Slashdot Mirror
Can Sci-Fi Fans Face the Future?
khendron writes "The Toronto Star has an article about sci-fi fans and their ongoing habit of protesting the cancellation of their beloved TV shows. From mailing bras to starting malicious Internet rumours, devoted viewers try all sorts of things to protect what they love. That's not always good news."
Fight for what you enjoy, regardless
#!
It's all fun and games until the FCC takes the networks choices away...
Ratings are the only things that matter. An OTA show has only one mission: to get people to watch commercials. If not enough people see the commercials, the show isn't doing its job, and it goes off the air. So if you want the show to stay on the air, the only real solution is to get more people to watch it.
[ home ]
So ... what's replacing Sci-Fi? (Please, please, please, not reality TV, please, please...)
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
TURN OFF YOUR TV!
The best sci-fi is in BOOKS not TELEVISION.
As long as corporate conglomerates control the airwaves, you won't get anything other lowest common demoninator "Popular Reality Show" crap.
Pick up a book, read some Philip K Dick, do something, just stop wasting your grey matter on tv shows!
As creators of speculation, of course Sci-Fi can fabricate the face of the future. That's all we do.
--
make install -not war
There is an awkward silence when the subject of the final episode is broached. "I don't know where to begin with that one," she finally stammers. "The final episode is ... appalling."
...you just try and organise a "please don't axe our favorite show" protest before it has been axed. It just wont happen.
Too bad as it would probably work better.
Executive types hate reversing decisions, somehow thinking it implies they don't know what they are doing, but deciding not to can a series...thats just another choice that can be made without loosing face.
The Borg assimilated my race & all I got was this lousy T-shirt
The problem with Enterprise is, the studio knew that there was this already existing rabid fanbase for all things Trek, so they figured that they could put any old crap on TV, put the Trek name on it, and they would have a built-in fanbase. Sadly, all of these protests have proven them right.
Unfortunately for them, this time the fanbase isn't big enough to sustain a series, even on the low ratings friendly UPN. The article also states how they hope to be picked up by the Sci Fi channel, which requires even lower ratings of its fare.
The problem is, Enterprise really isn't a very good show. It needs to be cancelled. Maybe it will mean the death of the Trek franchise, but I seriously doubt it. More likely, it will result in someone down the road coming up with another Trek series and actually putting some effort into writing a quality show.
Please send all bras and panties to My house, Maryland. The channels are never comming back. You can send your hot blond 18yr old daughters to..
Does anyone else see that on the main slashdot page, the headline reads "Can Sci-Fi Fab..." while the readmore says "Can Sci-Fi Fans..."?
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
The article towards the end mentions that some of the more successful fan movements have been largely the result of female fans. (e.g. Farscape) I wonder to what extent this is true of Enterprise? Anybody have some numbers? The impression I get from the marketing of Jolene Blalock is that women have not been marketed to..
I too was wondering what the significance of mailing bras was. But, you see, you tried to bring some form of reality into Slashdot. Hence your flamebait moderation.
Had you posed the question in the form of a lame ass question, think Slashdot Jeapardy, you would have gotten responses. Next time try something like:
I wonder what a Beowulf cluster of bra mailings would be all about.
Sci-fi fans? Surely these are manziers or bros that are being mailed in.
We can face the future better then most people. We can't stand the current shit on TV (DIY super celebrity magic flog it special!) and we want something which at least has something intresting in it.
The average beer swilling idiot would complain if you canceled whatever his favourite show was, it's just us geeks have a forum (the internet) and we can rally in huge numbers against things we hate.
I like muppets.
"A former fan herself (her favourite character as a kid was, not surprisingly, Mr. Spock), the actress, despite her vested interest, has never been shy about dissing her own show."
I'm inclined to stop reading the article right about there. Even a Klingon could express himself in more sophisticated terms than that.
I was under the impression that a mutual agreement was reached long ago among all the respectable peoples of the world that the aforementioned phrase was not to be used, on pain of death.
I'm so tired of treckies raving about enterprise. I've watched it, and it was just a poorly written show. I loved the origional star treck and TNG was also good, but sometime things just go back even with a good name backing it. ex. Starwars episode 1. The first rule of marketing is 'stick with what you know' which is why they're always remaking things, and I'm just getting sick of it. I'm tired of corporations and tv stations bastardizing things that we used to love.
Want to learn about anything sexual? Check out the sex wiki:
This came up a few days ago with the "pay-per-view series" story, and in a thread attached there some of us contemplated something of a plan to actually make a series based on fan interest... like a middleman-less version of broadcast TV.
Along those lines, I made a page outlining the "business plan" and asked for input as to how much you personally would pay per episode of a particular show. I did it kind of late in the game, though, so only about 400 people saw it. I'd like to increase the sample if I could...
The idea related to TFA is this: if you have a block of fans that are fanatical enough to gather hundreds of thousands of signatures, to pull a sinking series out of the abyss... why not actually give them what they want? If you get subscriptions for a season of a show from enough people, you can easily produce a show, and you will make bigger profits than before while still giving the fans what they want. Especially in sci-fi, where the audience is more internet-aware and a lot more passionate, this seems like a great solution for all parties.
Anyway, if you'll at least take the time to vote at the bottom of that page, it would be very interesting to see how Enterprise's target audience actually feels about the idea.
