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Farscape Fans Reinventing Television
JoeCotellese writes "With the recent cancellation of Farscape, this Salon story discusses the creative ways fans are trying to save the show.
Specifically it talks about how grassroots organization through the internet has helped them to the point where they are discussing fan funded production of the show."
Could be an interesting way of doing things however I can't see it really working as shows need a guaranteed, regular income stream.
I would personally love Farscape to be continued, especially having seen the cliff-hanger of a final episode last Monday on BBC 2..........
I wonder if you could do things like give people who donate over $xxx amount a walk-on part or something? Guided tours of the sets (yeah I know they need to be rebuilt)? Signed anythings. I guess you could try a fund raising event like the US PBS shows do - or the lartge charity fundraisers we have in the UK. Would work if we found some big starts who would support the thing for free......
Hmm
Troc
Troc's dubious podcast and blog: http://www.trocnet.net
The Farscape producers were under the assumption they were going into a fifth season. After all, SciFi bought it for a fourth and fifth season. Thus, they left season four on a huge cliff-hanger and were going to wrap it all up in season five, much like Babylon 5. However, the end result is a cliff-hanger that may never be resolved.
So, to answer your question, the fans want a fifth season, they want resolution of the series and they want more Farscape.
TV is an odd bird, and more so in the last 15 years as cable networks have exploded onto the scene.
:-/
Listening to people like JMS (who you mentioned, but did you know he's written an excellent screenwriter's guide for TV and movies that goes into a lot of the politics and how to deal with them?), Joss Whedon, Aaron Sorkin and others who have managed to sneak quality television in, I'm convinced that there's a formula for getting good television on the air.
Woefully for us, you're right: it has nothing to do with the fans per se, and once it stops going our way, we have little hope of changing it. It has to do with good writers (writers in TV are like directors in movies, they have a lot of power if they use it right) who have the organization skills and drive to produce (in name or function) their own shows, and a massive focus on good timing. You really have to pick a network thats brand new or established but on the ropes (even if just in one particular time-slot) or re-inventing themselves (e.g. Showtime and Sci-Fi in recent years).
Crusade was a great counter-example to this. Straczynski ran into an established network (TNT) that didn't have any major problems to solve. That meant that internally, there were too many little drones running around trying to find ways to be useful and justify their jobs. The way he describes it, the folks in Hollywood were practically fans of his (some actually were) and they let him do his thing, but he was constantly assaulted by the folks back at the home office in Atlanta who wanted to expand the demographic of the show, and make it match their existing audience (WWF fans as you point out).
No fan can tell those execs in Atlanta to piss off, because they're convinced that there's more gold inside the goose than the few paltry eggs it lays each season. They want to cut it open, re-structure it and sell it out for condos! That's the mentality you're dealing with, and it's only broken when there's change... you have to seek out that change. To many, JMS seemed pig-headed around Crusade, and I felt that way at first, but I realized after a while that I'd rather have the show go away than have 7 seasons of B5 meets VIP
[side note to SHEENmaster first: you're on my foes list, and I don't know why, but one more post like this, and you're off ;)]
I don't agree with your choice of examples (Sliders was a cool idea, but quickly devolved into bad story telling), but I agree wiht the sentiment. Let me explain Farscape for you, since you're not familliar with it, and hopefully explain why people (not me) care about it so much:
It's something like Buck Rogers. Guy from earth gets sent "away" (space in this case, not time) to a place where there are all manner of science-fictiony things to contend with. It's a classic culture-shock setup, which is a very common tool in SF and other genres as well, as it allows you to tell the story with your protagonist being the "everyman" that people can relate to.
Here are the things that have kept people watching Farscape: 1) really alien aliens including one who is totally non-humanoid (a ship) 2) the theme of the show seems to be exploring how much you can mess with the protagonist's brain before it turns to jello, and some people enjoy such story telling 3) the story evolves. Not in a B5 way where there's an end-point your moving to and a story arc on the way, but more in the Buffy style where things are allowed to change season-to-season.
Woefully for me, the most important part isn't there: writing. It's ok writing, even good writing by television standards, but I find it hard to get into a show unless the writing is exceptional, and Farscape's is not. It had some very good ideas, and ideas are fun. If they had structured it as more of an anthology, I might have watched. As it is, I watched a couple of seasons when they repeated, got the pattern (alien messes with John's mind, John acts crazy, crew acts suspicious, John quotes movie/TV line and gets better/kicks alien's ass). That was enough for me.
I'm not saying it's a bad show, just that I'm not on board with the idea that it's worth saving.