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Futurama May Strike Back (on DVD)
Nik writes "Hot on the heels of Family Guy's revival, Can't Get Enough Futurama is reporting that 'there is renewed talk at FOX about bringing fresh Futurama content directly to DVD.' While nothing is confirmed at this point, it is apparently the first time that a division of Fox has considered producing new episodes of the animated sci-fi series in some time."
I'd hate to offend anyone this is really just what I believe Futurama is. Shows continue if they hit the largest common dominator of the mob watching the show, sadly (aka "2 Fast 2 Furious") the common dominator is quite low.
Result:
Simpsons are on their what? 10th season? Futurama was canceled after 5 seasons (and correct me if the numbers are wrong, that's not the point).
I like Simpsons as well (even if not too much) but as far as humor goes, Futurama is more witty, complicated and deep.
Before TV is nothing but a preview for DVDs or some sort of streaming on demand system. How many cancled shows have been released on DVD with a bunch of episodes that never even aired?
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Actually, pretty much the only reason Futurama and Family Guy died in the first place is that Fox doesn't know how to properly manage award winning shows. Futurama was constantly preempted by NFL games and played at the oddest times. Also, the DVD commentaries of Futarama are amazing. One can't help but be amazed at the talent of the writers, actors and everyone behind the show.
And look at what they've done with Arrested Development, definetily one of the top sitcoms (if you can call it that) on television right now. I just think it's not fair that Fox has the ability to somehow get all these great shows but totally screw it up every time.
This seems to me to indicate that something is fundamentally wrong with the model, and it will continue to push quality off the airwaves in favour of crap.
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
It would be great if apple could leverage their iTunes music store by adding the ability to buy episodes directly.
Basically you can only slice your channel 48 ways (assuming you have 24 hour programming with 30 minute shows). Public corporations need to increase profits due to outside and internal pressure from share holders and board members. But given that the amount of programming you can present has a hard limit, you need to increase the number of viewers to achieve greater profit. Which is why we see these companies pushing the next Survivor or Friends rather than the next great sci-fi cartoon sitcom.
Cable networks have it a bit easier, often they aren't publicly owned. Or they are some smaller business unit of a larger corporation. As long as the cable network brings in some profits and doesn't seriously compete with the main programming then they have a pretty free hand. Also being subscription based changes the business model a bit.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Except that Billy West (voice of Fry, Prof. Farnsworth, Zoidberg, Zapp Brannigan) has indicated that David X. Cohen (writer, exec producer) has talked with the Fox executives, and they were very open to going forward with this. This isn't just rumors from some comic con, this is coming from the actual people who make the show.