The world's only surviving livewriter.
To me the obvious thing for the *FAN*atics is to set up a Star Trek MMORPG. Set some sort of honor system up so that everyone is as squeaky clean as good old Gene saw the future and let them pilot their ships all they want. I honesty can't believe that no one has created this beast already - talk about your monthy subscriptions - this thing is a gold mine.
Sera
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
The same passion is what makes the genre strong, it also is what leads to the last minute SOSs. Just get on with it. This is just a way for the writer to put a spin on an otherwise sorta lame article.
Look, the execs see it this way:
"$36 million?! Shit, we can produce an two seasons of 'Friends' or four YEARS worth of 'Fear Factor' for that!"
Even if you get the audience, it's not going to matter much to networks like 'UPN' who will undoubtedly replace 'Enterprise' with something stupid, cheesy and, more importantly - cheap.
As I've said before, I think the only way to ensure new, quality, Sci-Fi will be if we all want to pay for it, ala HBO - Sci-fi.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
BRING IT BACK, damn you! I want to hear about how Fry and Leela fall in love! I want to see Amy and Kif raise a family of tadpoles! I want to witness Zoidberg's later career as a famous radio psychiatrist! I -- I want to hear how it ends!
HOW COULD YOU CANCEL IT, YOU BASTARDS? How _could_ you? I mean, how was any one individual physically able to say the words 'Let's axe Futurama' without their tongue turning black and their eyes bursting into flame and their skin blistering and peeling and bursting and their vile TV-exec brain crawling away across the floor? I don't understand how it's physically possible.
This, THIS is the proof that evil is built into mankind. This is the physical manifestation of original sin. This is the archetypal ur-mistake of which all other mistakes are just shadows, the womb of chaos from which springs a monstrous child, the black goat of the woods with a thousand young... *mumble mumble*
But! the people who watch Futurama aren't the kind of people who have nothing better to do than work with ratings agencies.
So, it has to go.
Why must everything beautiful be so brief?
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
Good sci-fi requires that one think ahead and imagine the future. The problem is our society now is so obsessed with present-day instant gratification that the concept of imagining a different world tomorrow is almost alien (no pun intended).
How many people look up at the stars anymore? How many people can even see the stars from big city lights? I think one reason why we have crappy sci-fi now is that it's not really science fiction; it's formulaic plot lines designed to distract someone in between ads for shampoo, pickup trucks, and diet pills.
You want to see good science fiction? Turn off your stupid tv and go out and look at the night sky away from the city; your imagination will be more entertaining than a thousand mediocre tv shows.
And therein lay the problem. For years, fans of the original show -- with original star Richard Hatch (not the Survivor champ) as their vocal point-man -- had been agitating for a revival of Battlestar Galactica ... as it originally was
You mean there are two Richards?
Damn you Toronto Star!!! DAMN YOOUUUUUUUUU!!!
Is anyone working on bringing back Red Dwarf? Is that movie ever coming out?
We are out numbered by people who want to watch stupid reality TV shows. And the networks know this, so cancel our shows and put on more reality TV, bam, better ratings.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
12345
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Some SCi-Fi fans may need to visit their counselor after star trek getting cancelled, others just move on. Just like all the other people with all them other city folk interests ;-)
Not quite. Crime shows. Just about every evening show is a crime drama or crime fiction.
Law & Order CI, Law&Order SVU, Law&Order Trial By Jury, NCIS, 24, Numbers(oops, I mean, "Numb3rs"), Blind Justice, Cold Case, NYPD Blue, Boston Legal, The Firm, Crossing Jordan, Medical Investigation, Third Watch, Crime Scene Investigation, CSI: Miami, CSI: NY, JAG, Six Feet Under, Monk...the list goes on and on, and those are just the ones I could think of quickly or look up off the three major networks' websites. They have three angles- "beat" shows like NYPD Blue or Third Watch which focus on cops/detectives...legal shows like The Firm, Boston Legal...and scif-fi-forensics.
Many of which condition the public into accepting trampling of their rights by real law enforcement...show DNA tests in seconds and cases solved in hours...all which make the public think that law enforcement is on a roll throwing an endless stream of serial killers and terrorists into jail, or outrage the public when their "rights" let the bad guy get off or a judge won't sign that search warrant our dashing detective needs to find who's been kidnapping little girls with lolipops.
Please help metamoderate.
I mean, sure, there's a lot of crap out there, but both BSG and Firefly have been excellent in recent times.
Yes, there's great written SF that's far better than almost any TV SF, but it _is_ possible to produce good TV SF.
My Journal
The future is not to be faced.
Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
Seriously, with all the effort being put in to saving Star Trek, a CO-OP should be formed to develop stories in an OS framework then produce the results. Let us fight back reality TV with some truly new and inspired entertainment.
It sucked, period. Real fans of Star Trek wouldn't be fighting to keep that piece of crap on. The Star Trek empire needs to take a break and stew in creative juices for a while.
GO OUTSIDE!
Human nature is the same everywhere; the modes only are different. -- Earl of Chesterfield
Nerds, unlike geeks, have not learned to integrate themselves into normal society. Change is frightening, and what can be more scary than not having your favourite TV show as an excuse to stay home away from people?
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Okay, everyone knows TV has gone downhill, but what about videogames? There are some really good sci-fi-themed games out there. Wing Commander series, anyone?
