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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."
that doesn't like farscape?
The Twiligh Zone(old), Sliders, The Outer Limits(new), and better shows fell from the waves. Why is everyone so concerned with farscape?
In all fairness I haven't seen more than five episodes of the show, but I have never been attached to it. Why are so many people obsessed with it?
This is a serious question, not a flame.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Salon fans reinventing hand-outs as a business model. It worked so well for Linux companies, after all.
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
Campaigning may have worked for a while... but now EVERY show that gets canceled gets a campaign to save it. It's losing its potency, even if they do reinvent how its done.
When the folks at TNT told J Michael Strasinski to make Babylon Crusade "WWF wresting mixed with Baywatch" I pretty much lost any hope in being able to communicate with TV execs in English. Grunts and fist loads of money seem to be the only way.
Fuzzy Knights: New RPG Strips Tuesday and Friday!:
http://www.fuzzyknights.com
Never. Going. To. Happen.
When did Salon start this "you have two options to read the rest of this article" crap. I don't really mind sitting through an ad (especially for powell's books, a fantastic bookstore), but then it didn't even take me to the rest of the article. Instead it dropped me back at their main page with no clue where to go next.
Oh, there it is all the way at the bottom. Grrr.
Well they;re welcome to try, if they like it that much. It'll just be hard to bring up to the standards of modern tv shows.
Although with programs like blender etc.. going oupen source, it might have the nice cgi that a sci-fi flicks requires.
good luck to them.
So, anyways, let me ask some questions. Is the big deal that Sci-Fi bitched out on the final season that it promised or that the fans just want the show to go on forever? Or just the fact that the series ended with a cliffhanger and you need resolution? Moreover, what makes the Farscape fans so persistent and loud about what they want? And will scraping together enough money for an episode (which I thought was a plan at one time) really do anything?
How come the NYT gets an obligatory 'free registration required' warning while Salon doesn't merit an 'expensive and probably futile registration required' fatal error?
Kind of sucks that one can't read the whole article.
Can we moderate a user down if they give a really crappy link?
Much of the funding for PBS programs come from "Fan" funding. How is this essentially different?
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.
this all reminds me of a few years ago, when a show called "brookyln bridge", got cancelled, then everyone started bitching for it to be put back on the air, then they did put it back on the air, then no one watched it again, like before, and it got cancelled, again. the studios and stations know that this is the most likely scenario already, and as such i am sure they are ready to move on to the "next big thing", unfortunately. i watched a few episodes of the show, it is pretty cool, but I am not going to lose sleep over the fact that the show got cancelled. chalk it up to "the man trying to keep you down" or something. meanwhile, you can still watch reruns.
I hate sigs.
If you're criticising Farscape, I'm really hoping that you've actually watched more than two episodes. Personally, I think Farscape is one of the *best* SCI-FI shows ever made (right up there with Stargate and TOL), based simply on the quality of production and creativity in making the 'actors'. :)
(I mean honestly, tell me Pilot just isn't the coolest muppet ever?!)
Please get over the show people. To be so attached that you are considering funding the show? That is just insane. There are much better things to do with your time than get caught up in TV or movies. All this stuff is imaginary and it is just taking you away from reality of the real world.
Save Farscape was created for the explicit effort of saving Farscape. I sure hope it is saved, since it's probably one of the best sci-fi shows in existence. Pretty much all I watch for TV shows are Junkyard Wars, Farscape and Enterprise.
Farscape is watched by ppl outside the US as .
.
.5% of just the US population .
.
.
well, especially seeing how it is made in
Australia
It's following is bigger than one might
expect as it is multi-continent
If it has 1 million viewers, ie. it would be
less than
Apathy is very powerful though, so it depends
if ppl really give a damn and are willing to
donate a cpl of bucks a year , and or if
Farscape will put up a support site with
banner advertising and sell memorabilia and
gadgets and what-not's
If they get some ancillary monetary support
structure setup they could MORE than cover
the cost of the show
Peace...
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
And if spending money in order to maintain or improve (as they see it) the standard of story telling in our culture (and TV is the primary story telling vehicle in our culture) isn't "getting a life", then what, pray-tell, is?!
One could argue (and I would not be the first), that story-telling is the most important attribute of what we do in our lives, as it's the primary way that we can affect future generations (child rearing asside). I won't argue that because I have other opinions on what's valuable in life, but I certainly would not scream "get a life" at anyone who's willing to get off the couch and organize and effort like this!
They are talking about doing season 5 as an anime series. Which, if done correctly, could be really great.
I loved farscape because it tried to stay away from the star trek cliche, and pretty much succeeded. Also because it was actually very well written, acted, and full of really great one liners that really threw you for a loop.
Watch the last episodes of season 4, and you'll probably see the best sci-fi tv in a lonnnng time.
I do understand how some don't like it, as it is very serial. But on the flip side, I know quite a few people who watched the between-season intro episode where they tried to introduce new people to the series, and absolutely were hooked. I mean, even my sister and her husband, who are not sci-fi nerds started watching it.
"Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms,
If you've watched the show from the very beginning, you have to have seen several differences between it and 'typical' American sci-fi programming.
For one, the show focussed on several issues that were 'uncomfortable' to american audiences. Applause there for forcing us to stretch our brains a bit!
Also, the characters were much more involved with each other, in real ways, than most other crap you see on the 'major' networks. These relationships made several viewers addicted to the show even though they watched almost no other science fiction programming. Applause for making us re-examine our own interpersonal relations a bit!
Semi-finally, just about every major character in the show was physically different from 'human' in ways to remind us of the plurality of life. Crichton's best friend had tentacles growing off his face, and a very long tongue with an adaptive toxin in the tip. The first sexy chick you saw (at the beginning of the series) was a gorgeous sky blue in color, with no hair at all. Ear-splitting applause for showing that Different is Good!!!
I hate to use the past tense so much in this commentary. But, the show is effectively killed by corporate politics/greed/stupidity. I'd be quite surprised to see it continued by fan support.
Best chance for the show to return anew would be for the son/daughter of some ultra-rich individual finding the right button to push on daddy's emotions to force funding to flow.
Sigh.
Yeah, it stinx0r. Or you can do the 'One Day Pass'. Posting it may break some copyright. This is the future...
Freedom of the press, but not the readers...
Any show that would make my non-sci-fi loving wife watch it over ER should have stayed on the air for a long time in my book.
I'm saddened to see it go. Here's hoping that a paperback book series or something more will start up to expand the universe a la Star Wars and Star Trek. There've been three so far that I've found & read, and they were true to the heart of the Farscape story.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
Well, I don't know that I've read a recent NY Times article that wasn't mirrored here. And that broke some copyright or other.
However, the kind of people who would pay for Salon are the kind who'd hoard the article to themselves. Self-righteousness, and all that.
The series plot goes like this: an earthman gets "shot through a wormhole" and finds himself in a distant part of the universe, surrounded by aliens, and with a burning desire to get home to Earth!
Well, as they say, be careful what you wish for: he gets home to Earth (finally), realizes just how much the people there suck big donkey balls (war, politics, Israeli/Palestinian thing, people wanting to vivisect his buddies, myside/yourside), and leaves again with all his Moya buddies! Even Scorpius is preferable...
So now the series is left without a "big picture" plot line, just innumerable random "oh we've been betrayed by ANOTHER alien" type plots. It's like Gilligan's Island *after* they get rescued! Or the Hulk after what's-his-name figures out how to turn the Hulk-effect off (and gets his ass kicked in the next mugging, oops).
Either way, I won't be watching that abortion they call "Tremors." I could barely watch the first movie without ripping the tape out of the VCR. I certainly won't be wasting my time on a series.
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
I'm already seeing several questions about why Farscape (FS from here on out) is so good, or people talking about how they can't stand (and then admit they've only watched a few episodes). So, to answer those posts, I'm going to give you X number of reasons (where X equals the point where I get tired of typing or can't think of anymore) why FS is a fantastic show (especially SciFi show, but even among other shows).
These are in no particular order.
1. Continuity matters - What happens in one episode usually has an impact on a later episode, even if you don't realize it at the time. This ranges from X happened last epsiode, and now it has impact Y on the next one to X happened a season ago, and helps explain Y in this episode a season later. There are a few other SF shows on TV right now that do this (Enterprise), but not many. Unfortunately, this has a downside, in that grabbing new viewers midstream becomes problematic.
2. Complex characters - Sometimes the "good" guys act bad and some times the "bad" guys act good, and sometimes the "bad" guys turn out to be not so bad and really it can get a little hard to tell who the good and bad guys are a lot of the time. All of the time you're left guessing at most of the characters motives. Friendships and allegiances bend and break. Sometimes the "good" and "bad" guys have to cooperate to achieve shared goals.
3. Unpredictability - Farscape has done some stuff I never saw coming (or my wife, who's better at guessing plot twists than I). They killed off a main character in the middle of a season. They "cloned" the main character and had both walking around for nearly a season. Normally, you sort of realize that the central character can't get killed off, but when there's two of him, you never know if/when one might get wacked.
4. Somewhat more creative aliens - This is due in part to the Henson involvement. It allows them to create non-humanoid aliens that are very believable. Among those are the "ship" itself, the somewhat symbiotic pilot of the ship and Rygel. Even the humanoid aliens are fairly different from one another. One of the main characters is a humanoid meat-eating vegetable. Nearly a season's worth of episodes are focused on the pregnancy of the ship, how the crew deals with it, how it affects their run from the law, etc.
5. A great ensemble cast - For the most part, every main character is well acted (and via some episodes we get to see them stretch their abilities) and well written. This interplays with having complex characters, but unlike some shows, there's hardly a dud in the bunch (I'm looking at you Harry Kim or, sorry Wil, Wesley Crusher).
6. Comedy - I know a lot of SF shows are good at inserting humor, but Farscape does it as well as any other. I would rank it right up there with Firefly. If nothing else, the voices in the main character's head are handled perfectly, just skirting the edge of slapstick but not quite turning into the stooges.
