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Final Season of Battlestar Galactica Confirmed
Ant writes "Via Dark Horizons, IESB reported from the 10th annual Saturn awards yesterday, and spoke with Battlestar Galactica stars Edward James Olmos and Katee Sackhoff. Olmos confirmed that, as far as the show that's been running so far, the fourth season will be the last one. It's currently slated to start airing in January of 2008. 'Olmos says "This will probably be the most extraordinary season of 'Battlestar'. It's the final season, so it's definitely going to be the most vicious. As far as we know, in respects of the way we have this show constructed, this is the final season." Sackhoff says "I think part of the problem is that it's an expensive show. It is [a great show], but we don't have the viewership that a great show should get."'"
Because that show has taken a real dive in quality.
I would be amazed if this miniseries didn't make a nice chunk of change from DVD sales/rentals though, especially if they made a movie spinoff later (though like Serenity, making it appeal to people who haven't seen the series might be tough).
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
"It's the final season, so it's definitely going to be the most vicious."
So even more shakiness used for shakey-cam? *sigh*
I wonder if they would have gotten more viewers if the show were on a "major" network as opposed to the SciFi Channel. I guess the problem with a major network is that the show could not be as edgy as it is. I guess its best asset is that it flies under the radar. Unfortunately, it's also its downfall.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
I don't understand the buzz about a space opera starring Lorne Green with a bunch of villainous robots in tin suits with a single shiny red eye...
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
...to be brave enough to bring us cutting edge TV shows that we can't help but love.
And then kill them.
I think BSG is one of the best things to happen to American TV in awhile. I guess we can only hope that the same talent behind the show will continue to make other excellent TV shows like this.
Over the last season and a half, the show has been sucking pretty badly. It feel a long way from the absolute best show on TV ever, to yet another middling sci-fi show where everything gets wrapped up neatly at the end of each episode, no prominent cast members ever die, and they beat you over the head with whatever moral/political point they are trying to make at the time.
I hope they go out with a bang. I hope they are, as Olmos said, vicious. BSG started out as a gritty, dark and hard story about the shit hitting the fan over and over again. Let's hope the writers remember that before it's too late.
And I'd rather the show end nicely than fade into irrelevance by over-staying its welcome (as per Star Gate).
--- Tao
ST Voyager, DS9 and TNG all ran longer, were they somehow cheaper to produce? Voyager had 7 (!) seasons... and it kinda sucked through most of those!
Did more people actually watch Voyager and DS9 than BSG?
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
I love the new BSG, but I want to see them end strong. The second half of season 3 had too much filler. I want to see them focus on their main story arch and go out on a high note.
By contrast, one of my other favorite shows used to be The Sopranos, a show that has floundered for the past two years. They seem to be ending with their weekest run of shows to date. It will be hard for me to remember that show as fondly as I would like.
Rome was a great show that didn't run long enough, but there was no filler. A damn good series from start to end.
Sometimes less is more. (Star Trek, I'm looking at you)
Part of the problem is that is expensive...that is the same thing that resulted in the cancellation of the original series.
About the first series... "It was the most expensive television production of its time: $7 million (U.S.). Each weekly episode cost a purported $1 million (U.S.). "
I've been here before for the first series, and am seeing it now. In another 30 years when the third version is made I'll bet it won't last for the same reason.
Quality Hosting e3 Servers
You all realize this is what killed the first BSG. Money spent to 1000 of viewers is what they look at. That's why they moved the first show to Earth in that last (horrible) season - to save money on effects.
I haven't watched BSG, but by all accounts it's an excellent show. I'm sure I will get around to watching it one of these days. That said, I'm in the very small camp of people that believes that good shows should end their run early. Yeah, it sucks that the show is over, but at least it'll end while the writing was still good and well before it jumped the shark. One thing that I can't stand seeing is a show that just keeps on going and going until it simply can't gasp for breath anymore. Good shows should die young, imho.
This guy's the limit!
BSG is the only thing worth watching on SciFi. The rest is really, really dumb crappy pseudo science type stuff and awful b-list type movies without even camp value. These guys even make Bruce Campbell suck.
A while ago there was a scary article the indicated that SciFi was actually having ratings success with these low production value monster movies and such. If the drones actually show up to watch Mosquito 2 or whatever, why should they waste good money on a show that has to pay good actors and script writers and special effects masters?
Because reality TV is really really cheap to produce since it doesn't use high profile actors and needs little in terms of props and what not. Also, people love to watch other people's stupid drama. Reality shows purposely choose people who can't get along.
Also, most of the American TV viewing public is stupid and couldn't possibly understand or enjoy a show like Battlestar or Firefly for long. I think they should seriously think about either producing these shows direct to dvd. There can be a strong business case given how well the firefly and serenity dvd's sell.
Either that or release them in theaters on a regular basis ala old-school serials.
I got nothin'
I like to see shows end in a timely manner. 'Galactica' as a series needs to have an end point, that is intrinsic to its main story. With an ending in sight, the writers can deliver a quality final season and satisfactorily resolve story arcs. Plus, it is in danger of running past the point of being good(Lost), and nobody wants that.
This sucks but if you look at season 3 compared to season 1 or 2, you can see why. Most of the episodes were boring. The were only a couple good episodes of the season. The one episode where galactica came down to the planet and saved everyone...and the very last episode of the season. If any of the writers read this, bring back the action packed drama of space flight. Make an intense last stand with the cylons and humans. Don't make a happy ending where everyone gets along with each other. Nearing the end of the season start killing off main characters left and right. And for the love of god don't do what Stargate SG1 or Sopranos did or is doing...which is put filler episodes in the last season. SG1 ended their season halfway and the last half of the show was crap. The whole last season of Sopranos is crap and is just filler episodes. Make this the most epic season of all time for any sci-fi show. Otherwise you end up just pissing away a great series and pissing off a lot of people.
And what's wrong with wrestling? Open the event with the battle of the MILFs -- President Laura "The Amazon" Roslin vs. D'Anna "I'm Not Xena" Biers. Have Boomer walk the ring in a tight bikini, holding up the round cards. End the series with the grand finale: Starbuck vs. Six, and hold it the landing bay of a Cylon base star's worth of jello!
> there's STILL time!
After sitting through an entire season of budget-constrained character development... "there sure is, buddy, there sure is."
"but we don't have the viewership that a great show should get"
Are they including iTunes downloads and DVD sales? If not, why not? These days, anyone between the ages of 15 and 30 spends more time watching downloads and DVDs than they do tuning into TV broadcasts.
The era of everyone tuning into a scheduled TV broadcast is *over*. Does Nielsen still think it's 1960?
Insisting on "correct" English is like saying that there is only one, definitive recipe for chili.
Because a lot of people love comfort food.
A lot of people don't want to be challenged by their entertainment. They saw a TV show that they liked yesterday, and what they want more than anything in the world is to watch that same TV show again. You need to change it just enough that they're not bored by an exact repetition, but core should be as close to identical as humanly possible.
Sci-fi fans aren't entirely immune to it, either. They brought Zombie Star Trek out for years after it should have been given a dignified burial. James Bond film scripts have been (until the most recent one) essentially mad-libs. And they'll even watch the same old movies (e.g. The Empire Strikes Back) until they can quote the dialogue and can spot changes on a frame-by-frame basis (and accuse those of doing so of raping their childhoods).
Poor Battlestar is just too expensive to continue. It must cost nearly as much as Lost, a show which probably has 10 times the viewership. Better to let it die than to compromise their vision.
I just hope they've finally decided to share it with the writers.
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Wrestling belongs on SciFi like Freddy Krueger belongs on Lifetime.
If they had just given it to Spike in the first place, then Spike wouldn't have had to invent their own “TNA” version. (Yes- more wrestling... that's what television needs... </sarcasm> )
Now... let's see about re-making Buck Rogers!
This post © Copyrite Duggeek, all rights reversed.