Circumcision is child abuse.
If a series ends naturally, there is grumbling, but marching in the streets doesn't make sense. Enterprise and other shows that were pulled in mid-run make you feel cheated, and in fact, that is just what has happened. This is one of the reasons why television sucks big time compared to books: Imagine "Lord of the Rings" without the third book, and you get an idea of why people get pissed about these aborted seasons.
Fans make or break the shows -- an old adage anyone in show biz will tell ya. This article actually serves as an excellent PR piece for actress Jolene Blalock, who dares to defy Hollywood tradition by telling the truth about her own show.
On her fan site, there are quite a few photos of her without the sci-fi makeup. Here is the link: http://www.hostconnect.org/~jolene/htm/index.html
Sun and Fun
is how exactly, they (the raters) determine what the ratings are? if the show is being broadcasted, how do they determine how many are watching it?
Family Guy was canceled, but reversed years later due to DVD sales. So buy up enough DVD's and the execs will reconsider....
I think part of the problem with Enterprise is that it is a step backwards, not forwards for the Trek universe. Trek needs TNNG (The Next Next Generation).
Think Deeply.
Or if the FCC takes the networks away. We have no UPN affiliate in my area due to an government ban on bringing "outside" stations into cable. We also miss a lot of CBS shows, because the local affiliate pre-empts a lot of them. We used to be able to get a full CBS affiliate from outside the area, but the government changes things so that the cable company would be fined if they carried better stations from outside the area.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
There's anime. Where do you think the fan base for all these shows went.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I don't think that you will impress the network when you mail in your inflatable girlfriend who has an inkjet printout of "Seven of Nine" or "T'Pol" taped on the face.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
It's not a question of "Can Sci-Fi fans cope?" Sure, we can cope. We just have to put up with far more crap than any other kind of niche market. If there's a decent Sci-Fi show on the air at any given time, chances are it A) Isn't advertised, B) Isn't in a consistent timeslot, and C) Frequently gets preempted for other things (like sports - See Firefly, or actually, any Fox-based SF show for a good example).
This is largely due to the fact that TV executives don't like science fiction in the first place. Even the Sci-Fi channel has recently been frighteningly short on actual Sci-Fi, and pretty heavy on Monster-of-the-Week and Fantasy.
It's also a matter of the networks keeping their word. Farscape fans were particularly upset at the cancellation of Farscape because the fifth season was meant to be the final season. This was pretty clearly stated by Rockne & Co fairly early on, and cancelling at the end of the fourth season was a clearly antagonistic move. Firefly fans got ticked because the show was never given a fair chance at all (Ask Rupert Murdock why) despite excellent writing, effects, and direction.
Perhaps the best example of this problem was the Fox series Sliders, starring John Rhys-Davies as Professor Maximilian Arturo. The show was very clever and well thought out, right up until the third season, when each episode became a copycat of a recent movie. The writers were under pressure from the executives to tone down the science of the show, and amp up the "x-tremeness." So, midway through the third season, Rhys-Davies, disgusted with the direction the show was taking, wrote himself out, killing his character. Of course, the whole time, the show was struggling against poor budgets, floating timeslot syndrome, lack of public awareness, and constant preempting, and finally was canned a few episodes after Rhys-Davies departure. Then there was the SciFi channel's resurrection of the show, which is best left unmentioned.
The problem isn't that SF fans are obsessive. The problem is that the TV executives don't care about SF, don't understand or like SF, and generally aren't willing to put forth any effort to help SF.
Happiness is relative, Based upon the way we live.
it's a pain in the ass tracking down good Sci-Fi. Note that I said Sci-Fi, not Science Fiction; i.e. cheesy space opera ala E.E. "Doc" Smith. There's no shortage of good hard Science Fiction, but if I want to sit down and read a good novel about swashbuckling aliens, there's just too much crap to weed through. I think the problem is it's too easy to write bad space operas. Anyone can try it, but it's a lot harder to keep the pace up and keep things interesting.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Over thirty years ago, I told Carol Lynn, who was organizing the effort to revive Star Trek after the original show had been cancelled, "Give it up. It's dead".
... People love particular episodes, or particular dialog or plotlines or characters. So what's going to happen if the fans get another episode of Enterprise, and it's a "bad" episode? How will you feel if you paid to get more episodes, and that actor or actress you hoped would get some really good character development gets a lot of wooden lines and writing that seems to go totally against the character as already envisioned? What if you were hoping to see more Ferengi, and Paramount turns out three episodes with nary a Feringi in sight?
Right now, the fanbase is making a promise it can't keep - "Here's money! Give us Trek, and none of these thousands of investors will nit-pick about where that money went afterwards!".
Professionals in Hollywood know that, if you add more and more investors in a project, there will inevitably be more who complain later. With tens of thousands involved, this adds greatly to the uncertainty of the project. Anyone acting in it, or writng the scripts or even just doing the special effects becomes worried that they will get extra helpings of blame if it doesn't work out. At this point, the fanbase is asking a lot of people to take exceptional risks with their careers for little or no upside. Maybe Rick Berman deserves that, but do all the others involved? Again, maybe a few of the executives have already taken a negative impact on their future in Hollywood, and should, in 'fairness' have to seize on a chance to prove they could do better, even if the odds are against them, but Hollywood doesn't seem to be saying "You'll never work in this town again." to those execs, and it has a nasty tendency to say that to other people. Those other people are probably responsible for the parts of Enterprise somebody actually loves.
