Still Hope for Farscape

An anonymous reader wrote in to say that the "Save Farscape" campaign thinks there is still hope. If the next 11 episodes (starting Friday, January 10 on the SciFi Channel) pull the right numbers ). According to this interview with David Kemper:"If we were to do 2s, straight across the boards for these eleven eps, I would be expecting to have phone conversations with people immediately..." Of course that is pretty unlikely- but my household won't miss an episode. To bad the cats don't count in the nielsons ;)

Comments

Re:Why save it?

[clutch110]

So on the same token, should we stop going to plays or operas and live life to the fullest?

Isn't this the same thing, one person or group of people showing their creative vision to the world?

I agree, most of television is crap, but to disregard it on the whole is a mistake.

Nielsen

[CySurflex]

Nielsen ratings only apply to nielsen households which is a small percentage of the american public. If your TiVo or your cable set-top box was allowed to send back viewing habits info to the cable provider, the media companies would have much better numbers to go by.

I never understood why people always get so riled up by that prospect.

Re:Nielsen

[SirWhoopass]

I don't know how keen I am on having every ad agency in the country know my viewing habits, but you are right. The Nielsen rating only apply to a very small number of households. I would bet a lot of groups are underrepresented. How many single college kids living in apartments/dorms do you know with Nielsen boxes?

It would be interesting to see what happened if you could suddenly get viewing data from all those TiVos, digital cable boxes, and satellites out there. It might be like when album sales became directly tied to the sales register instead of clerk reporting. It was discovered that country music accounted for far more sales than was credited.

Re:Nielsen

[marekk]

This is completely false. While Nielsen households are not a completely random sample of the viewing audience, they are accurate enough to represent the viewership audience per show within an acceptable margin of error. Random sampling/surveys are a scientifically sound method of obtaining an overview of the whole.

If the Nielsen ratings weren't accurate, stations, broadcasters, advertisers, etc would be screaming for a more accurate viewership measuring system. The accuracy of the Nielsen ratings is essential to the surviability of the NielsenMedia company. If the people that studied these ratings (advertisers, execs) didn't feel they were accurate, they would be looking for a new parter to monitor ratings.

Nielsens

[szcx]

Of course that is pretty unlikely- but my household won't miss an episode. To bad the cats don't count in the nielsons ;)

Unless you have a box, you count for about as much as your cats.

Interesting show on cable (Trio)

[Microsift]

"Brilliant but Cancelled" described fan efforts to save cancelled shows, noting it is nearly impossible, once the final decision is made. They did cite one example of a show that was cancelled and brought back because of fan support, "Cagney and Lacy." The show was out of production and the actors and actresses had been released from their contracts, but they managed to get everyone back.

If Farscape is officially canceled, there's probably not much hope. One notable difference is that the shows featured on "Brilliant..." were all on one of the major networks, so Sci-Fi may play it differently.

Re:What about

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Why are people so fucking gung-ho about saving a TV show, yet wouldn't lift a finger to help another human being?

Because nearly all other human beings suck.

Next question?

Re:Why save it?

[DevilM]

If you treat TV in a similar vain as say a play then I can see your point. However, most people just plop down in front of the tube and waste their life away.

Make TV a special event to be enjoyed socially with friends and strangers a like and then you'll have something. Until then, even the most creative content from TV can be better found somewhere else.

Dont rely on viewer count machines

[nurb432]

Everyone still call/write si-fi after each episode and ask for more...

Be sure to mention content in each weeks show so they KNOW you are really watching..

We have a chance here, lets not blow it.

Amazing

[Twirlip of the Mists]

So they're hoping and praying for Farscape to pull in a 2 rating? Astounding. Firefly consistently drew around a 2.4, and yet Fux dropped it faster than... a... um... fast dropping thing.

Sorry. I'm having a figurative language problem today. I can do personification and synecdoche, but I can't pull off metaphor or simile. It's like....

Re: Amazing

[Black Parrot]

> Fox thinks it's a real network, and holds the bar a little bit higher than an offbeat cable network like SciFi. The WB would've killed for Firefly's ratings, but Fox needs a bigger pull...

Fox mismanaged Firefly so badly that it's hard not to believe some influential exec wanted it to die. They started by running ads that grossly misrepresented the nature of the program, then they decided not to bother showing the pilot, then, right about the time people's new-season watching habits were starting to solidify they bumped it two weeks in a row for some really crappy Thanksgiving specials, and finally, after announcing that they were going to do a media blitz to try to bump up the ratings when it started showing again, they hardly bothered advertising for it on their own station, let alone any kind of "media blitz".

The only surprise is that anyone bothered watching it regularly at all. More's the shame, because it really was a good show -- but you did have to tune it in regularly and learn a bit about the characters in order to appreciate it.

Farscape will not be renewed and here's why

[loggia]

USA Networks (which owns channels like Sci-Fi and USA) is following the current trend of "own your own shows and make more money."

USA Networks does not own Farscape.

USA would rather pump out garbage like Tremors: The Series, The Dream Team with Anna and Michael and other crap... because they own it and would reap the windfall if the shows become syndicated later on.

Now I did not say this plan makes sense. It doesn't. Disney has tried this with ABC and fallen to the bottom of the ratings heap. Far to the bottom. So much so that they are losing a tremendous amount of money on ABC. How is this better than working with a variety of production companies to create hits and making money the old way? It isn't.

But that is the current wisdom.

Also, USA Networks thinks showing the same programs on USA and Sci-Fi is a good idea and so is showing cheap black-and-white shows that get low ratings.

This is "smart."

Re:What about

[DAldredge]

No. People like Farscape because they did too many drugs while watching the Muppet Show.

Re:Why save it?

[Anonvmous Coward]

"Because Farscape just happens to be THE BEST SCI-FI show ever created!"

No, Doctor Who was the best Scifi show ever created.

Efforts to get that show played on Scifi-Channel would be better rewarded. 25+ years of eps without the derivitive dribble.

Label me a troll if you like, but there's a reason that Farscape's being canned. There's an even better reason why DrW went on for so long.

A Nielsen Point...

[geddes]

A Nielsen point is the percentage of televisions in the US that tuned into the show. So a 2 would mean that 2% of the households with televisions in the united states (or roughly 2 million televisions) had tuned into the show. (More information at the Nielsen FAQ.

For reference, the most popular TV show last week was CSI, followed by Monday Night football. CSI got 13 points, Monday Night Football 11 (data here). So though a 2 isn't blockbuster (the lowest scoring show in the top twenty got a 6), it is still impressive. I don't know if farscape can do it.

Priorities first.

[Anonvmous Coward]

Futurama.

Re:Priorities first.

[NanoGator]

"Priorities first."
"Futurama."

My kingdom for a mod point.

The sets have been destroyed.

[fava]

Not taken down and put into storage but destroyed with chainsaws and taken to the dump. Rebuilding all the sets would be very expensive, the ratings would have to be very good to justify it.

Save Enterprise!

[yobbo]

Oh wait it hasn't been cancelled... yet.

Brilliant but cancelled

[CleverNickName]

I've heard of this other show that was brought back because of fan reaction and lobbying.

Some Sci-Fi show from the 60s.

Ordinarily, studios just don't listen to audiences, as counter intuitive as that seems, especially today, when most studios are just arms of a gigantic multi-national corporation (that's controlled by the Gnomes of Zurich with help from the girl scouts and the orbital mind control lasers)