They care more about money than anything else. Scifi is owned by NBC Universal, which is another way of saying GE. They are really good at caring about money. BSG costs a lot per viewer; wresting...doesn't.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
I didn't even know this was on TV. SciFi doesn't know how to market whatsoever.
Too bad. This show deserved better.
Stop by and watch a Christmas movie, commercial or cartoon! -->http://www.XmasDVD.com
"It's the final season, so it's definitely going to be the most vicious. As far as we know, in respects of the way we have this show constructed, this is the final season." Sackhoff says"
Tell you what if anything this is probably going to be the lamest ending
to the BS-Galactica saga, because if they are already sure they flogged
this dog to death why invest a hell of a lot of money into it?
Just like old Levi used to say.
This used to be my favourite show, but there's just been too many bad episodes in the last couple of years. I don't really care if I even see it anymore, though I usually catch a repeat at some point. I'd rather see one more good season, where they are forced to wrap up the story, than several more seasons of the half-ass crap they've been coasting along with lately.
And they'd better have a really, REALLY good reason to explain why Tigh and the Chief are Cylons, or the first episode of the last season just might be the last one I ever watch. Talk about jumping the shark.
This is the way the show should end, on a high note. As pointed out somewhere else further down, the show is starting to degrade. There was a time when you never really knew what was going to happen next. A time when, unlike other shows, they weren't afraid to kill off major characters or have the plot twist 180 degrees in another direction.
Now, though, it's gotten where you know that all the majors will be with us next week, that in the end, everything will work out okay. It's just gotten kind of ho-hum.
If they make this the last season, it gives them incredible freedom to do some really great things dramatically. All characters are fair game. All plots are on the board for major twists. And they can always come back and do movies or mini-series if there's a demand for it.
Here's my prediction, though. They get to Earth, but as it turns out, it's not exactly the thirteenth colony they expected. Think about it. It's all happened before, right? The Cylons and the thirteenth colony have encountered each other just as our ragtag colonial crew and the Cylons are encountering each other now. They intermingled (Eve, anyone?), and the result is that we here on earth are actually the progeny of both colonial humans and Cylons. We even adopted both religions. People here are killing each other over the same ideological differences as the Cylons and the colonials are.
I could be wrong, but I think that's ultimately the ending plot twist. When all is said and done, it turns out that WE are Cylons, too, a fact that has been lost to antiquity.
From a writing standpoint, I think it's great. BSG and Lost both have the same problem... they have a very definite end-point... for BSG, it's finding and populating Earth. For Lost, it's getting off the damn Island. These are the driving forces behind the shows, and on one level or another the action and drama come out of these arcs. However, if you keep stringing them along for two long, they start to suck... there's only so many ways you can delay the end-point before the audience gets tired, and you jump the shark.
These shows will ultimately be more successful with end-points written- the writers will have a clear goal of what to write to and how to make it interesting to get there, instead of just coming up with more ways to string viewers along.
While it sucks that it's going off the air, it'll make for better TV along the way.
The series nees an end point otherwise it becomes like X-Files which ends up having no point in being made each week.
I don't know anybody that is remotely a geek who doesn't watch it and love it. BUT they put so much time between seasons it is easy to wander off. It is frustrating as hell. I would rather have the entire show done straight out than have to wait most of a year for the next season. A year is a really long time today.
Why was this modded flamebait? I'm a massive BSG fan, it's one of my favourite shows on TV, but it has taken a dive in quality since the beginning of the third season.
Since the escape from new Caprica in the Exodus two-parter, the show seems to have just drifted into the realm of the weird and pointless at times. Filler episodes have increased (such as the boxing episode - Unfinished Business, and the rogue doctor killing Saggitarans in The Woman King), and the main story has been tangled up in a load of tired existential and spiritual nonsense that doesn't seem to be going anywhere. The finale of Season 3 even has Starbuck coming back from the dead, apparently as a figment of Lee's imagination. Oh great, another character inexplicably living in someone's head.
Of course, it's all down to opinion in these matters, but for me I'd like to see the show's main story to get back to the heights of Season 1 and 2 (and the start of Season 3). The desperate and down-trodden survivors of the human race fighting to stay alive and stay ahead of the Cylon fleet hunting them at every jump. Brilliant and touching filler / side-story episodes like Season 2's Rise of the Phoenix and Scar, and more all-or-nothing dogfights with the genocidal toasters.
I'll be watching season 4 whatever happens, it's still a good show. But I do think it has been missing its potential lately - hopefully it will improve next season.
She's built like a steak house, but she handles like a bistro....
Personally, I prefer having shows end with a well thought out conclusion that ties up as many plot threads as possible instead of what happens to most TV shows where they just start to suck for a season or two and are abruptly canceled with little chance to actually finish up the story. It's hard to argue against the fact that the last season had a lot of filler in it, and it's probably about time for the writers to start wrapping it up. They need to have more episodes like the last one of the season and less like the stupid boxing episode.
Also, Is Starbuck Jesus?
I read the internet for the articles.
Think about it. If their goal is to "find Earth", the missing colony, how much story is there left to tell after that point?
This happens in a lot of shows, where the big point plot that always seems like a distant thing finally arrives. And once it does, there isn't much left to talk about. It becomes an entirely different show, with a different focus, and viewship will decline.
Look at some fine examples from TV's past.
Twin Peaks was a brilliant and weird show, that had a whole bunch of people talking. I still remember going to "Twin Peaks viewing parties" at friends houses, where we would all watch the episode together, and then start to dissect it over coffee and pie. (Those of you that remember the show will remember the line "damn fine pie".) But, once we knew who the killer was, there was nothing left to tell. They tried a second season, and it was a colossal flop. We all got what we wanted.
Moonlighting was another example. Once "Dave" and "Mattie" became romantically involved, instead of dancing around the subject, nobody really cared anymore. The show went into the toilet, ratings wise.
If BSG closes up shop after they find Earth and get things settled in, there is a good chance that most viewers will never say "Damn, BSG jumped the shark".
It is the reason 24 keeps on working. Every year, it reaches its ending, and the next year's season is a totally new (sorta) scenario for Jack Bauer to fix.
Personally, I like the TV show "Heroes", but I worry that it is headed for a Twin Peaks type ending. Once they save New York City, where will they go that will keep our attention? If we all end up feeling satisfied with that ending, then nobody will want to watch season 2.
While it sucks to see a good (even if it hasn't been THAT great recently) end, I am happy to know that it will end without having several crappy seasons at the end. Too many TV shows seem to run season after season until the writers are completely out of ideas and the quality of the stories start to tank. I'd much rather have something shorter and sweeter. I like how a lot of the anime TV series in Japan run for a single season with something between 12 to 26 episodes. These series can focus strongly on a main arc and usually have much better pacing than something like LostOurDirection Season 6.
I have to disagree.
Look, I think BSG is the best show on television right now (as much as it's on at all right now, rasm frasm nine month hiatus). But despite the fact that the show has occasionally floundered a bit, I've generally had the feeling that the show is actually going somewhere, that Ron Moore et. al. are actually interested in telling a story. One that has... what's it called? Oh right! An end.
Contrast this with Lost, which I started off watching avidly, but now... well, the four phases of Lost watching:
1. This show is great! I wonder what they'll do next?!?
2. Huh? That didn't make sense.
3. You guys are making it up as you go along, aren't you?
4. God, I hope you guys are making it up, because God help you if you planned it this way.
And Lost just got extended another three seasons.
I think it is about time we got over the expectation that any well-loved TV series should stay on the air for an open-ended run. I love BSG. I even get enjoyment out of the filler episodes. But I would love a tight, well-though out story arc with a good series conclusion even more. What is the problem with telling a good story and wrapping things up when you are done? For example, I watched every episode of Carnivàle, and was actually quite pissed off that they did not plan on wrapping things up at the end of the 2nd season. I would have been quite happy with that. Instead, they added a last-minute twist that made me feel even more cheated after HBO dropped their ass. It could have been brought to a logical conclusion in 2 seasons. Perhaps this is an American problem. As a country, we seem to have a media oral fixation that makes us act like more product is always better. Wake up. It is not.