Who is John Cabal?
This article is written by someone who clearly doesn't want to see another season of Enterprise.
Most people I know don't feel that way, it's just a pity they don't write articles.
It's somewhat dismaying to read one of the comments from Jolene Blalock in the article, apparently regarding the final episode of Enterprise...
Without any hint of humour whatsoever I can say - What do you expect? The other episodes were appalling too.
I'm far more concerned about the following attempt to defibrillate the trek movies:
The idea being, one can fairly safely deduce, to re-purpose expensive existing props and sets while hiring an all-new cast of unknowns, rather than pay the inflated fees routinely demanded by established series actors.
Am I alone in thinking that this sounds like it could be really really shit and completely kill off trek for a decade?
SciFi is supposed to be about the future - to look forward. Prequels while still supposedly about our future are still the plain old past in respect to the Trek (and the viewers') timeline and will instantly loose something because of it. It's like hobbling yourself and admitting that you have no vision to share right from the outset. Once you loose your audience's trust, trust that you know where you're going (B5) and that both the journey and the destination will be of interest, you simply loose the audience. Trek writers have often slipped up on this one. The wretched Holodeck had all the interest and drama of a dream sequence and, while I personally always enjoy time travel stories, I can understand that if your brain files time travel and 'Holodeck' together that you would want to gnaw one of your own legs off* listening to them all the time.
1) Lazy plot devices bore audiences to death.
2) No surprises, no vision of the future, no trust.
3) No Audience.
*(Really happened to the President of the Mid-Galactic Arts Nobbling Council)
What I want to know, is how is my Cable dollar, and advertising viewed dollar broken up?
How much does the Cable/satalite company keep of each, and how much goes to the cost of the shows production?
I have a feeling there are quite a few hands being held out, and everyone want's a cut.
I guess the bottom line question is, if I was to cut off my Cable, and only buy the DVD's of shows I have heard about, who takes the biggest hit to thier bottom line?
I think the only way to ensure new, quality, Sci-Fi will be if we all want to pay for it
Well, the other and better option would be to open it up to the free content community, fan writers, etc., and see what evolves. Likely there would be a number of projects springing up to design better 3d-models, write better scripts, etc. Just like windows vs. linux, those who love the shows and take time to do it well without accountants breathing down their neck would ultimately produce something better.
1) Geeks buy hi-tech TV gear that skips ads
2) TV shows popular with geeks loose money
3) Shows get cancelled
The alternative, of course is in-show advertising:
ALIEN AMBASSADOR: We demand tribute from your puny species!
EARTH AMBASSADOR: Our delegation comes bearing Crucial Ballistix RAM. Truly, the latency is low, and the tracer LEDs magestic.
-- later --
COMMANDER: Fire at will!
* FIGHTER 1: Fires missile
* HUGE MISSILE: Hits FIGHTER 2 and explodes
COMMANDER: You fool! You hit the window!
PILOT 1: Damn that 3M Security Glass!
I'm scared of numbers that can't be written as a fraction. It's an irrational fear.
I think what kills the SciFi shows iis the cost to produce them. Most tend to have fairly large casts and recurring characters, wide variety of sets and add on the costs for CGI (weapons, space, etc)...
I've been thinking if CGI costs were reduced the shows would likely last longer. To that end we need an 3D engine for rendering space which can output high resolutions to uncompressed video on everyday hardware :)
From the article:
"I mean, we started out with 13 million viewers on the pilot, and we somehow managed to drive 11 million of them away."
There's 11 million other trek fans that feel Enterprise sucked with 2 million that stayed. Sounds to me like an overwhelming majority feel Enterprise was a terrible show and it's obvious the remaining fans are simply fanatic activists. There's nothing wrong with being a die-hard fan, but the ratings pretty much prove how terrible a show it was. I could understand protesting the cancellation of a star trek series that was produced well, but why the worst of the series?
Slashers was a movie that took this concept and seen what would happen. I mean the movie's not that fantastic but it's basically last man/woman standing gets the winnings.
:P
Shows how people would be glued to the tv screen to see this type of shit. The acting wasn't great, the effects weren't great, but I watched the whole thing anyway.
"As I've said before, I think the only way to ensure new, quality, Sci-Fi will be if we all want to pay for it, ala HBO - Sci-fi."
'cable' is out for $ like everyone else. And its not you that it footing the bill for the show, its the adverts.. the amount that the viewers contribute is minor..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Anyway this article fails to mention that this tactic originatied with fans of the series, "the magnificent Seven" from the 90's. There's nothing scifi about that show.
Stop intellectual property from infringing on me
But Enterprise is dribble - it needs to be killed. I'm not such a fanatic that I just love anything and everything "trek". I'd rather read some of the trek books than watch a piece of shit just because it takes place in the Trekverse. I basically like that universe, but alas, it's big enough for some real sad shait, lol...
dahlek (will you squirm when you are pecked
E.E. "Doc" Smith was way ahead of his time - he wasn't writing bad seventies sci-fi, he was writing excellent 21st century comedy!