7. Fresh characters - The cast has been changing since the first season. New characters show up, others leave the show. And this isn't just "add a hot babe to boost ratings" changes. Think more along the lines of old ugly witch-doctor woman who cooks meals and occasionally drugs the crew.
There are so many other reasons, but I can't think of them all right now. If you can get your hands on them, go rent the first few DVD's which will have the first six episodes or so. Watch them all, and I think you'll see what I mean.
I have little sympathy for fans of cancelled TV shows. The typical response I hear from Farscape fans is to say that everyone else's show is "written to the 13 year old level". Ironically the writer of that remark illustrates his comment by attacking of all shows CSI as "95% star-trek style technobabble around a loose and predicable crime scene". Maybe if fans would show a little more respect for the tastes of others I would have more sympathy. But to be honest, if their attitude is that everyone else is inferior for not watching their show, then I am happy that their show is cancelled.
Why can't Farscape or other SF fans find a way to praise their own show without questioning the intelligence of fans of other shows?
I don't know why people have to feel that the only way to advocate their tastes is to tear down the choices of others. Do these people go around saying that everyone else's cuisine sucks because they really like one of their own particular dishes? Maybe the shows would have more fans if their advocates weren't always acting like a bunch of juveniles.
In the past prior to TV/Radio etc that is advertising funded entertainment the people who could did pay for entertainment to be developed. They paid composers to develop a peice of music or playwrights to create plays in essence fan-funded entertainment. Maybe this could be a way to save the quality of TV by getting Fans to say where their money goes
Your'e all thinking it, I just said it for you
I watched most of the first series and thought it was pretty good, in a fun sci-fi early-evening watching way.
But, as with so many shows, the writers stopped concentrating on each episode and instead went for the long-term storyline thing. It happens to so many shows, and it generally means they've outlived their useful lives. If you've run out of ideas to write a decent storyline for each show, stretching the storyline out over n seasons isn't going to help.
Look at Babylon 5 - it started out pretty good, then I stopped watching for a bit and suddenly you had to have watched the last 32 episodes to understand what was going on. Or Buffy - the first few series had simple ongoing plots which could be summed up in 20 seconds of "previously on Buffy...". From the series with Adam onwards, the "previously" bit was almost a whole programme on its own. Or look at any Friends series after Ross and Rachel got together (shudder).
Makers of shows like this should realise when their horse is dead.
The fans don't have to necessarily fund a full season. It would require more writing but it's likely the cliffhangers could be resolved more quickly then was planned, perhaps in three or four episodes made with extreme attention to cost-savings. This might be an attainable goal, esp. if all the fans go out and buy three or four copies of the DVD releases; it might look profitable to make a final DVD or two just for that. ;-)
I would never expect them to fund a full season but they might be able to get enough. It might seem a bit hurried to the fans but surely they'd understand. I don't watch Farscape so I don't know, but if the cliffhanger was intense enough, the speedy pace might even fit into the story.
Perhaps the story mentioned this. I don't know, because I can't view Salon stories. I can't see the ad I'm supposed to watch to get the day pass, nor do I really care, so please no RTFA comments; I would if I could.
True.
I get my quota of 40% Spam, though... dunno that I want to go around registering for more stuff when that will put me over that threshold...
If anyone is willing to take the SPAM for me... let me know. :)
1. Chiana is hot and has a dominating personality, i.e. nerd dream date. I think someone in this thread mentioned that he liked Farscape because "Chiana was totally hot". Uh-huh.
2. Crichton is portrayed as being smart AND good looking, not a hacker in a greasy t-shirt and coke-bottle glasses.
Stroking the egos of the sci-fi community is not a good reason to keep a show on the air. I'll probably get flamed to a crisp for going against established Slashdot dogma, but somebody has to point out that the obvious.
Aren't you excited. Lots of Michael Gross.
For those of us that miss Family Ties and
just couldn't get enough of him as Dr. John
Carter's dad on E.R. We feel blessed!
"For god sakes folks it's just a TV show! You took a thing I did as a lark and turned it into a colossal waste of time! I mean you, have you ever even kissed a girl?"
Seriously, I love Sci-Fi too, but I think people have forgotten its just a TV show. Go and live life, I mean you can't be that bored that you decide to use up the precious moments in your life campaigning to maintain a FANTASY world. Get away from TV, and go out with your friends and family.And we are not in the world of 'Norther Exposure'. We are in a world where networks have to make TiVo a non issue by delivering programs that people want to watch at the time it is broadcast, complete with embedded advertising, and cheap enough to make so that a profit can be made by one or two broadcast. The most common model is the reality show.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Can "Farscape" fans reinvent TV?
When the Sci Fi Channel canceled "Farscape," angry fans launched the usual protest movement. Now they're dreaming of a rebellion that could overthrow TV empires.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Adrienne Crew
March 13, 2003 | Like so many stories, this one begins with an ending. Or, rather, the announcement of an ending.