Having followed the show for the entire run, I can agree with all of these sentiments: that the show is one of the best on television, that the show hit a weak stretch in season 3, and that it may be best to keep the entire show strong to end it before it gets too long. The problem, however, in this case, is that Ronald D. Moore still has "two chapters" he wants to tell (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07085/770732-352.s tm). Passage of time has been crucial to the show (especially the season 2 finale) and while it wouldn't be as bad as seeing nothing of consequence happen for long stretches of episodes (Star Treks), the show now runs the risk of having all that RDM wanted to happen over two seasons occur in the short span of one. True, it may give us a filler-free season, but the show's success is largely due to its believability - and that comes into jeopardy, I think, if the show and the Galactica herself comes an unbelievably long way in such a short amount of time.
Flight of the Phoenix - not Rise of the Phoenix.*
Damn Terminator 3 trailer in the background messing with my booze-addled brain.
She's built like a steak house, but she handles like a bistro....
after SG-1 putters out this year, BSG is the only show you have on SciFi. maybe if you used SciFi as more than a vehicle for advertising Heroes you could make some money on it.
I must say, good job to whoever made this decision. I love the show, and the last half season definitely helped make up for the Baltar vacationing with the Cylons crap. But.. shows have to end, and its much better to end it on the writers terms than having to quickly wrap it up when the show gets canned.
Take ST:TNG as an example, it ended at the height of its popularity, and the last season is the most amazing one in my opinion. So rather beat it into the ground (which they did with new series instead) they took it out in grand fashion, with the crazy two-parter with Q and a possible future, and bringing back Yar and all that.
So heres hoping they do it right and its not a show where you can't help but think 'What the hell happened?' years later.
Mike Elgen over at Computerworld has a few ideas on where those viewers have gone. I don't know why so many have left so quickly but I'm sure it has something to do with the poor shows available. "Survivor", "American Idol". These are the shows with the highest ratings?
If you think things are bad on TV now, wait until June when the Writer's Guild of America West and East combine for the first time in a long while to get better contracts from the production studios. The Director's Guild and another couple of Guilds are lined up right after that. TV will be pretty poor for a long while I guess.
Won't bother me though. I watch very little besides BG and the canceled "Daybreak". And why should I when I have access to HD television and excellent shows such as "Planet Earth" on Discovery HD.
We have always been at war with Eurasia!
Ron Moore already said it would be at most 5 seasons in the podcasts. They know what they want to accomplish so it's not going to be a half-assed ending. Are you saying that you would prefer BSG to run as long as say Stargate?
I have no interest in BSG running 10 seasons. You will likely be unable to keep the entire cast together and let's face it, this cast is solid. You will run out of plot ideas to look at and have to make up the next enemy (Gaould, replicators, Orai) and it just gets silly to me. I used to love Stargate but I lost interest simply because I didn't have time to keep track of everything going on (new development x or superevil badguy y and spinoff z) and some of it just got ridiculous to me.
This is the story that they want to tell and thus far, I have yet to be disappointed. Some episodes aren't as interesting. Some twists were ridiculous. But the story is still there and I believe it will end well.
I understand yet dislike Firefly and despise BSG. Does that make me an idiot?
It's all a matter of opinion.
gods damnit this frackin sucks
But I'm more eager to see how everything ties together. I think it'd be great if we limited all shows to 4 or 5 seasons (at most) and avoid the fates of shows like "X-files", "Lost", "Alias", etc. Often times, writers have maybe 3 seasons of great material, but are forced to water it down so broadcasters can squeeze more money out of it over the course of 6+ seasons.
Season 3 was sorely lacking in the fast-paced action that got me hooked on BSG in the first place.
Let's see more armies of Centurians with machine gun hands battling it out with scrappy, loveable humans on some weird alien planet, instead of a bunch of "I'm so fracked up because my mom was abusive."
In all seriousness, though, the drama-oriented episodes were great, but c'mon, let's have some balance.
Just my $0.02.
My mythtv recoding folder get's smaller and smaller every month. as shows I have set to record simply disappear. Almost all the new stuff coming out creates no desire in me to watch any of it. If Sci-Fi wants to cut it's own throat that is fine, but their current lineup is at an end and is sending a message to all scifi fans. "This channel is not for you." At least their B series like Lexx and others were entertaining, now they call a shows "season" 10-12 episodes give a viewer no reason to come back to the channel for other entertainment as they throw in old crap that has been watched to death. (No I dont want to watch the dune miniseries again for the 457th time or the damned Hercules in space opera called andromeda which was a UPN show and not theirs.)
I am tired of it. They think they need to produce a high cost tv show and then throw it in a death timeslot and then wonder why nobody is watching it.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
How else would the Cylon plants in last season's final know "All Along the Watchtower?"
- The miniseries was amazingly great. It moved the quality bar for TV science fiction more than one notch.
- Seasons 1 and 2 were amazingly great. It restored the quality bar for TV drama and deep, immersive storytelling.
- Season 3 was fair. It started very strong, but then languished.
The finale last winter was terrible.
It was obvious that deep sacrifices in storytelling quality and production budget were being made to cut costs. The announcement of the final season is a blessing. It will insure that the series wraps up before a good chunk of the core fanbase becomes alienated. I'm encouraged to know that a strong ending will be the top priority going forward.No, it doesn't. BSG has a story to tell, and it should tell that story and then leave.
If your theory is different from practice, then your theory is wrong.
This has, btw, always been my deepest gripe about the show. That they can't sustain the losses they've been taking and expect to survive at all.
Now that only leaves the question of: If Starbuck is the 12th model Cylon, and she died and was resurrected to go, find Earth, and return with the news, how was her Viper resurrected as well?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
In my opinion it's really better for a show to have a decent run, say four or five years, with a set end date. That allows the writers to plan out the storyline and not have to come up with extra fluff to pad out a longer run than the concept can really support. It could keep the show from jumping the shark. Think about it --- a serialized show like BSG almost inevitably jumps the shark when it runs longer than what it was originally designed for. I think it's better to end it while it's still good, then move on to something new. If you keep it going too long you also risk getting cancelled without having time to end the series properly, which is the worst possible thing that can happen to a show. Ending, by itself, isn't a bad thing; everything ends eventually. You regret it, but it's far better to end well in a timely manner than to try to keep something going long after it should have been buried.
Sci-Fi channel has spent years pimping their friday night lineup. Then Friday night gradually became "Stargate Night" and they spread the rest of their shows around the week. When you take a show out of its stronghold timeslot and move it, especially to Sunday night when the big networks rule the ratings, you're going to lose viewers.
The story arcs got so complex, too, that it became increasingly hard to join the show as a new viewer. How do you just jump in midway into season 3 and feel a connection to these characters or understand the gravity of what is going on? Unless you've been on board since the pilot episode, it just isn't accessible. For those of us that have been following, that's great, but for others it is a real turn-off.
With shows like Star Trek, you had far less depth, but the story arcs generally wrapped up within the confines of an episode. Starting with DS9 the producers went to longer story arcs, messing with Roddenberry's formula, and it chased away more casual viewers (while probably appealing more to hardcore trekkies).
As much as I love BSG, rather than see it die I'd rather see a miniseries release 3x a year or so with much more fast-paced storylines and wrapping up introduced mysteries within the confines of the miniseries.
I gotta disagree. (Okay I don't disagree about what SciFi cares about; they lean, like any public company, towards cheap shows with higher profit margins rather than shows like BSG which are well-regarded but not as profitable.)
But to play devil's advocate. I think all good shows should run on a no more than four or five year arc... Allow closure, allow popular characters to be killed off (or even happily get married and retire somewhere), and most imporantly end before the proverbial shark is jumped.