Slashdot - Mutual Assured Discussion
The reason no Star Trek show has really done well in the last few years is because of Star Trek Next Generation. I mean for what it was, it was well acted, well written, it had good special effects for its time, it was fresh and the storylines were interesting. The only way to bring back a series like Star Trek is to take a nice loooong hiatus, maybe 10 or more years. Everything after Next Generation has pretty much been a copy of it, except for Enterprise which was just a step back and it wasnt all that interesting.
Not every sf fan is a fan of sci-fi shows.
You're kidding...right?
Ratings are the only things that matter. An OTA show has only one mission: to get people to watch commercials. If not enough people see the commercials, the show isn't doing its job, and it goes off the air. So if you want the show to stay on the air, the only real solution is to get more people to watch it.
Remember when Futurama changed timeslot every week for a few months, then settled in a spot where it was pre-empted by football overtime week after week after week?
Remeber how Fox claimed they aired Firefly on fridays at 8, but would instead put baseball on? And when they did air firefly, it was at 12:03am, or 12:17am, with the episodes out of order?
We have a conundrum here: Is it superhuman incompetance +1, or is it a deliberate act by an exec to kill another exec's project? Hard to tell really, but one thing is for sure: If these shows got bad rating, it wasn't the shows themselves that caused it.
And ratings... how many organisations determine ratings? One? And the ONLY thing that matters is ratings? Then... that company can make or break a show, on any network, by fudging it's numbers... That seem right to you?
You can't take the sky from me...
The Toronto Star is corporate media. They defend their control of brands by any means necessary. Media corporations don't want people to exercise any threats to corporate control of popular media constructs, like offering to buy them out, even when buyouts might make money from a brand retired for insufficient profitability. So corporate media bias derides consumers becoming "prosumers", producing their own products for our own consumption. We're also seeing the threat of P2P infotainverts validated by corporate media attacks on the integrity of blog journalism, and the fair use of redistribution of media objects among friends. Even where blogs and media sharing increase the profits of the corporate copyright owners. Because corporations are ultimately more concerned with control than even with ownership, because mere ownership can't perpetuate profits the way that control can.
--
make install -not war
Forget Star Trek - it has been over exposed!!
Instead of paying $36 million for one more season, those fans should use that money and buy all of the Stargate SG-1 seasons on DVD, watch tem, and then follow the current series on TV.
It is much cheaper - the plot line is MUCH more interesting, and the special effects are better as well.
In fact, the Stargate series now has all sorts of sweet ships, so they won't have to give up on the idea of flying around in space - they'd only have to give up on the concept of anti-matter and start believing in crystals and naquada!!!
Sci-Fi has advanced beyond Star Trek with series such as Stargate and BSG - it's time for everyone to move on!!!!
This isn't you're father's Sci-Fi!!!
HallmarkOrnaments.Com
Fan campaigns have worked in the past. One needs to look no further than Family Guy. However, there is an even better example, the now cancelled Mystery Science Theater 3000.
MST3K was nearly cancelled in 1989 and 1990, and then subsequently truly canned in 1995. A massive letter writing campaign got the show picked up by the Scifi channel for 3 additional seasons.
As well, MST has the distinct honor that it's feature film marks the only time in history that such a large group of fans wrote to a movie studio demanding that a movie be made that it actually worked.
Never underestimate the power of fans... and the idiocy of TV executives, for that matter.
As the article rightly points out, fans of the old Battlestar Galactica were vehement about preserving the old show's crappiness. The new Battlestar is a tight, exciting show with some good writing and acting. I would always prefer a good original show (Arrested Development, for instance) over the economically safer alternative of remaking/rebranding/recycling old actors and material, but BSG has done a very fine job retooling a rotten series and the "military space opera" in general. Just compare it to Andromeda or Stargate Atlantis.
Complacency on the part of fans of anything will always encourage crap. Look at the Laws and Orders. Look at all the lame repetition on TV: crass, untrustworthy 60 Minutes clones, weak home improvement shows, boring (ugly!) chopper/hotrod shows, depressing "reality" shows, uninformative WWII documentaries, numbing "real sex" shows on HBO, and all the dull anime on Adult Swim.
"Fight for what you enjoy, regardless" encourages this crap.
You have to take the risk of being disappointed by something new until you can discover something better. Accepting the same thing you enjoyed last week runs exactly counter to the principle of "infinite diversity in infinite combination".
Now, I know that sci-fi fans are nervous whenever a show gets cancelled. You can never be sure when the next good one's going to come up. However, as a fan myself, I can guarantee I've got better things to do on a given weekday night than waste another hour on Enterprise.
As much as I love Futurama, I'm also more shocked it stayed around so long than shocked it was canned.
Fact is, the networks gave it a good run primarily because The Simpsons was already so wildly popular. They figured "How can we go wrong?" with another Groenig animated series.
Only, this time, the series wasn't quite aimed at the "general public" and everyday topics anymore. In fact, the characters are bizarre enough, it took me a few episodes to really start "getting it" enough to enjoy it. (At first, I felt like I walked right into the middle of the show without a clue. Why the heck is this gal with one eye running around with this seemingly normal guy? This robot's pretty funny, but what the heck is his background? I guess he's some kind of con artist or assistant to a criminal? But wait, he seems to be a cohort with the "good guys"? Huh? Is this crew supposed to be on some sort of mission, a la Star Trek, or is it more like "Lost in Space"?)