Early last September, thousands of fans of the science fiction television series "Farscape" logged in to a chat room maintained by the Sci Fi Channel, which distributes the series in the United States. The Jim Henson Co. actually produces the series, mainly with licensing fees paid by Sci Fi, although Henson also syndicates the show in Britain, Germany and other countries.
"Farscape's" fans (and I'm among them) consider it one of the most innovative and best-written things on TV. The show follows the adventures of astronaut John Crichton (Ben Browder), who is marooned in space after an aeronautical accident. Buff, brainy and kinda goofy, John allies himself with a band of outlaw aliens aboard a sentient spaceship that's being pursued by the military arm of a totalitarian regime.
When fans logged on in September, Sci Fi had just broadcast the first 11 episodes of the show's fourth season, with the balance to come in the spring after a short break. "Farscape's" staffers and actors celebrate the end of each season's production schedule by communicating online with the fans -- from Australia, where the show is produced -- to discuss upcoming episodes and drop "spoilers" about the season finale.
The fans received more than spoilers this session. Immediately following a phone conference with Sci Fi programming executives, "Farscape" executive producer David Kemper, along with actor Ben Browder and co-executive producer Richard Manning, informed the "Farscape" faithful (known as "'Scapers") that Sci Fi Channel had just reneged on its commitment to purchase the fifth and final season of the series. Effectively, the show had just been canceled, leaving the audience with a series finale that ends in a cliffhanger.
Predictably, within hours of the cancellation announcement fans had gathered on message boards and in chat rooms to create strategies for protesting Sci Fi's decision. What began as a collective of fans bemoaning the loss of their favorite show has become the Save "Farscape" campaign, one of the largest and most sophisticated fan campaigns in television history.
The Save "Farscape" campaign is hardly the first grass-roots effort to save a television series. In 1968 NBC would never have realized that people were watching "Star Trek" if superfan Bjo Trimble hadn't encouraged other viewers to protest the series' imminent cancellation. Dorothy Swanson organized a successful letter-writing campaign in 1983 to save "Cagney and Lacey," and subsequently founded Viewers for Quality Television to assist other worthy but ratings-deprived shows, such as "Designing Women." Fans of the late-night cult classic "Mystery Science Theater 3000" brought fan-based campaigns into the Internet age when they launched a Web site to find a new home for the series after Sci Fi canned it in 1999. (The site continues to bring "MSTies" together, although efforts to relaunch the show were long ago abandoned.)
In the '90s, grassroots efforts to save canceled shows have gained momentum. Fans protesting the cancellation of the ABC drama "Once and Again" persuaded the network to finance enough episodes to conclude open-ended storylines. Creative "Roswell" fans caught the attention of WB programmers and bought their show more time by sending them bottles of hot sauce as a reminder of the condiment favored by the aliens on the series.
Each successive campaign absorbs and improves upon lessons learned during previous protests. 'Scapers have taken the best from all of them; they sent Sci Fi executives packages of crackers, in homage to the title of a favorite "Farscape" episode, "Crackers Don't Matter."
But protests are perhaps also
OtisAardvark writes "With the recent cancellation of Salon, this Salon story discusses the creative ways fans are trying to save Salon. Specifically it talks about how grassroots organization through the internet has helped them to the point where they are discussing fan funded production of Salon."
;-)
Ever get the feeling that there are only 5 stories in the world?
After all, they've shown Braveheart. :-) I'm just wondering what excuse they'll use to do what everyone else is doing when they someday feature The Godfather or The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
Or I suppose I can look forward to the inevitable James Bond marathon week...
March 13, 2003 | Like so many stories, this one begins with an ending. Or, rather, the announcement of an ending.
Early last September, thousands of fans of the science fiction television series "Farscape" logged in to a chat room maintained by the Sci Fi Channel, which distributes the series in the United States. The Jim Henson Co. actually produces the series, mainly with licensing fees paid by Sci Fi, although Henson also syndicates the show in Britain, Germany and other countries.
"Farscape's" fans (and I'm among them) consider it one of the most innovative and best-written things on TV. The show follows the adventures of astronaut John Crichton (Ben Browder), who is marooned in space after an aeronautical accident. Buff, brainy and kinda goofy, John allies himself with a band of outlaw aliens aboard a sentient spaceship that's being pursued by the military arm of a totalitarian regime.
When fans logged on in September, Sci Fi had just broadcast the first 11 episodes of the show's fourth season, with the balance to come in the spring after a short break. "Farscape's" staffers and actors celebrate the end of each season's production schedule by communicating online with the fans -- from Australia, where the show is produced -- to discuss upcoming episodes and drop "spoilers" about the season's finale.
The fans received more than spoilers this session. Immediately following a phone conference with Sci Fi programming executives, "Farscape" executive producer David Kemper, along with Browder and co-executive producer Richard Manning, informed the "Farscape" faithful that Sci Fi Channel had just reneged on its commitment to purchase the fifth and final season of the series. Effectively, the show had just been canceled, leaving the audience with a series finale that ends in a cliffhanger.