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
I am a big fan of Battlestar Galactica. I have to admit though that I thought the show lost its way a bit with the "romantic" episodes, but the end of the last series was really good. Lets hope the final series finishes with a bang.
They became formulaic. It became just like every other scifi show ever. They were *never* going to find Earth, just like Voyager was never going to get home, just like Gilligan was never going to get off his island, just like Lost will never end, just like Wagon Train will never get to California.
I'm sorry, but that's bullshit. People are tired of that. When you follow that premise, you very quickly run out of show ideas and then you fall back on the cliches. I guarantee you, if BSG had stayed on the air long enough, we would have seen:
1. the time travel episode
2. the holodeck episode
3. the OMG ITS ALL A DREAM episode
4. the whoa, I have a long lost twin episode
5. the Everybody has Amnesia! episode
etc. etc. That's bullshit.
You want to make a good quality scifi show? Here's how you do it. You commit ahead of time to make it two seasons. Then you pick a story arch. To use BSG as the example, you make the first story arch, "invasion of the 12 colonies - journey to Earth." and basically, at the end of that second season, everything is wrapped up. They found Earth. They are safe. There is a conclusion.
See the thing is, people will commit to that. People will tune in to that just like they tuned into the miniseries. Know why? Because that's not jerking them around. They know that if they invest in that, they will be rewarded by a conclusion and not jerked off by never ending formulaic cliches. Unfortunately, it takes discipline to do a show this way, and nobody in hollywood has discipline.
Anyway, the money that you invest in the show isn't lost when the show ends. To stay with the BSG example, after that first story arch, you make another arch that will last two seasons. For example, you might do the first cylon war. You can use all the same sets and crew - and some of the actors too. Do that for two seasons and end it with. People will watch. Ratings will be higher than they are now. After you do that, come up with another story arch. Maybe make it really dark and do a story about a battlestar that gets destroyed. It wont have a happy ending, but people will still watch it.
The thing is, they've been doing this with anime for decades. This isn't even my idea! Evangelion had a story arch and it ended (badly). Bubblegum crisis had a story arch and it ended (sorry, I'm old school these are the only examples I can think of). They *almost* figured this out with BSG. They are going to do a miniseries about the Battlestar Pegasus. More people will watch that than watched season 2. Know why? Because it's not going to jerk you around. There wont be boxing episodes or flashback episodes. It will have a story and it will go somewhere.
Note that 24 also follows this pattern - almost. The mistake they made is that every season was basically the same, but that's not totally their fault, they are painted into a corner having to make every season one full day.
I'll be sad to see it go, because it's really well done. But there's only so much story for them to tell, and I'd rather have them wrap it up smartly than pad it out with a whole season of filler episodes.
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
I like Battlestar Galactica as much as anyone, but a good story should have a beginning, a middle and an end. I would rather see the whole show wrapped up nicely after a few seasons (Babylon 5) than have it drag on indefinately until it becomes a ghost of its former self (Star Wars, Star Trek). Let all the creative people who told this story finish it, then start telling us a new story.
As decent as the miniseries was, the full-on series incarnation was not very good. It was laughable at best, and downright annoying at worst. The original was better anyway, seeing as it was fun and campy. Realism and "grittiness" does not necessarily make for good stories. Still better than any of those Sci-Fi Original films at least!
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
This REALLY REALLY REALLY SUCKS. I am a huge fan of BSG!!!! Sci Fi Channel seems to just be killing good series one after another. The last one they killed that I loved was Farscape. Farscape won numerous awards including the Saturn award. They even had the Jim Henson shop who for years have maintained a mark of creativity and excellence. Now Sci-Fi kills off BSG (they have won Saturn awards)!!!! Why? I'm sorry to me Stargate should not have run more then 1 season same old story over and over again the acting was over the top and it just was not all that interesting. Every week someone almost dies, same as Star Trek someone almost dies oh no the warp core blah blah blah. DS9 was about the Vulcan, The Female Klingon and whatever the weird looking whiny thing was called - CHEESE! I know some people may not like this but hey at least BSG and Farscape provided different angles, more dynamics yes longer drawn out but a hell of a lot more realistic. BSG was very gritty in comparison to any other Sci-Fi TV series. Firefly was good but Farscape should have been a movie long before Firefly (Serenity) became one. What is left now on SCI-FI channel nothing but wrestling ??? WTF ? and chessy B class Sci-Fi Movies like Sharkboy or whatever it was. There Sci - Fi picture original movies for the most part SUCK! Seems like everytime they have a winner Farscape, BSG, etc... they kill it off and lets face it Stargate should have been dead several years ago. They are turning into what MTV is now. MTV was all music videos now it is all reality shows and nothing to do with Music Videos they just play some music in the background. Sci-Fi was supposed to be all about Sci-Fi now it seems it is turning into a general purpose cable channel. Don't worry I am sure they will use a Star Trek backdrop while they have some reality show on.
It's sad to see "the best hour of television" come to an end. Honestly though, it's better to see the show end on a high note, rather than have storylines recycled for a couple of more seasons (see: Stargate SG-1).
James Bond film scripts have been (until the most recent one) essentially mad-libs
While I'll grant you that Die Another Day, was a rehash of Diamonds are Forever, and The World is Not Enough was Goldfingeresque, Goldeneye was somewhat orginal.
I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
... for them to follow the series up with a "reimagined" Galactica 1980 ! Oh, wait, yes I can.
LOL...
I somewhat knew this will happen to Lost, which is why I stopped watching it, after it's first season.
Thanks goodness there will be a proper ending for BSG.
I rather be free in hell than a slave in heaven.
It was not "Damn fine pie." It was "Damn fine coffee" and "This must be where pies go when they die."
Sigh. I'll just go shoot myself now.
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
If it's so great, why did all my friends tell me it wasn't that good? If it's so great, why is the guy writing it giving interviews where he talks about how he just changes his mind about what's supposed to happen, decides characters' fates on a whim, and generally treats script-writing like Kurt Cobain wrote songs (ie, show up high 45 minutes early at the studio and scribble something out)? I haven't watched it, honestly. My work schedule is kinda weird, and my DVR's got more reliably-well-written shows to track.
Lost brainstorming session - 2/25/2004
Damon note: We have gathered hippies and provided them with Absinthe and pot. They have been prompted to talk.
Hippie 1: Hey, lets have polar bears on an island!!
Hippie 2: Evil companies are bad. DOWN WITH THE MAN!!!
Hippie 3: SO MANY SCARY NUMBERS!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hippie 4: (munch munch munch)
Hippie 2: Wars are killing the goodness in the Earth.
Hippie 3: Dude, don't you guys see that man in that chair over there.
Hippie 1&2: No man. There's nothing there.
Hippie 3: I'm serious dudes.
Hippie 4: Anyone want to go to Whitecastle? Might as well get fat as hell, it's awesome.
Hippie 2: What if everyone was interconnected to EVERYONE!
Hippie 1: Man if I crashed on an island, I'd have like no pot.
Hippie 2&3: OH NOES!!!!
Hippie 4: (passed out)
Carlton note: Well Damon, I think we have some good ideas.
Damon note: Yep, let's get started.
Word has it that after the main series is done, they have another lined up which takes place on Earth. Apparently a couple of Viper pilots cruise around the planet on hoverbikes to help people.
Sweet!
I've generally had the feeling that the show is actually going somewhere
RDM said he pulled that season finale game changer out of his ass halfway through the season. I'd say that's evidence of lack of direction. He doesn't know what to do and he's just making up wild twists. It's time for this one to go.
Ha!
I gotta say, though: THE SCARY NUMBERS!! thing? I actually really liked that. I didn't mind it when plot twists seemed random or improbable (like the cursed lottery numbers), I minded it when they were just... lame.