I wasn't even sure I wanted to watch any more of it, at first. If it wasn't for my admiration of Groenig's work in general, I probably would have skipped it (and I bet many viewers did). After I gave it a few more chances, I realized most of the pieces started falling together fairly quickly - and there were loads of great puns and parodies, both obvious and "if you blink, you miss 'em" types.
I think a lot of people will finally buy some Futurama on DVD due to the recommendation of others, and discover far after the fact that "Hey, this stuff was great! Why didn't I watch this when it was on?"
The best sci-fi is in BOOKS not TELEVISION.
Pick up a book, read some Philip K Dick, do something, just stop wasting your grey matter on tv shows!
I read books, plenty of books... I'm running out of places to put them, really. But it's still true that A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words.
I'd much rather look at these eyes than read them described:
: )
You can't take the sky from me...
It sucked, period. Real fans of Star Trek wouldn't be fighting to keep that piece of crap on. The Star Trek empire needs to take a break and stew in creative juices for a while.
It did suck, but word on the street is it stopped sucking... so I can how frustrating it is that they waited for it to get better before cancelling it.
However, what ST need isn't a break, it's to be freed from the clutched of Rick Berman: The man who works hard to make it suck (and rankly, I think sucking is part of his job description... he seems the kind of hollywood exec that owns several pairs of knee pads).
You can't take the sky from me...
If it is the second possibility, that journalist is doing a very bad thing. Square brackets should be used to indicate where reported speech or writing has been changed for the reader's convenience. Another example is "I think it [the final episode] is appalling" or "I think [the final episode] is appalling".
Xenu loves you!
To the fans, perhaps a startling admission from the woman they have come to know as the ostensibly emotionless Vulcan, T'Pol.
Either the reporters don't actually watch the show, or "ostensibly" was a very subtle jab.
"People don't read the morning newspaper, they slip into it like a warm bath."
If the damn fans are so freaking adamant about these shows not being canceled, and since they seem to want to give there money away to keep these shows up, then they should get together and buy the shows or something to that extent so they can keep running. These shows cost millions (or close to I assume)to keep going, to pay for the actors and equipment, and whatever you need money for for these shows. With that in mind I doubt its possible. The Station or who ever is canceling them for the same reason, money. If the fans plus, ad revenue, with however else they make money for these shows isn't enough to keep them running or making them worth the people in control to keep them running. Maybe they shouldn't be running. If the fans are numbered enough they should be able to buy the shows and keep them going. If not, then oh well. I don't know. I like my sci-fi shows but this is kind of silly. No offense but if you cant fill your life void with out sci-fi shows you have more then show cancellation to worry about. Plus they're not that many good sci-fi shows anyway I mean geez have you seen Andromeda? *shakes head*
-h34tsink
You couldn't successfully impeach Reagan even if he were alive. He could obviously use the defense of diminished capacity. And it would honestly be true.
And that should tell you all you need to know about the presidency. We can have a president who is an advanced Altzheimer's case, and it barely makes any difference.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Aside from Babylon 5, there isn't really much epic-ness on most shows on TV and even the movies. I get more bang for my buck just getting a PS2 and playing those RPGs (at least the good ones) for it.
A lot of anime series from Japan also have more depth than the crap they show on TV.
Archie - CIO-for-hire
For all of you out there who don't like Enterprise, I ask you to give it one more shot. I hated the whole temporal war crap and the xindie weapon story line (basically, seasons 1.5 to the end of 3), but the fourth season it awesome. They've got a new producer and better writing, and the stories are much more what you're probably looking for: the beginnings of the Federation, our alliance with the Vulcans, etc.
Just watch one or two fourth season episodes before you write the show off as a disaster.
The producers and writers began tailoring the show to suit the chicks once it became clear they were beginning to tune in in droves hoping to see a romance develop between Mulder and Scully. The more they did, the more the writers pandered to them, and more guys stopped watching as the conspiracy-element weakened in favor of the romantic crap. As the storyarc fell apart, being superceded by various romantic entanglements between FBI agents, male viewers stopped watching, and the final season of two were...appalling. By the last season, only women were watching, and the only thing being discussed on fan sites was just how much Mulder loves Scully. Women and SF simply don't belong together.
There's a lot of printed sci-fi crud out there too that panders to the lowest common demoninator. They're two different mediums with different strengths and quality matters in both.
If you want to cherry pick Philip K Dick as being representative of sci-fi books, you have to let me cherry pick Firefly as representative of sci-fi television. And frankly, I'll take Firefly anytime.
Yeah, I'm one of those tuned-out ex-Trekkies. Gave up on Voyager after a year or two. Never watched Enterprise.
I miss the good old days of TNG. And DS9 had a good spell in the middle (and the concept/setting was good, there were always some good characters, and there were some great episodes even in the not so good early seasons).
I haven't bothered watching the Nemesis film either though, it sounds like it is complete drivel also, and I wouldn't be surprised.
No trek for a decade, or until someone tries something new with it. That would probably be the best course of action.
-- *~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...
I don't know about the USA, but locally I remember when subscription channels (cable, satellite, etc) used to make a big thing about not having commercials at all. The point of paying for them was to fund the shows so that commercials wouldn't have to.