Predictably, within hours of the cancellation announcement fans had gathered on message boards and in chat rooms to create strategies for protesting Sci Fi's decision. What began as a collective of fans bemoaning the loss of their favorite show has become the Save "Farscape" campaign, one of the largest and most sophisticated fan campaigns in television history.
The Save "Farscape" campaign is hardly the first grass-roots effort to save a television series. In 1968 NBC would never have realized that people were watching "Star Trek" if superfan Bjo Trimble hadn't encouraged other viewers to protest the series' imminent cancellation. Dorothy Swanson organized a successful letter-writing campaign in 1983 to save "Cagney and Lacey," and subsequently founded Viewers for Quality Television to assist other worthy but ratings-deprived shows, such as "Designing Women." Fans of the late-night cult classic "Mystery Science Theater 3000" brought fan-based campaigns into the Internet age when they launched a Web site to find a new home for the series after Sci Fi canned it in 1999. (The site continues to bring "MSTies" together, although efforts to relaunch the show were long ago abandoned.)
In the '90s, grassroots efforts to save canceled shows have gained momentum. Fans protesting the cancellation of the ABC drama "Once and Again" persuaded the network to finance enough episodes to conclude open-ended storylines. Creative "Roswell" fans caught the attention of WB programmers and bought their show more time by sending them bottles of hot sauce as a reminder of the condiment favored by the aliens on the series.
Each successive campaign absorbs and improves upon lessons learned during previous protests. 'Scapers have taken the best from all of them; they sent Sci Fi executives packages of crackers, in homage to the title of a favorite "Farscape" episode, "Crackers Don't Matter."
But protests are perhaps also becoming more sophisticated in reaction to the insensitivity of media monopolies. Movie buffs filed class-action lawsuits in Chicago this February against two movie theater chains for screening commercials before the start of movies. People are beginning to realize that lett
Yes, I am a Muslim. No, I am not a Terrorist.
The last episode airs this coming Friday at 8pm EST on SciFi. (It aired last Monday in the UK). Be sure to watch it (I've seen it, and it's a fantastic episode).
Well StarTrek offers a counter example. A show that was cancelled, and when brought back was 10x as popular as the original.
Actually, I am a fan of farscape, it WAS a great show (though it got a bit silly in the later seasons). And, I don't really care whether these people choose to waste their lives...so never mind BTW, since you are an anonymous coward I can't respond directly to you. But, being that I am about to finish a FUCKING doctorate, have you finished high school yet you moron?
PBS hasn't been interesting since they took DR. Who and Cosmos off the air, maybe this isn't such a bad idea after all.
i have to agree, though perhaps not so vehemently. there are about one zillion things wrong with our society, and "saving" a tv show isn't going to fix a single one of them.
it's not only about "getting a life," it's also about getting priorities in order.
donate to the fsf, aclu, eff, a local charity, the developers of your favorite software over at sourceforge.
such donations truly can "make a difference."
mp
"The secret to strong security: less reliance on secrets." -- Whitfield Diffie
Farscape costs $.75m per episode to make. The shortfall is probably on the order of 20% which means an extra season needs something like $3m (.15m * 20 epsisodes) in funding. 60k fans paying $50 each pays for an additional season. Or basically what a single performance of an expensive rock concert at large stadium costs.
I don't know how popular the show is with hardcare fans but this number doesn't sound completely out of bounds.
I don't understand. What slip? Are you saying that child rearing is not important, or were you just picking on the spelling of asside [sic]?
You say each episode costs $750,000. You assume 20 episodes. You assume 60,000 fans. That's $250 per per fan per episode!!!
Furthermore, I seriously doubt that Farscape costs ONLY $750,000 per episode. Unless you have some proof to back that up, you're crazy!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
I meant $250 per fan per SEASON!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
I'm not saying it's impossible. Surely it's possible. I'm just saying it will never happen!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
I have a very hard time believing that the SciFi channel cancelled Farscape because of the money or the ratings. They continue running the incredibly lame series Stargate SG-1. I liked Richard Dean Anderson as "MacGyver", but he should have stuck with that. If that wasn't bad enough, SciFi has been running ads for "Tremors - the series" - okay, the movie was bad enough. This is the kind of thing that you could easily see on MST3K - poor writing and cheap effects ("special" intentionally omitted.)
Farscape requires a bit more intelligent viewer to follow and understand the storyline and the depth of the character development. So yeah, it would be harder to get ratings than with a waste like "Friends."
As I understand it, the first three seasons of Farscape were designed to be able to be wrapped up in case SciFi cancelled the series. The producers left season four in a cliffhanger, which indicates how much of a surprise it was when the SciFi execs pulled the plug. Its really too bad. There is so little quality television programming anymore that I've taken to keeping FoxNews on most of the time.
There is very little future in being right when your boss is wrong.
They are talking about doing season 5 as an anime series.
Actually, no they aren't. From what I've heard, the anime series is going to be a tie-in, but apparently unrelated plot-wise to the TV series itself. (Even if that's not true, David Kemper has stated that he has no involvement with the anime, so whatever they come up with, it won't be what he intended.)