Wow, may I ask why you dislike Firefly and despise BSG? I haven't heard anyone say that before, I'm curious why.
-> Sometimes, you just gotta break free from the shackles of proprietary code.
Then the 2nd season started and it hit me: Oh, wait, this is just another endless soap opera!
Look, to all the writers to these shows, and I mean all of them, Heroes, Lost, Desperate Housewives, all of them:
Wrap it up!
It is impossible to sustain any coherence year after year. Impossible. Never done before and will never happen.
Silly episodic shows like Simpsons? Er, maybe... But 2 more years of Lost? I'm done.
Anyway, I get the feeling I'm preaching to the choir. Here's my/the solution: treat season like movies. Beginning and end. Everything must be wrapped up and folks satisfied, yet yearning more. Like Matrix 1.
Heroes "creator" said in Wired he will do this. We will see. (Heroes rocks by the way, I thought they were fucking things up but they seem to have brought it back to the hotness)
Frack! Frack! Frack!
Best show on television? Hardly.
When asked about the end of the show, Olmos said, "Too bad it won't live but then again what does." He then proceeded to leave oragami unicorns all over the set.
Frak you and the horse you rode in on!
"In the game of life, someone always has to lose. To me, if life were fair, that someone would always be Oklahoma." -DKR
You bastardized a classic SciFi/Western-in-space TV show,
I think what you meant was, "You took a shitty, campy 70s show and made it worth watching."
I might well have watched more than once
So you watched it once and yet you still feel well-informed enough to bitch about how much it sucks?
that spelled your eventual undoing.
The irony is that the new series has lasted longer than the original.
Whatever.
Indeed.
Sadly, some of those probably aren't too far from what we'll actually see.
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No, we don't know the difference between "than" and "then." But we're pretty good at recognizing run-on sentences and sentence fragments. So we've got that going for us.
I could not disagree more. I love Battlestar. Lots. And I want to see it end when it's right for the story and while it's still good. Lest it go the way of the X-Files.
Probably solve the energy crisis while they're at it.
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They aren't for everyone. And I can see someone hating one but liking the other too.
Deadwood is pretty good, but it's not SF.
Do you like Star Wars or Star Trek?
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Contrast this with Lost, which I started off watching avidly, but now... well, the four phases of Lost watching:
1. This show is great! I wonder what they'll do next?!?
2. Huh? That didn't make sense.
3. You guys are making it up as you go along, aren't you?
4. God, I hope you guys are making it up, because God help you if you planned it this way.
And Lost just got extended another three seasons.
It got extended three seasons, but with only two seasons worth of actual shows. They're 16 episode seasons, vs. the standard order of 22 (or in '24's' case, 24).
Anyway, I don't understand people that say Lost doesn't make sense or that it hasn't answered any of its early questions. If you think that's the case, then you just haven't been paying attention. Lost doesn't beat you over the head with its answers like a lot of shows do; it doesn't insult your intelligence by wrapping every plot point up with a neat little bow and saying "here! now look!" The shows themselves are about the characters, and that's always been the case; the overarching story of the island is told through the character stories, and it's up to you in most cases to piece it together. Lost requires you to think. Obviously I know that's not what a lot of people want to do when watching TV, but that's part of what makes the show great - it's not a show for the lazy or feeble-minded. It demands audience participation, which should be something we celebrate from the normally non-interactive boob tube.
Almost all of Lost's early questions were answered long ago. In fact, I was starting to wonder for a while how they were going to make it to the end of this season, let alone next, before they ran out of possible plotlines. (I took the filler episodes like the Ken and Barbie kill-off as evidence that the writers had the same thought.) Now, though, at the end of the season they are throwing tons more questions out there... which can get cheesy if it just seems like it's going to be a neverending cycle. Since we know that there's an endpoint, though, it hasn't reached that point yet. And we do know that there is an overarching plot going on here that hasn't changed since the beginning. I just hope they've still got enough material left for 48 more episodes - my prediction is about 25% of those episodes will be more filler, although that still leaves a lot of great TV to come.
As for BSG, I tried watching a few episodes this season and it seems to have turned into "Grey's Anatomy" in space. It's just a big, slickly produced soap opera. Hopefully with only one season left, the writers can pull it together and really drive things forward again.
More specifically, it will ONLY last three seasons - it is scheduled to end in the 2009-2010 TV season. There is a definite last episode so now they can actually plan out the rest of the show instead of finding ways to keep it going.
We are the fire that lights our world.. and we are the fire that consumes it.
I decided to wait and get it pristine on DVD, rather than have it "spoilered" by watching it on TV
The more control you have over the viewing, the better. For some reason, the DVDs have lots of spoilers that are hard to skip. Every episode starts out with the same "trailer" which is followed by spoilers that consume at least 10% of the viewing. When you combine that with a crappy remote blocking player, you end up watching tons of FBI warnings, Warner Brother's logos and spoilers. It would be unbearable broken up with advertisements.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Well of COURSE its not getting the Viewership... trying to watch ANYTHING on SciFi is horrible. 5 mins of show, 5 mins of commercials, 5 mins of show, 5 mins of commercials.. Other channels are bad (ABC etc) but they are nowhere near as bad as Sci-fi. I think Spike is probably nearest to it. I watched the first Mini-series on SciFi, now for the other seasons, I wait till they are out on DVD and watch them how they are indtended, not on what SciFi's terms of force feeding me Enzyte, wrestling commercials etc and interuptting the story flow.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
There are still fans of the original battlestar? There are people who liked the old Starbuck? Better? Are those people woman-haters?
First Firefly now this. At least we are getting one more season to close off lose ends. What is it with amazing space dramas that can't seem to go the distance(Besides Startrek)?
"... the main story has been tangled up in a load of tired existential and spiritual nonsense that doesn't seem to be going anywhere. The finale of Season 3 even has Starbuck coming back from the dead, apparently as a figment of Lee's imagination."
:-)
If you'd been paying attention to the existential and spiritual nonsense, you'd realize that it may well be the driving force behind what you call the "main plot". Also, that Starbuck probably isn't back from the dead because she never died. I think that in the BSG universe, the gods are quite real (although perhaps not what we think of as gods) and Starbuck is favored by - or maybe a personification of - the goddess Aurora.
Or maybe it's all a bulshit distraction. Hard to say.
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
In my opinion BSG sucked from the beginning. The new, not the old, the old sucked in a completely different way but was cool at the time. I think I must have watched every episode. The new BSG given a different name and different end goal would make for a good show on it's own I believe, but I just couldn't get into the new. The original being mostly light and funny, the new being dark and not funny at all. The characters all lost their appeal after being changed and molded into the directors impression of what they should be. Even the Cylons became darker and more evil (and less robotic). It became a completely different show that sucked because it was using all the character names from a familiar show.
Young people today seem to enjoy TV I do not. "Friends" for example. Yet I don't think I was all that different at their age. Probably _less_ discriminating because I had less exposure to media and technology.
So, um... are they still going to do that lame Caprica spin-off they announced like two years ago?
The only thing worse than ending a series is dragging it on past its natural conclusion.
Tell the story. When the story is over, it's over. Trying to tack on extra seasons is just going to make it suck.
paintball
yes.
What would Brian Boitano do?
Well... I never really liked Firefly but definitely love this new BSG.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
Rockford Files
Baa Baa Black Sheep
Magnum, P.I.
The A-Team
Quantum Leap (D.S. is not a Cylon)
What most "geeks" (twits as superficial as any prom queen) complain about the original series is the repeated effects shots.
When you realize that the original BSG was done right after Universal's Bellisario had stretched 45 seconds of WWII stock footage into the entire Pacific theater, the repeated shots make sense.
Context matters.
I urge those with an aversion to cheesy effects, to just ignore the effects in the original series and concentrate on the stories. Larson and Bellisario can write good 70s TV.
Context matters.
The new series has approached the depth of the original, especially with the Dylan song recalling the Apollo signals in DPB's original "The Hand of God."
