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Farscape Finale Tonight
Sim9 writes "Just a reminder that Farscape, the critically acclaimed sci-fi television show, is having its *series* finale Friday night! Showing times are 8PM and 12AM ET/PT (7PM and 11PM Central) on SciFi Channel. Catch this great show one last time before it's gone!" Thanks to everyone involved in producing this show. One of my favorites. All I have left on Sci Fi now is SG1.
That they'd rather put up money for shows like Tremors: The Series instead of Farscape. I mean.. it's Tremors for crying out loud!
While I may not have seen very many episodes, this has always been a great show and will be missed by many geeks out there.
Remember, a TV series is not like a movie. A series lives and dies as much with the characters and the writing as it does with the plot and overall concept. You may think the idea is silly, or even stupid, but that doesn't necessarily mean the show as a whole isn't worth watching. Anyone cynical enough can take the plot to any movie or series, twist it around, and make it sound like crap.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
I've been watching Farscape since the very first episode, and I will truly miss it. There are too few truly ground-breaking television shows on these days.
Yep, pretty much all that's left is Star Gate SG-1.
No matter where you go... there you are.
At least we still have MST3K, oh wait that's gone too. So, yea, Tremors...
Hey, Dune! yea! Sci-fi has become the 'watch us for a good miniseries once and a while' channel!
Brought to you by the Artificial Idea Factory.
"All I have left on Sci Fi now is SG1."
you say that like its a good thing.
Sorry SG1 just annoys me. Its like any other non sci-fi show wraped up in sci-fi dressings.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Their behavior is incomprehensible. They kill Farscape, and pick up Tracker. Tracker? Tracker?
.
I really wanted to like a show staring both Adrian Paul and Geraint Wyn Davies. But damn, Wyn Davies hasn't been in anything this bad since Bionic Showdown
And then, what's this John Edwards and "The Dream Team" crap? What does that have to do with SciFi? Just what is their mission statement? To make the world think that SciFi fans are drooling morons with no taste and no ability to separate fact from fiction?
It's somewhat hilarious that TNN has better SciFi than the SciFi channel these days. My TV used to be programmed to skip over TNN, back when it was "The Nashville Network". Now it looks like it's trading places with SciFi. I guess there's a "law of conversation of preprogrammed channels" or something.
"Save Farscape!"
Save it? It had a good run. Let it go before it gets tained, Voyager style.
"Derp de derp."
"I thought that Sci-Fi said the ratings were fine, they just weren't *growing* enough to justify the high cost of production. "
... oh I don't know the word ... it could capture an audience and grow. But in it's current state, you really have to invest more time than most ppl are willing to in order to be rewarded.
It's a valid point. No idea if it's true or not, but I can see that happening. Farscape was probably a victim of it's own ambition. Make a show too involved, and you lose the ability to grow your audience. Frankly, the show's too weird for newcomers.
I just started watching the "We're So Screwed" trilogy from my Replay. (Sniff sniff damn SonicBlue.) BORING. Down right boring. I could see myself enjoying it more if I understood the importance of one of the characters. And here I am, the type of guy easily gets into new shows.
If the show had taken a step back and tried not to be too
Know what bothers me, though? This is the type of thing that could drive series DVD sales. I'm spending $100 a month for DS9 on DVD. It earned my fandom and now they're getting loads of cash from me. Wouldn't it be cool if Farscape went off the air, but continued making straight to DVD eps?
"Derp de derp."
Farscape didn't fail; it got excellent ratings, considering that it was on an obscure genre cable channel, and considering it had almost no promotion or support from the Sci Fi Network, and that it was not on the air at all for six months every year, with hardly any repeat airings, etc. Sci Fi Network is to blame, not Farscape. They prefer cheap and nasty shows that do nothing to build the network long term, but make their quarterly reports look good. Classic short term thinking.
Nielsen and TiVo should team up, or Nielsen and TiVo should figure out a way to come together and find out what REAL people are watching.
Let's face it, if you own a TiVo, you like TV more than the regular joe, and MAYBE good shows like this (and Firefly, F'n FOX) wouldn't be cancelled so quickly.
Tell me I'm not the first to come up with this.
P.S.
SAVE FIREFLY!!!!!!!!