More recently, cable and satellite channels have become so much of a commodity that everyone has, that they can show commercials all they like because everyone else is anyway. Very often people who don't pay for TV have comparatively nothing to watch, but it's ironic that so many people end up paying to have more commercials stuffed in their faces. (Having said that, I'm very skeptical that there's much actually worth watching on TV, anyway.)
It seems like at the end of this season a lot of things are going to get rapped up. **Spoiler Alert from here on**
Richard Dean Anderson will be gone next season, personal reasons, the whole Jaffa rebellion and war against the gauold apparently are going to be pretty well wrapped up along with the replicators, and if that's the case, its almost like asking what's left to do? They apparently are going to be going off into a new tanget with more about the acients, but they have Altantis to do that...
Still there is a couple good highlights, Ben Browder (Farscape) is joining the cast to replace the O'Neil smart-ass casting (good choice in my humble opinion). Also Amanda Tapping will be missing the first part of the season due to having a baby so they are bringing in Claudia Black (Farscape) for a 5 episode story arc. So for their first part of Season 9. Wise move of Sci-Fi parts. Number of Farscape fans also probably watch SG-1 now, if not it might bring a few over to the show.
Also the whole being lost in space thing gets resolved too by the end of season 1 of Atlantis. So it hopefully Atlantis won't get the stalness of say Voyager.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
UPN's adoption of Buffy The Vampire Slayer
The WB didn't cancel Buffy! The broadcast rights were up for bid and UPN offered a lot more money to air the show. The WB *wanted* to keep the show.
There hasn't been a really good science fiction series since Babylon 5. The only good things I have seen since are Sci-Fis adaptations of Dune and Children of Dune.
about the quality of the latest Hollywood Schlockbuster movie or Soap in Space TV series.
They're worried about whether there are enough good new writers coming down the pipeline to replace the ones that are dying off. And whether there's enough young kids starting to read SF stories to keep on making it worth those authors' time to keep on writing.
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
There's not enough "sci-fi fans" or "trekkies" to keep this stuff on the air so you have to have cross-over appeal.
That's true. But they abandoned the fans in a bid to attrack "commoners".
Guess what: The non-trekkies won't watch your Trek show if their Trekkie aquaintances tell it's crap!
You can't take the sky from me...
The trouble with ratings (and no it's not Tribbles! Damn YOU!)...
They are not even close to being accurate. Ratings represent a best guess of what the public is watching. The only way one would get good scientific data is if everyone had a TiVo and the boxes reported back their data anonymously (which TiVo already does...). Yeah, there are Nielson Ratings Black Boxes in use and that's part of the ratings system. Yet, how many of you out there have actually seen one of these boxes????
The ratings industry attempts to take a subset of the population and determine ratings for all of us based on those inaccurate figures. The rest is statistical guess work.
I've watched every single Enterprise episode and yeah it sucked at first and I can't stand the theme music. However, the writing and actors have just now gotten the hang of things and it's improved considerably. Heck, TNG was mega crap at first until the second and third season. Enterprise had potential.
Point being, the reason you end up with protests is because the geeks are large in number and growing all the time. We constantly get factored out. Until ratings are accurate, this is going to keep happening. Thank God, they at least ended Farscape without me thinking the main stars were vaporized in the final episode!
However, my new love is BattleStar Galatica which completely blows away every single Sci-Fi series and mini-series I've ever seen! Comparing Enterprise to BG is like comparing Hanna Barbera to Looney Tunes.
BTW, is it just me, or have the original Looney Tunes been seriously edited?!? Almost every time I watch one, it's been chopped up and half the jokes are no longer funny. Anyone know where one can buy Looney Tunes cartoons re-mastered and on DVD?
What the hell is going on with the new remake? Evil Bugs, Evil Daffy? That's just too freaking creepy!
So they have $3,060,000 saved up and teams of rabid fans. Why not create an opensource science fiction story of your own. Drop the Trek and everything else & create good fiction folklore from the ground up (and maybe borrow from public domain fiction)
Would I petition to save these shows, sure. And if and when they get cancelled, what will I do? I will watch less TV. If the television networks broadcast shows that I like I will watch, if not I have better things to do than watch any reality TV show and most of the other fare that they show.
I own a Tivo not to avoid ads (although it is amazing how many ads are on a show these days) but to be in control of my time and my schedule. I don't just turn the TV on to see what is on. I look for shows I think are worth watching. Cancel those and I just turn the box off.
http://chris2x.com
Get away from the fucking idiot box and pick up a book. You won't even notice that Trek's gone. You'll be praising Larry Niven instead. Sci-fi just doesn't work on the screen, IMHO. Screw those big money bastards by not watching any of their crap. You'll feel better for it, I promise you.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
The biggest problem, in my mind, lies with the fact that usually science fiction and quality are two mutually exclusive quantities. A vast majority of science fiction films that are made are of very poor quality (case in point: SFC's recent advertising blitz for Mansquito). Even where there is solid story and drama, people had to look past the cheesy sets and cheesy effects to see the meat of it. Those of us who are/were science fiction fans were those that could suspend the disbelief, look past the genre's shortcomings, and appreciate the meat of it.
