fan of the show, who really wants it to continue, would be willing to support it by contributing to the cost of production by buying it as a product.

People who "pirate" it are literally hurting themselves; the studio will just go on to make another programme and make their money that way, so long as they are making and getting paid for something, that's all they really care about. Perhaps they'll steer clear of genres that attract a tech-savvy fanbase, even. There are far more scripts in existance than there are shows that get made.

Remember that a studio accountant couldn't care less about the "story arc" or the "character development". A show is like a black box to them, with input and output. If more money comes out than goes in, make another series, if not, cancel it.

Re:a more likely scenario

[sql*kitten]

Are you saying that this concept somehow eludes anyone over, say, the age of 5?

It certainly eluded every CEO of every dotcom, and all their investors. It continues to elude everyone who thinks that a viable business can be built by giving the product away for free.

As for the rest of it, I guess I had just not made the logical jump to "pirate" from "storing episodes on your hard drive". I store photos that I have taken, music that I have purchased, and video I have recorded on my hard drive.

The important thing is not the media that it is stored on. If you own bought copies, then you've done your part to support the show. Pat yourself on the back. However, anyone who has a copy on their HD that they didn't pay for has no business complaining if the show is cancelled.

Nice effort but ...

[ClosedSource]

they should learn to light their subjects better. Some of them look like they must be in the witness protection program. My videos have the same problem.

Gaijin's Introduction to Statistics.

[Gaijin42]

Well, here is an example. I wrote a security camera program for a company once. They had a camera hooked up to a computer, and wanted it to save a GIF every time the picture changed (They had it pointed at a safe, they wanted to record every time someone accessed the safe)

We were taking pictures at 640x480 which is 288000 pixels. If I sampled as few as 50 pixels, and compared them to what the pixel was in the last frame, I got the same results as if I sampled 10,000 pixels, and the same as if I sampled every pixel.

It was very important that I pick my sample randomly, because obviously if I picked the first 50 pixels every time, and the motion was in the bottom of the frame, I would never see it.

Simmilarly, if 1/10 people in the US watches friends on Thursday nights, it doesn't matter if I pick 100 people, 1000 people, 10,000 people, or 100,000,000 people. 1/10 is 1/10.

Because the population is so large, and can be highly "pocketed" (people who live near eachother tend to watch the same stuff, because their friends tell them about it, or the local paper writes about it, or because someone local stars in it, or whatever) they need a VERY random, and very large (by statiscal measuring) sample.

Also, there is a wide variety of programming available, so if you only ask 100 people, you might get 1 person for each show so you ask 100000 people and then you notice that "Bob's Accordion World" only gets 1 viewer, and friends gets 10000.

In any case it works.

Here is a test you can do at home.

Take 2 dice. Roll them a few hundred times , and keep track of what you got each roll.

At the end, count how many ones you got, how many twos, how many threes etc.

You should end up with a nice bell curve, peaking around 6.

Now pick a random 50 rolls, and do the counts again. The bell curve should look almost identical, even though you only sampled a small percentage.

In this case, 50 is a large % of a few hundred rolls. But the graph would look the same if you rolled the dice 10,000,000 times. I just didn't think you would want to roll that many times :)

Re:Gaijin's Introduction to Statistics.

[Gaijin42]

The thing to remember about statistics :
They are very good at caclulating how an entire population will act.

The are very poor at determining how an individual will act.

Even things like "What books you will like, based on what other books you like" kinda stuff you see at amazon is pretty weak.

If 1/10 of of the people who like book A like book B, then that tells you not much about me, even if you know I like book A.

But if 1/10 of people who like book C like B, and D like B and E like B (etc) AND I like C,D, and E, then you have a 4/10 chance that I will like B. And that starts to be usefull.

sleeper hits

[MacAndrew]

"Cheers," for one, had horrible ratings

Yeah, and look at Moesha.

No, better not.

Media content control

[gad_zuki!]

>Does anyone know of any other efforts to produce true 'grassroots' commercials like this?

Commercials like you mention get made all the time, but what is most often the case is that the networks don't want to run the ads regardless of how much money you offer them. Usually issues like pro-legalization are dismissed instantly because a network doesn't want to be associated with the message. A television network has no requirement to play what you offer them, even if it is over our airwaves. If they want to pander to the usual right and not upset middle-america with alternative viewpoints then they will and there's little you can do about it other than get published in more independant outlets.

>Personally, I would love to see a grassroots commercial that advocates re-opening the Federal case against MS.

Okay so they run it, then MS never advertised with them again. They'll tell you to keep your $5,000 because MS's advertising is worth much more. Or better yet they'll call MS and see what kind of deal they can cut now that they have someone willing to pay to air a commercial like that. Corporate media is only good x amount of things and freedom of speech and diverse viewpoints ain't one of them.

Buffy was never dropped, quite the opposite

[Gorimek]

When Buffy's 5 year contract with WB expired, UPN and WB had a bidding war where UPN eventually emerged as winner by paying $2.3M per episode, up from the $1M that WB had been paying.

If you want to call it "winning" that UPN pays much more for the show than they hope to earn from it. Apparently they see it as an investment in the image of the network to have such a prestigious show, that it is worth the money.

I know this surprises a lot of people, but it is a prestigious show in the sense that it is a big favorite with the critics and has a not too big but passionately fanatic fan base.

I think you just highlighted the problem

[fishexe]

Thank you for your time, I'm going to bed.

It seems funny to me that despite your rant, you haven't organized a group that we can donate money to to put anti-DMCA/anti-SSSCA/anti-what-have-you ads on the air.

The essential difference between those real issues and Farscape is, one geek actually decided to start such an initiative, and got others involved. I fervently believe that all it will take is one geek dedicated enough to start and run such an effort to get roughly the entire slashdot population to collectively sponsor anti-totalitarian ads.

to put a number on it...

[MacAndrew]

..the figure I've heard is $1.7 million USD per episode. Comparable to "Star Trek" I believe.

Paranormal shows are cheap -- but where are the merchandising possibilities??? Seriously, if they manage to make a good movie, and I think they can, the TV series will skyrocket in value. I don't see much potential in John Edward reruns. Or John Edward, who will be demanding more money for his act and leave SciFi.

But what do I know. I think you have to be a Conehead to be a network exec.