"I don't like SG 1. It annoys me." This gets modded up to +5 Insightful? What am I missing here?
I know this because Tyler knows this.
Sci-Fi flashed this on the screen at the end. Bear in mind, they CANCELLED the show on the final day of shooting the season finale:
"The SciFi Channel thanks the cast and crew of Farscape for four great years."
Bastards. Sci-Fi, you are truly dead to me.
I miss LEXX too. I won't be watching anything associated with SciFi channel or USA for the forseeable future. That was a really cool Battlestar Galactica ad they ran tonight. I care FUCK ALL for that now. I'll fucking steal the series off USENET before I'll give SciFi/USA my ad-watching viewership.
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
Actually Ep 22 would have been a great finale, if it wasn't for the cliffhanger element that entered in the last 2 minutes that I won't mention here. If they had left it with Crichton and Aryn kissing on the boat after the proposal, I'd buy it as a finale. As it is, the whole thing stinks to me like a publicity stunt.
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
Good points and bad points... calling a group of devoted fans assholes was probably the worst point especially when it appears that you are also a devoted fan in another camp and wouldn't appreciate being called asshole by someone else.
Yes Farscape was typically rebroadcast. Unfortunately after the first year or so it ended up just being rebroadcast on the same night an hour after the first show, not making it easy for a larger audience to get involved. Plus since none of the episodes were available on tape/dvd you couldn't exactly run to the store and get caught up with the story arc.
People gripe and complain about "oh the story arc killed it" "it was too hard to get into if you didn't know the background", etc. You don't hear people saying that about '24' (1st season available at any blockbuster. Released almost immediately after the end of the first season.)
SciFi has moved towards lower budget projects and looking for mass appeal. Dune was a prime example of low budget. While some people threw some money into this thing they skimped on all the wrong parts. Sets and costume design were lackluster and the mix of good actor here horrible actor in the supporting role gave a very unbalanced feel. The mass hype, continual reminder of how bad Lynch's version was, and constant demand that this was going to be THE DUNE - just like the book - left some fans feeling a little betrayed when the show actually aired.
Moves like this give patrons who have watched for years a feeling of abandonment. Especially when SciFi starts running DreamTeam, ScareTactics, BraveHeart, Scream, IKWYDLS/ISKWYDLS, Halloween, etc. ---- not even close to scifi. When you alienate your fan base you lose. Even if you gain a million more viewers you lose because all of those new viewers are transitory. They have no brand loyalty because you produce nothing to be loyal to. They could care less about the merchandise you sell because to them you're filler while the football game is on commercial or because they cancelled tonights ER due to Bush speaking. In essence the channel becomes a parking lot for all the crap not shown elsewhere.
For awhile SciFi seemed to have a good run. They came out with some new and very interesting series - some did well and others stunk. In the end Farscape was the only one left and now it's gone. It got rave reviews and a solid fanbase. Unfortunately they really really dropped the ball on merchandising the product. There were millions to gain by proper merchandising. Quickly released DVD sets for special episodes and seasons, extended box sets, etc. Posters, prints, statuettes, pictures, transcripts, graphic novels. EVENTUALLY they did this. Unfortunately most of it came too late to generate either interest or profit. Timing means alot. And when a customer has to wait two years to get what they want they tend to get absent minded about why they wanted it in the first place.
There was nothing there that said "BY ME", "PAY FOR MORE SHOWS", "WE WANT A PROFIT". They wasted more advertising space pushing their own brand name then promoting product.
The toys at the store were childish (for a show whose fanbase did not consist of children). DVD's were nowhere to be found at local stores/rentals, likewise any other media that might make someone say "HMMMM that looks interesting".
I can't believe with all the money that was spent and all the talent brought to bare that they didn't have some forethought on the merchandising. I mean most of it appeared to be geared towards the 8-13 year old market, which isn't exactly the market watching the show, right?
Somehow they managed to pick up SG1 and they'll retain some of the old viewers from that and maybe keep some of the readers attention by doing specials like Dune, RiverWorld, and Children of Dune. They might keep a few others hanging waiting on Galactica. Unfortunately they're just as likely to alienate even more viewers with those shows as we can see with the mixxed reviews from Dune (I saw almost a 50/50 split on
"Do not be swept up in the momentum of mediocrity." - anon