The last ten years or so, that's begun to change. Science fiction has become an acceptable medium to tell serious stories. Effects are inexpensive and ubiquitous enough so as not to overshadow the story being told. Quality actors and writers are enticed into the genre. This, coupled with the television industry's wider acceptence of serial dramas as opposed to more episodic adventure series (mainly thanks to shows like 90210 and ER, although Babylon 5 did a lot for that in the science fiction sphere), has let science fiction come into its own.
Today, we don't have to make that choice between science fiction and quality. You can sit someone in front of a movie like Gattaca, or a television show like Galactica and they can get a full grasp of the drama that's occuring without the need to suspend too much disbelief.
What this means, though, is a shift in the style of storytelling. No more particles of the week, no more last-second reversals of warp coil polarity by the resident starship teen genius. It will be human drama -- stories of ordinary people in extraordinary situations.
I, for one, am thrilled at the prospect. Growing up on reruns of Buck Rodgers and the old Galactica, new episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Captain Power, and watching movies like Star Wars, I'll always have a penchant for science fiction -- and it's great that what comes out now can satisfy both that and my desire for mature, thought-provolking drama.
I hope it's not just a passing fad.
http://www.newpath4.com/forsalespacecraftenginecon stantpowertheory.htm Mass, nationwide DEJA VU has set in, and it's almost as bad as rigor mortise. So many think the Future will never get here -and doesn't need to- because having great movies is better than the future...
There is science... fiction!!!
of Angel.
Best Slashdot Co
Of course, a project making money is the main goal of any company. If the show makes money, they put more money back into it, which brings more people and/or creativity to the project.
I have lived in 3 different areas of the country since Enterprise started. Unless I had Dish service, I could not watch Enterprise in any of those areas. Enterprise plays on a crappy network and is just not picked up by a huge number of markets. Well, maybe I'm over simplifying this, but if you have a show and you put it on a piece of crap network that nobody wants to air, numbers will suck in comparison, regardless of the history.
It seems like they are trying to make a few shows carry this network, then when these shows don't put the network in every home, they cancel the shows.
The first seasons of DS9, I thought were some of the worst of all the series. (Just an opionion mind you.) But it was on a network picked up all over the place and was able to fight through the beginning years to find it's storyline. Of course it took big competition and ideas from other sci-fi to inspire it. Or maybe it was just nice having an overactor as the guy in charge again. Ben's only way to act other than sitting and staring at a wall was to hyperventilate. I'm scared...hyperventilate. I'm ANGRY...hyperventilate. I love you son...hyperventilate. I don't know why his character didn't pass out on a regular basis.
While I think Enterprise is the weakest of all the Trek series, I think it could have great potential. Of course it won't get the chance where they are now.
My point of this post is just to say, how can they expect a show to have the huge numbers of the previous Trek's if they are in only a portion of the markets of the predecessors.
The beginning of this show has sparked the same exact discussion as every other Trek has. But eventually the show finds itself and then pulls it's fans. Enterprise will never have that opportunity, not because everyone hates it, but more that everyone is not being given the chance to watch and hate it.
The corporate conglomerates control the publishing industry too. The variety of new books being published is just as limited as the TV networks.
Don't talk to me about Philip K. Dick. He's DEAD. Reading his stuff is rewarding, but it's like watching Babylon 5 re-runs from DVD: it doesn't represent any new creative output being released by the media conglomerates. How many SF writers active today would you compare with Philip K. Dick, Robert A. Heinlein or even John Varley? 5? 10?
The only thing that makes it easier to find good books than good TV is that book publisher's backlists are much bigger than DVD producers. But that is changing as more shows are re-released on DVD.
20 years from now (well maybe more) we could be watching someone rant that holovision is full of commercial drivel and we should all be watching ST:TNG on DVD for real quality entertainment.
We are the 198 proof..
The comments regarding television ratings [squarooticus] are valid and relevant as they are certainly a metric of commercial interest; and that this form may have run its course [ackthpt] is, in my opinion, highly likely. Whether one's favorite format is reading or watching (I have my preference), ultimately the largest interest group will indeed command the attention of advertising.
The comparitive value of literature to cinema can be argued on its own merits. But, what of the comparitive meaning(s) of "the future"? Perhaps so much fervor for a mere television show comes from a desperate public experiencing, first hand, the death of the future!
Wasn't the contemporary notion of the future borne of 19th century industry and invention, fueled by the promise of limitless energy, given a great consumer boost with the end of the second Last War? Has it not survived said wars, cinicism, post-modernism, and religious superstition? Perhaps all of these reinforced the notion. Science fiction inspired me as a young person to persue the sciences and convinced me of the value of the contemporary technology while providing a quick escape from the mundane. After the likes of Andromeda Strain, Alien, X Files, Star Trek, Star Wars, Ring World, The Jetsons, Lost in Space, Godzilla, 2001, 2010, 3001, AI, I Robot and anon, I have to wonder what else "the future"--whatever its format--could possibly give us that it has not already? Or rather, what else can we extract from the future that we have not extracted already?
With all due respect to Trekkies (and Futurama fans) everywhere, The Future cannot be put off any longer: the future is now and its just as boring as we were afraid it would be.
Move along, nothing to see.
Still, in the example that started this whole little digression, for the author to have used the ellipsis in order to remove words would have been downright unethical, on the same order as simply making up the quote in the first place.
*snort* The deliberate misquotation by omission of words is fairly widespread in the media. You're lucky if they add the ellipsis.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
20 points, this man scored a bull's eye.