The new series has done better than the original with the Pegasus and crazy battlestar tricks: Michelle Forbes did a great job playing Lloyd Bridges, and "Prepare for turbulence" respectively.
But the new series has not met the grandeur of the original's "War of the Gods." Patrick Macnee and John Colicos really brought the goosebumps in those two eps!
Context matters.
I had my doubts, but honestly once I sat down and started watching it, it was just damned good. Do you feel you've given it an honest shake? BSG is definitely not like the original, and this fact may turn you on or off to the show. It seems that many people form adverse opinions about things without really experiencing them (read any comment posted on a console article). The shows may not jive with you, but if you are into scifi and haven't really given them a chance, you are missing out on some great stuff.
I would much rather have the show end with a buildup to a killer conclusion than gradually fade out as it's renewed and renewed and renewed and the writers slowly run out of ideas. Ron Moore has said he thinks the story is now in its third act (out of three) so my guess is that, as in the case of "Lost," this is actually something put forth by the producers as much as by the network. I doubt they have any more interest than the viewers do in watching their show end with a whimper after overstaying its welcome.
It's like the difference between "Harry Potter" and "The Wheel of Time" -- the former can build to a climax and introduce big changes to the characters and the world with the knowledge that there will be exactly seven books. (Obviously it remains to be seen if the conclusion will be satisfying, but at least there is a conclusion.) The latter just drags on and on and on for God only knows how long, the story grinding to a slow crawl as it's stretched out to more and more books.
Maybe this is some cause for alarm.
The tragic truth is that if intelligence obeys a Gaussian distribution, exactly half of the people have below the average intelligence. Since shows like these appeal mostly to people in the far right of the distribution (not really appealing to the average - and the word "mediocre" has its roots here - viewer), it's obvious TV execs should aim to the largest audience possible: stupid people.
With the added benefit that they can cut costs by cutting quality (reality is as cheap as it can get and sports, while expensive to secure a deal, is mostly profitable) and they will barely notice.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
Have Boomer walk the ring in a tight bikini, holding up the round cards.
Oh damn, I just did the accidental flashback to the Boomer from the original Battlestar series - Herb Jefferson Jr.
AAAHHHahahaha!!! My Mind's Eye!! You sir, owe me a new mental retina
As it happens, they did more than this. You can look at what they did as a poor revamping/remaking of the original series... but that's your choice. It's subjective.
For my money (and I'll point out that I watched the original and bought the boxed set on DVD), it's a very different and in many ways far better re-imagining of the core concept. Face facts: the original Battlestar Galactica series wasn't nearly dire enough for what amounts to starting with the near extinction of the human race.
On the other hand 4 seaons is about it; between the heavy frontloading of 'punch' episodes in season 3 and the changes in scheduling (Sunday? WTF? Trying to compete with Desperate Housewives or something?), it's no surprise that the viewership has waned. With SG-1 ending and no BSG on Fridays, I'm curious as to what's going to happen to SciFi in general.
As others have said - let us hope that the final season doesn't throw out the 'filler' (because lots of 'filler' episodes are important anyway; explaining character motivations can be very important, especially if you want the audience to appreciate the character's growth and changes.
Anyway - I like the new series (though not as much as I used to, true) and I liked the original. They're different, but they're both interesting storytelling and based on the same things... but heavily colored by society of their times.
Evolution ceases when stupidity can no longer be fatal.
Folks... It was pretty obvious they were pulling a Chris Carter on the audience.
They just fell for it.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
> Better to let it die... What a horrible metaphor to use for bringing the story to a conclusion.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
That's fine I suppose that BSG comes to an end. I'm also fine with SG1 coming to an end. It's had a good run and been entertaining. SG: Atlantis is still going. That's good, it's enjoyable. But I'm running out of good reasons to continue paying extra for the SciFi channel in my area. It doesn't come with basic cable, so unless the SciFi channel starts up some new good programs then I'll be canceling SciFi and well..... being that SciFi is the ONLY channel I bother to record anything on with my DVR then I'll be canceling my HiDef DVR too and for that matter cable! Since SG1, SG Atlantis and BSG are the only shows my wife and I watch on TV (DVR). Interesting cascade of effects. Hopefully for SciFi's sake they find some good programming. oh and ya. WTF is up with wrestling on SciFi. Every time I'm fast forwarding through commercials I see this crap and at first I assumed is was another channel advertising their crap on SciFi, but as it turns out it's on SciFi!. OK so ya wrestling is Fiction but it is NOT Science Fiction.
Also, most of the American TV viewing public is stupid and couldn't possibly understand or enjoy a show like Battlestar or Firefly for long
Don't mean to crap on your birthday cake here, and believe me I enjoy Battlestar and Firefly as much as the next slashdotter, but its not as if these shows are pixelated genius. I'm fairly confident that if my 8-year old cousin can hold a lengthy discussion with me about BSG that we're not really straining people's brains here.
And then just as an aside, its interesting when you imply that Reality shows are thusly "stupid." I mean we're definitely talking apples and oranges (reality tv and dramas), but I think anyone who's interested in Game Theory and sociology would definitely find some intriguing aspects in Survivor.
it doesn't suck. It means they can go through with the story without 2/3rds of them being absolute filler bullshit like the last season was.
I love the show, but I hate seeing a great show waste time trying to expand a small storyline.
Firefly being killed after part of one season was lame. It was a great show that got cut short. The producers of BSG have been reaching for some time to extend a small storyline.
I personally will be happy to see it go out with a bang, instead of limping to a conclusion.
I disagree 100%. Great decision on their part.
BSG is a fantastic show. The best on TV IMHO. However, the story is starting to get old. End it fast, before they start introducing humanoid aliens or other such jumping of the shark, and it will be looked back on as a good show. Drag it on for 10 seasons, with 20% of the original cast, lame plotlines and whatever else, and it won't get half as much respect.
The problem with the entertainment industry is that they squeeze every last penny out of everything they can. It's a breath of fresh air to see a story go from prologue to epilogue without losing its quality. When you've got something good, you should be able to let it be.
Why not? it could continue easily in this format at a fraction of the cost...
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
Moore's been saying for a while that things have moved into the third and final act with the show.
A little less pretentions nonsense in the world.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
...and we also can recognize that sentences should neither start with a conjunction nor end with a preposition. Okay, so maybe we don't know about not ending a sentence a preposition with. However(*), we do know that a conjunction may be preceded only by a comma or, in the case of a partial sentence with portions elided, by an ellipsis (...) .
:-D
* However is not technically a conjunction, and is acceptable at the beginning of a sentence.
Obligatory on-topic comment: The show really should have gone on for only 3-3.5 seasons. It's pretty obvious from last season that they threw in a bunch of filler episodes to stretch it out to fill the minimum number of episodes. It's a shame, too. They could have just thrown in a couple of extra story arcs but instead chose to throw in boxing matches. What was that about? I guess it was meant to ease the transition into the Sci-Fi Channel becoming the Rasslin' Channel. *rolls eyes*
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
I think what you meant was, "You took a shitty, campy 70s show and made it worth watching."
I think you'll find that most fans of "classic" SciFi like "campy". While modern SciFi has its strong points, you can barely even call them the same genre.
So you watched it once and yet you still feel well-informed enough to bitch about how much it sucks?
Yes, actually. I took it as a gutting of the original, with updated special effects. Most of the attempts at "drama" reminded me more of a soap opera than SciFi (and yes, I know the term "space opera", but rarely does a show make it so blatant).
Overall, I found it an insulting attempt to capitalize on the original. YMMV (and judging from my previous post's current rating of "-1 troll", apparently most people disagree with my opinion on this).
Gaak. You can do a hell of a lot better than that. Tricia Helfer
Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005
A&E, ostensibly for "Arts and Entertainment", has become a "lowest common denominator" entertainment channel. It is now targeted to "Cleetus the Slackjawed Yokel". O.k., I'll say it, it is now "A&E for White Trash".