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
I suspect "discussing fan funded production of the show" will end when they find out how expensive television is. I realize that Farscape didn't cost as much as let's say ST:TNG or something but I doubt each episode cost less than $500 000. I'm not trying to be a troll here but I honestly don't understand the devotion that people had to this show. Sub-par writing and sub-par acting the whole way.
You want to know who isn't running Firefox 2.x? They spell it "definately" and "rediculous".
One of the things I really love about Farscape, is the fact that the people doing it aren't afraid to punish the protagonist for his good intentions. I mean, when you have the hero trying to do the right thing or whatever and you make it actually the very worst thing he could do and you have it all blow up in his face...that can make for some pretty interesting story telling. Its the idea that no matter how good our intentions are, the actions we take have consequences that we have to live with. Its the idea that, whether you're fixing the time-line on some planet to save the universe or you're trying to help the mujahadine to protect their home from the Soviets...the end result might not be as good as your intentions. I also really really like the character of Scorpius, especially after the "Incubator" episode where they explained his motivations and ended up making him a much more complex character (and arguably a tragic hero rather than a RichardIII type villain).
Farscape is watched by ppl outside the US as well, especially seeing how it is made in Australia .
Let me state this clearly for you... FARSCAPE IS NOT WATCHED IN AUSTRAILIA.
They do not show it, and they changed its timeslot so many times only rabid fans could be bothered.
So, no, FARSCAPE IS NOT WATCHED IN AUSTRAILIA.
http://jesus.everdense.com/
1) You know the Sci Fi Channel is full of it. Okay, so maybe the show cost a little to produce. Heck, maybe it even cost a lot to produce. But, if there was some kind of funding shortfall, I'm pretty sure that just one of those godawful Sci Fi Original Movies would have paid for it. Take Epoch or Antibody. I'm under the impression that the Sci Fi Channel actually pays people to put out these films. If so, the budget from one of two of these forgettable disasters could easily cover a Farscape shortfall.
2) This is the end of it for me and the Sci Fi Channel. First, the end of MST3K. Well, I'll live. I was kind of peeved about them cutting off The Invisible Man, which had been a much better series than I had intended. Farscape is now the last show they have that I'm interested in. They're replacing it with Tracker ... hey, this guy, with superpowers like ... sucks light out of the bad guys, at least one an episode. Same guy as Highlander. Same show as Highlander. Oh, and let's not forget Tremors: The Series, which was supposed to be cheap, but is months late because it ran over budget, etc. And this is going to be better than Farscape how?
The Sci Fi Channel has totally lost its mission and has no sense of who its viewers are. How does a remake of Psycho belong on a channel about science fiction? And that Viper show ... wow. They couldn't rerun The Flash? Where's Max Headroom in this lineup? It had a short run, but no shorter than the incessantly-played (if still good) Brimstone. The most sci-fi thing they have going for them now, aside from Stargate: SG-1 is, well, their little station bits with the melting sumo wrestlers and big-eared alien tongue-touching pets.
It's as if they have decided to stop running decent science fiction shows in exchange for ... vaguely sciency programming that cost them a dollar to buy the rights for. They no longer understand who their audience is. Once the last show I cared to watch is gone, I doubt I'll do more than flicker over the station on my cable box. Goodbye, Sci Fi. Goodbye, Advertising Dollars.
That having been said, I'm going to run out and buy some Farscape DVDs. Here's hoping for a movie or a six-episode wrapup show released straight to DVD.
such donations truly can "make a difference."
Yeah, like in the amount of junk mail and telemarketing calls you receive.
Back when Emperor Dubyah sent out his $300 bribe to the citizens of the US, I thought I'd do a bit of good and donate it to a few worthy causes.
Now I'm on just about every junk mail list that exists. I get voicemails left on my phone while I'm at work from commercial companies and other charities asking for donations. For a year after my donations, I got mail at least twice a week from the organizations I donated to telling me my membership was about to expire (even though it was weeks old at that point) and that I needed to send more money.
Next time I'm not even going to bother.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
Grow up people, shows such as Farscape cost MILLIONS of dollars to produce. There is now way in heck fans would EVER be able to afford it!
I wonder if they could put Farscape on Pay Per View. That would be an interesting experiment.
::.. check out some Cell Phone Reviews
You forgot the shortfall isn't 100%, i mentioned the 20% shortfall that's how the $250 per season became $50 per season. As for the $750k per episode that's what the producers of farscape quoted to the salon reporter in the original article.
So Farscape is prohibitively expensive to make per episode as a TV show. Fine. Great. Why a TV show then? If all we do want is the plot to be finished up, why not a novel?
http://angryee.blogspot.com
Here is something I just don't understand.
Maybe someone can explain it to me like I am a 4 year old, that might make me understand.
What gets my goat about the Farscape cancelation isn't really the cancelation part. It is the insult to the fans of canceling a series in the middle of an end season cliff hanger.
I respect Sci-Fi's perogative to decide that shows are underwatched and overbudgeted and need to go. At the end of the day it is a business and all that.
