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Andromeda And Mutant X Cancelled
dmehus writes "Science fiction fans may be dismayed to learn that "Mutant X" and "Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda" have been cancelled, despite the fact "Andromeda" had been cleared for a final season beginning in the fall. That prospect seems highly unlikely as the show's producer, Fireworks Entertainment, is shutting its doors for good and owner CanWest Global Communications (which also owns canada.com, the National Post, Global Television, and a bunch of other media assets) announced it will take a $159 million writedown on Fireworks. The news means "Mutant X" has a series total of three seasons and 66 episodes, while "Andromeda" will have a series total of 88 episodes in four seasons. Slashdot has previously covered 'Andromeda'."
In TV-land, 100 is a magic number for a weekly series. When you hit 100 episodes, you have enough episodes to go 5-a-week and last 20 weeks without a repeat. That's good enough to survive on cable or syndication with a nearly infinite life. Lesser series have done it, but you've gotta be really deep to not risk burn-out.
So, Andromida stopping at 88 is kinda an ugly number to get caught at. Sci-Fi might have an interest in funding a series-ending run of about 13 episodes to run as an exclusive event, and therefore give the show some life in daily reruns. 88 with an abrupt-stop ending just isn't that valuable for reruns in comparision.
Of course, that depends on Sci-Fi being able to see the value in rerun rights. If the library of Fireworks assets including the 88 existing episodes get sold to a party that's not interested in letting Sci-Fi have the show on a 5-a-week daytime basis at a reasonable price... then there's no point in doing the deal.
The Sci-Fi saves the show thread is a longshot, but it could happen so it can't be ignored. The show's not dead yet, but it's taken a usually-fatal blow.
Enterprise keeps getting renewed because UPN needs something, anything, with the Star Trek brand in order to hold the network together. UPN is a constant sixth who sometimes risks falling to seventh behind Spanish-language Univision. It's main problem is any time Paramount has a good show, sister network CBS grabs it. Having to eat CBS's leftovers, and then having its backbone major-city affiliates also being treated as CBS's little sister just is no way to run a network.
Thank you for clearing that up...not that it really matters but...I really question the direction and general quality of a show when major plot points are subject to such huge revisions. Case in point...
Enterprise was sold on the principle of a "simpler, earlier Trek". Remember the exolinguist Hoshi? Remember the struggle to communicate? Wasn't that supposed to be a major theme of the series? It took precisely five episodes for the show to go from "omg omg omg the computer will take six hours to translate this so we know if this alien is hostile" to "I'm Captain Archer onboard an alien prison ship but apparently everyone speaks English or the Universal Translator is now small enough to fit invisibly in my ear". Enterprise has pretty much thrown out everything it was based on, giving us episodes involving time plots and DeathStars more complicated that anything from the other so-called advanced series.
Back to Andromeda...I gave it a try or two for the first half season or so then promptly forgot about it. A couple years later when I revisited it during a bout of insomnia, I remember thinking that absolutely nothing was the same. The angry fend for himself bounty hunter was somehoe like the chief ship security officer, the pacifist preacher was doing some kind of ninja kung fu, and the hologram of the ship was somehow walking around and trying to get laid. Or something like that. Anyway, I got the sense that the series had probably been through two or three shark jumps and flipped back to Cheers reruns for the 10000th time.
- JoeShmoe
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-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
Stargate is pretty much guaranteed to run its whole plot out without getting cancelled (since there's only 1 season left, and production is already a good deal underway). Unfortunately, the later seasons' plotlines aren't as good as the earler ones... but at least it's another to add to the list.
... well, sorta. They finished off the story started in season 2 when they were picked up (nearly 5 years later) for season 3. Then a few years later they got the greenlight to do new episodes and started a new major plot ... just in time to get cancelled mid-plotline yet again!
Also, there is ReBoot
However, it is animated so it may not count in this list, anyway.
Enterprise gets picked up for another season.
Isn't it obvious? GOOD SF doesn't sell. Cheap commercialized tripe does.
Did you just call Andromeda and Mutant X good sci-fi?
Andromeda has spaceships making race car noises, and Mutant X had its Xavier-wannabe use communication satellites to download the DNA needed to stop an epidemic in mutants!
Not that I'm defending Enterprise, I think Rick Berman should be stoned to death, but Andromeda? Mutant X? Good riddance!
You can't take the sky from me...