SciFi has done the same thing.
Back in the 70's, "Sci-Fi" was the schlock stuff that hacks turned out. "Creature From the Black Lagoon" and such. "SF" was what Asimov, Heinlein, Dick wrote.
When the Sci Fi channel debutted, a lot of SF fans were horrified with the moniker, but decided they could live with it as long as it was a home for SF. But, it has started to live up to the old definition of "Sci Fi" rather than the higher ideals of SF. We have lost the battle.
Oh, and when did wrestling ever get connected with either Sci Fi or SF? Besides some B grade movies being star vehicles for aging wrestlers.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
Lost still has the "wtf is going on here" factor.
Like last week... did we find the true power of the island? Why did it ask Locke for help? How did the hostel's get there, why haven't the ones that were there when Ben was a boy aged at all (like the fem looking dude with thick eye brows), How did Locke's father get there? How did Michael get off the island if the only way on or off is a submarine? etc.
Getting off the island is also pretty much a long shot now that they know they are all confirmed dead because some how identical wreckage and bodies were recovered nearly 1000 miles away (how did that happen).
I think what you are having a problem with is "how will my serial show last 10 years?"... It won't... that is the point of a serial show as apposed to episodic shows that have occasional story arcs. The story is complex... interwoven through 4-6 seasons and then it ends.
I know people who object to these shows on the basis of their more adult content, not on the basis of the show, and I'm talking very intelligent people too. Star Trek: TNG was the most watched drama it's last season because its content was approachable and the whole family could watch it together. Give me a great show that could be shared with children and then complain, because firefly, as great a show as it was, cut off a lot of their viewers with the inclusion of a prostitute while discussing and showing her work. If you can show me a series that's well done and squeaky clean that fails, then I'll agree with you.
Read the article. Katee says "Yeah, this might be, this may be our last year."
Olmos was more definitive, but frankly I think this is marketing hype, designed to make noise.
If I could venture a theory, I would say that heavily serialized shows just aren't everyone's cup of tea, because they require committment.
Watching a SF show like BSG, Firefly, Babylon 5, the new hit Heroes, or even the reviled Deep Space 9 requires a good understanding of a large backstory in order to truly appreciate it. Episodic shows like Star Trek (original or NG) is fine for dipping in and out of the make-believe, and so are easier for casual watching.
The more complex the plot arc, the more work required to make meaning as a viewer.
That's exactly why I like those shows: an audacious plot. The hook is the Big Picture. The rewards are a huge amount of nuance inside each episode.
Damn those pesky terrorists
be prison break, where it's a fantastic show, with a VERY clear end point... right in the title!
and then... break out.. loosing all end game, and drag it out to suckdom forever.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
That sounds like a bad SciFi movie right there... yeesh!
VOTE!
this show sucked so badly from direction to acting to camera works. The story archs were poor and hackish. i'm glad that i won't be seeing their poorly composed commercials anymore.
ST:DS9 didn't start ramping up until seasons 3 and 4. Killing it at season 4 would have meant cutting out its three best seasons. I agree a plan is needed though.
The problem is with faith in franchises. Networks don't want to give up money makers, so they'll run a franchise to death. I'd rather see them put their faith in the writers/producers. Rather than BSG Season 10, give people the next Ron Moore project. I mean, Stephen King didn't sign up to write It 2. He signed up to writer another Stephen King book. Do the same for TV.
I'd like to see pitches for shows go from "We have this show about this cool idea" become "We have this show, the main story is this, this is the end, we can do it in X seasons."
If the show sucks, cancel it. If not, it has a pre-defined end point agreed upon by both parties which forces the writers to get it done rather than forcing them to make up stupid crap for the characters to say each week.
Actually, they had a lot more viewers. Right up until the SciFi channel broke up their powerful friday night lineup [savestargatesg1.com] (BSG->SG1->Atlantis) and tried to launch BSG up against the Big 3 fall lineups. (Urk!) Sorry, SciFi. You're not that big.
Don't assume that the Sci-Fi people are that dumb. BSG isn't getting killed because they moved it to a bad time - they moved it to a bad time because they wanted it killed.
Rather than be open and say, "we're killing this because it's more expensive than wrestling per advertising dollar," and risk a march on their headquarters, they just move it to a difficult time, up against strong competition, and then kill it for poor ratings. It seems plausible to enough people.
It's getting to be an old refrain about how SciFi shows get cancelled. B5 had similar problems, IIRC, and others that I can't recall at the moment.
Besides just the cost, probably somebody at BSG pissed off somebody at Sci-Fi. And with a new Stargate to put into production they might have gone after the BSG budget as well.
Lots of possibilities, but I'd be shocked if it was just an amateur mistake.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Why's it suck? If they have a definitive story and ending, that's better than letting it go on for years with no direction. Plus I can now buy the DVDs and now worry about the series going on forever like south park, or family guy's return, and forget about the simpsons!
I had a lengthy conversation with an 8-year-old about A Midsummer Night's Dream after we saw a performance of it. Later, I had a lengthy conversation about the play with my professor who did his doctoral thesis on Shakespeare. The age or intelligence of the people who are capable of discussing a work of art is not the measure of how genius it is. James Joyce's Ulysses isn't brilliant because of the fact that few people can understand it. Battlestar Galactica isn't un-intelligent just because an 8-year-old can talk about it. I can understand saying that it's not genius, but saying that it's not genius because an 8-year old understands some of the issues it presents is specious.
Also, I dislike reality TV because they claim to be "real" but they are often scripted or at least contrived. As sociological tools, they are about as useful as a scripted show, and often less fun to watch. I don't know a lot about game theory, so I can't comment there.
So we're getting Caprica because BSG is so popular, but we're losing BSG because it's too expensive? That's confusing to me.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
This is NOT science fiction. Not by a long shot. Space ships...ok. Using projectile weapons aboard a ship in space...stupid. Looking for Earth...why? Why would we want to be found? YOU left us, so why should we want you back? Character development? I've seen more "development" on anime. When will it end?
Last year was full of filler episodes. It started with 2 or 3 good episodes then filler with some mention of the continuing plot line and the last 3 episode with the shocking finally. The kind of finally made like they had no clue if they were going to be picked up or not.
The writers when they are on track are good but theres only so much you can do without making this into Voyager.
It wasn't until they finished the fourth season that TNT acquired the rights to the fifth season. They'd already had a wrap party and begun breaking down the sets. They had to begin production on the fifth season immediately to meet the deadline, which is why they lost Claudia Christian, who was already moving towards other projects.
Season 5 was diminished by circumstance. If it had gone according to schedule, I'm sure it would have been as good as the first four seasons. Plus, we would have had the pleasure of seeing Susan Ivanova in charge of Babylon 5.
Dude I clicked because it was a Live Journal, but how about an NSFW or something. You're killing me here.
No sig for you!!
... For Lost, it's getting off the damn Island.
Yep, just ask Gilligan about it
I don't agree, but I've definitely heard that before. A lot of people aren't really into character driven series. For that matter, a lot of people aren't into drama, and both of these series, BSG in particular, are dramas. Indeed, if there's any series that could best be described as a sci-fi soap opera, it's BSG.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Seriously? Everyone I know thinks DS9 is the best Trek series ever made.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
I just watched the first 10 episodes of Voyager, season 2, and it floors me that it made it another five seasons beyond that. I also just caught up on the current season of BSG, and I'm equally floored that they only have one more left. How can such utter dreck be allowed to continue, while a great show can't?
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
I agree. That's what happened to the X-Files. The movie was supposed to clean up all the plot twists and answer all the questions that had been raised by the series. It did neither, and instead opened some new twists and new questions. I never watched another episode.