But the fans that love Farscape, we are the same people that made the Sci-Fi channel what it is today.
Why can't the people at Sci-Fi just pull Jim Henson productions and the writers aside and say "We are canceling the series, it is done. No use arguing. However we are going to fund a 2 hour series finale for you. Tie up your loose ends in that.".
That is all I want, a series finale (hell it doesn't have to be 2 hours, it can be one hour) that takes care of this cliff hanger and ties up the loose ends of the series.
That would be a nice gesture from Sci-Fi. I don't think they need to fund a 5th season.
And as a fan, I'm actually quite content with the way Farscape ended on a cliffhanger. I don't NEED a tidy Hollywood wrapup which would go something like: Season 5, Ep 1: Crew finds an alien that reassembles main characters molecules; Ep 2 - 23: Yadda yadda wormholes harvy baddies yadda. Ep 24: Everybody lives happily ever after).
--
Power to the Peaceful
Does every freak have a planet!?
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
I wholeheartedly agree. The day the professor died is the day it started to suck.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
The whole point of the dance with other nations is to reach some sort of consensous about the aftermath, the US has not provided one iota of cognent vision about the region because they have too many backdoor policies with Israel and a slew of other countries in the region. The us can wage war on Iraq but they cannot bring peace, that is the reason other countries populations have the foresight to want to wait until they can.
What if Israel gets nuked or a major chem bio attack happens minutes after the war starts, and what if Israel strikes back (they are already a loose cannon). The us does not have contigincies in place to stem the tide of this becoming an ever widening conflict. That is why I am against the war, I don't to throw an entire generation through the war machine like we did in vietnam.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Farscape seems to be a show that people either love or hate. If you hate it, fine but those of you mindlessly repeating "Its a tv show, get a life loser" can go die in a ditch somewhere.
It was somewhat like being slashdotted. Even the bbc's site, which is reserved for fan-based discussion forums was taken out by the number of new visitors. Savefarscape had no prior warning and their forum database and site collapsed too.
Whilst everyone here is aware of the /. effect where a large number of people are directed towards a site, this one of the few times (other than a major disaster) that it has occurred elsewhere.
You decide to use that bit of stock footage of LA, *then* you find that it is a recurring requiring royalties per showing. Maybe it isn't much but it all adds up. This also why nobody wnats to be in on percentage points of the profit, just of the gross.
If you own/produce the show, you can manage the costs a lot better with tight control on the recurring costs. Then even if you don't make money on the first showing, you can pick it up on the reruns/DVDs or whatever.
Sure they have a convention scene and so on, but the series doesn't really take itself too seriously. This means that it has a fan base, but they aren't into it religiously as some trekkies are.
I can understand the criticism from some regarding the fact that it is just a TV show. The SNL Shatner line was hilarious! LOL. I admit it took the second season to hook me. The series is an epic story. If you catch one or two episodes, its like opening a novel and selecting one or two random chapters. You may be disappointed. You may be confused. I see each episode as a movie rather than a television show. I demand quality and as a result I watch very little television programming. "Sopranos", "Six Feet Under", and "Farscape" comprise the three hours of my weekly TV viewing. The rest of my time is well spent with family and friends.
For those that dislike the Farscape series, I hear and respect your opinion. To each their own. For those who have only seen one or two episodes or those who have not seen the show, I will warn you that each episode is unique. The writers and producers take huge risks to break the mainstream science fiction mold and truly experiment with the character and plot development. The term "plot twist" takes on a whole new meaning here. You never know what to expect from each episode, thus I use the analogy of a roller coaster ride. It has its high points and its low points, but the total ride is a blast. If you like a rich, complex plot with special effects that define true suspension of disbelief, then you might enjoy Farscape.
Here's a list of what I enjoy about Farscape:
Intelligent Writing - Some episodes exercise the grey matter more that others, however, you always have to pay attention. I like that interactive requirement. A few episodes in Season Four have focused exclusively on wormholes and space time. Cool subjects. My favorite episode from the series is 4x11 Unrealized Realities. Like some of Sagan's and Hawking's work, this episode will have you thinking for days.
Pop Culture/Humor - From Willy Wonka elevators to Bill Gates bashing you're guaranteed a hearty laugh. How about the age old problem of using the bathroom in space. Nothing is taboo on this show. Did I mention helium farting aliens that urinate explosive fire? You don't see that everyday.
Intense Emotions/Drama - The series boasts some very intelligent and sexy characters. Some relationships cycle between friendship and love. The two main characters John and Aeryn are truly star-crossed lovers. Their relationship is very complex. The acting required to deliver the emotions resulting from this relationship is extremely demanding. Viewers receive an n-dimensional look at each character as they experience and express the entire spectrum of emotions. Note that the romantic side of the series has drawn a very large female audience. I only see this level of drama and intensity in my other two shows. I personally enjoy the leather clad females that can handle themselves as well as their weapons.
"Authentic" Aliens - The Farscape series received a 2002 Emmy nomination for 'Outstanding Costumes For A Series'. Only a handful of movies have produced costumes and creatures this intricate. An enormous amount of work is placed into constructing what I believe is a true suspension of disbelief. I will reference one species of aliens, the Scarrens, as truly amazing. These characters possess a bullet-proof exoskeleton with a heat gland that can read minds or melt organs. Wicked cool.
"Good" Vs. "Bad" Ambiguity - While the series begins with a defined "hero" and "villain", the characters evolve and blend their traits. The line between good and bad is blurred. You can't easily judge the actions of the characters. You have to really understand their past to interpret the present. The show explores trust and betrayal at many different levels. The series also weighs the act of killing to survive. How much is too much? Many viewers adopt a "lesser of two evils" mentality.
Darkness/Despair - Every episode doesn't have a "happy ending". There is an enormous amount of pain and suffering in the show. Character
I'm a fan of the show and I've been watching the "save farscape" effort through a friend and coworker for whom the show had a lot of meaning. She has participated in some "guerilla marketing" activities to help save the show, and kept me informed of general trends.
.emacs files, and those people are actually a significant minority, not the majority. Most people never notice, didn't read the announcement we sent out, and don't care. So it is with cancelling TV shows. The ones who bitch are the ones who really were the target audience with respect to the writing. Everyone else either doesn't care or won't notice. The one's who complain just had their .emacs file broken.
I have a few musings that came to mind as I read the responses to this article.
First - on cancelling shows in general. No matter what, some people will gripe. While this expression of dissatisfaction should not be taken lightly, it should also not be taken too seriously unless it passes a certain threshold. My reasoning for this is based on dynamics I encounter at my job, where I manage the open source tools used by a world-wide corporation. Whenever we change the default version of emacs or xemacs for people, someone bitches. Without fail - they bitch. I've learned the people who bitch are the people who have heavily customized
Second - Farscape as a show has some real value going for it. For me it was the show I picked up after Babylon 5. It is my sci-fi fix. Farscape is serial in that it has a major story arc. It's sometimes episodic - isolated episodes stand on their own. Very Bab 5-ish.
Third - The show is funny (usually). The show plays with innuendo and sarcasm. Often I'm guffawing with laughter at the antics of the characters.
Fourth - It has drama. Good drama, though since blowing up the Scorpi's ship it hasn't been quite as good.
Fifth - The show takes left-turns. Real left-turns. Some of the episodes from time to time are surreal and left-of-center in terms of how they were produced or directed or both. Scratch-and-Sniff and "John Quixote" are two that stand out in my head.
It has some down-sides two.
One - The John/Aaron thing is geting old.
Two - Sometimes the characters are acting out of character to facilitate the plot. John especially is overwritten as a stubborn punk-ass human who needs to be taken down a notch or two.
Three - The arc has lost its momentum as of late
.
Four - I dunno... There's probably a four but I'm too tired now...
Cheerio.
All the fans have to do is to finance the short-fall, but that is a lot of cash. Some syndicators have had success with the series, i.e. the BBC and may be persuaded to pay a little more, others screwed up badly (German TV) by poor scheduling so aren't even interested in Series 2.
Farscape Rocks!
:)
I dont know why ppl dont like it. It is highly original, theses days original shows a far and few between! I think thats the saying. Well, please support farscape.
I AM FARSCAPE
You know, there's a difference between anti-semitic, and anti-sionist.
And the original poster didn't even express any of those, anti-sionist tendencies that is. He merely stated a concern with the policies of the state of Israel.
Quite a few of us share his concerns, without being either anti-semitic, or even anti-sionist per se.
Stefan Axelsson
"quitters never win and winners never quit."
i think you missed the point. if you want to sit around the house and whine about how "fucked up" things are, and do nothing to make them better, and send money to tv megacorps to save your "favorite tv show," that says more about you than about the organizations i mentioned.
all of these organizations provide opt-out. use it. personally, i don't care if they send me junk mail -- it's not spam and they paid for it. and, i believe, in getting the word out about what is going on and what they are doing, they are doing good work for the cause.
in my experience, the biggest sources of junk mail and phone calls are credit card companies and magazines. dr dobbs journal and c/c++ users journal probably account for 30% of my junk mail. ymmv.
mp
"The secret to strong security: less reliance on secrets." -- Whitfield Diffie
IT NEVER ENDS!!!!
Crichton will never
ever
*EVER*
get back home.
Oh sure, he'll have all kinds of hallucinations about getting home, but when this series ends, he will never have made it back.
There will never be closure in Farscape.
In Babylon 5, there was closure. The Shadow War was put to an end, and the old races left, and then NEW things came up (the Earth civil war, the Drakh annoyance and the fall of Centauri Prime, etc.), and they, too, achieved closure. Babylon 5 evolved from one quest to another.
Crichton, on the other hand, is stuck on one quest that will never be fulfilled.
If Farscape were done by JMS, or even the makers of Starate SG-1, Crichton would have gotten home by about Season 3, and all of Earth would have been dragged into it as Crichton's return would have brought the mess home with him.
Now THAT would rock.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Simple put yes...
Unless you're a Dallas fan of course.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.