Think of it this way. When you read a novel, do you expect it to go on forever. A good story has a beginning, a middle and an end. Leave off the end, and you just have rambling.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Now with BSG out of the way (and SG-1 going the way of direct-to-DVD movies) it is only going to be a matter of time before Atlantis gets canned. I didn't even know when to watch BSG for the second part of season three because they changed the damn time slot! I eventually caught up via bit torrent, but I was glad I could skip a view episodes.
American Sci FI sucks. As long as the BBC keeps Russell T. Davies on board I will be guaranteed some entertainment.
Or Farscape.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
"as far as the show that's been running so far,"
Which means they apparently have plans for another show.
Perhaps entitled "Galactica 2009", in which the fleet reaches Earth a generation later, and its crew defends it from the attacking Cylons?
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Actually, Enterprise should have just skipped the first three seasons, except for the Andorian episodes. If they had just had the Andorian episodes and the 4th season, they'd still be on the air.
well, 2 seasons-worth of episodes. 48 over 3 years instead of 24 a season.
and now they have to buckle down and actually keep shit together.
Come read my stupid blagablog. Rants and Giggles
Indeed. Your average eight-year old is no less intelligent than your average 28-year old. Many eight-year olds are a great deal more intelligent. They're just relatively inexperienced.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Once they get to Earth, they will find that it is controlled by a highly advanced intelligence made of "pure energy." This intelligent energy cloud will force Adama and Tigh to compete in hand-to-hand combat in Vasquez Rocks on behalf of their respective species.
... be brought ... to fight my best ... friend.
Adama: Saul... I can't
Tigh: Bill, it is only logical that we fight until we discover a novel solution to this episode's conundrum.
[Adama's shirt rips]
Are you sure you were watching the same Firefly that I did? Because I don't understand your assessment.
I'm unaware of another show with even a remotely similar take on the space western theme. There were dozens of different sub-plots and twists that arced through the series that made it even more unique. Like BSG and very few others it had relatively realistic space physics and weapons.
Firefly was popular with a lot of people, especially the kind of people here on /. Since so many of us are fans of the show, and are still upset about the cancellation It's unlikely that we will stop talking about it anytime soon.
As for the reason for it's failure, I'd say the scheduling by Fox had more to do with that than anything else, they moved it at least twice and showed the episodes out of order, heck they showed the pilot last as the season/series finale! Personally I only saw the last show (the pilot) on Fox originally and didn't experience it fully until it was shown in order on SciFi a couple years ago. I mostly watched to see what the fuss was about but was very quickly hooked. Have you seen all (or more than a few) the episodes in order? If not perhaps that's why you don't appreciate it, or you could be just different than many of us.
Finally Consistently strong DVD sales indicate that there are more than a few geeks who like the show.
BTW I'm not going to criticize you for posting as AC, saying anything negative about Firefly here is frequently a recipe for loss of karma.
Yes, perhaps I am over-generalizing. I would guess that you aren't into sci fi since you don't like either of these shows. However, this same phonomenon is also seen in other genres (although sci fi seems to get hit the hardest, probably due to the amount of expense needed to put on a good show).
The fact remains that the reason that reality tv is still prevalent, the reason that paris hilton is plastered on the news, and why more people vote on american idol than for the president: the general TV viewing population are not the brightest crayons in the box.
I got nothin'
I am pretty sure you were wrong on every single point you made. In fact, I have my doubts if you ever even watched the show.
Look, all implications that I'm not smart enough to understand Lost aside, I never said that they weren't answering questions about "the weird stuff." Certainly some of the mysteries they brought up have been answered, and being that the remainder of the series is something of an unknown quantity (it's like, the future, eh?) it's not that I don't think they're going to resolve them.
(Note: I'm trying to keep discussion about this spoiler free, so I'm deliberately using some weird language to refer to events in last night's episode.)
My problem with Lost is that sometimes they'll go, "Hey, look, plot twist!" And I'm left thinking, "Okay, but lame plot twist." Last night's episode was a perfect example of this: two "twists," one regarding Jacob, and the other regarding "the scene at the pit". That latter scene wasn't cheesy, but I'd been waiting for it for the last three episodes, and knew immediately when it had arrived. That feels slapdash.
Anyway, it probably says something about my relationship with that show that despite the fact that I'm down on it, I still have fairly detailed knowledge about... um... pretty much this whole season. Dammit, Lost, I wish I could quit you.
(As for BSG and Grey's Anatomy: those would be the episodes I was referring to when I said "floundering". The "boxing" scene from earlier this season was like ST:TOS'"Kirk helps Spock get it out of his system" wrestling scene, only ham-handed and stupid. Generally, the show is much better.)
With Stargate petering out, and BSG coming to an end, I wonder what RDM will do next? I'd kind of like to see what he could do with another franchise. Someone call Blizzard and check on that Starcraft IP.
they have a very definite end-point... for BSG, it's finding and populating Earth. For Lost, it's getting off the damn Island.
I disagree. For BSG, you're right, it's finding earth (what happens there is up for speculation, however).
But I'm not so sure the people on Lost will actually get off the island. Remember, several people actually don't want to leave the island, or have good reasons for staying there. The older black lady (forgot her name) said plainly she never wants to leave, because the island healed her of her cancer and she's afraid it'd come back if she left. Kate is a fugitive, and doesn't have much to look forward to if she returns to the US. Locke doesn't seem all that interested in returning home, either, back to a life working at a box company, plus what if he goes back to a wheelchair?
I think there's going to be a very interesting conclusion to Lost, and I don't think it'll necessarily include rescue from the island.
"I think part of the problem is that it's an expensive show. It is [a great show], but we don't have the viewership that a great show should get."
Of course you dont have the viewership, man it's on space channel, i like space channel but when you want millions of people to view your show you try to get it on regular channels and not specilaty.
battlestar galactica is great but space channel, in some circle, is still an obscure one and not available everywhere, plus the fact that saturday or sunday nights are rarely good nights to air any show.
TNA existed well before the creation of Spike, their origional plan was to PPV only, but they have evolved into a minimal tv presence on Spike. Spike certainly didn't "create" TNA.
Not that I don't think ECW on sci-fi isn't stuipd.
Yes.
More seriously, perhaps not an idiot, but obviously lacking in taste and discernment.
More seriously still, I can see good reasons for disliking them from a certain perspective, as they do not serve to instill & encourage the virtues, but are simply entertainment. However, taken as entertainment I think that they are excellent, and I would have strong reservations about the aesthetic judgement of someone who dislikes them.
The same thing was true of Farscape. Incredibly high rated show, solid cast, cost waaaay too much to produce. That said, I think *this* final season is more B5-esque. They had a story to tell, they told it, let's give the show a real end.
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
Lost brainstorming session 5/1/200(something):
Carlton: Any ideas today Damon?
Damon: Nothing right away....
(David Lynch walks down the hallway past the closed door that leads to the brainstorming session)
Carlton: Did you just get a chill down your spine?
Damon: Yeah, weird.... I got it! Let's make Hurley's girlfriend come from the insane asylum and kill her off shortly thereafter!
Creepiest thing in the world:
http://www.davidlynch.com/dailyreport/
Kinda like life and history, come to think of it...
I'm a huge fan of BSG, but for me it has fallen far short of the 'great' show I hoped it would grow into.
When writing a story I was always taught to 'plan it all out beforehand' to reduce the need for filler, ensure consistency and enable you to space arcs out to maintain interest. The same principle should apply when designing a show, based around a primary story arc. The obvious example of such a show is B5, almost every episode helped build up to the climax. For 'episodic' shows, such as TNG, this level of planning isn't always required. BSG sadly though is the former, but planned like the latter - the result being a clunky show that grips you sporadically for a few episodes then drops you, and repeats.
Season 1 (to be fair) had me convinced it was going to be a great well planned out show. Season2 was also good, but began to show cracks along with a general lack of creativity (How many Captains did we need to go through on Pegasus?). Season 3 then binned it totally in my opinion, 3/4 of the episodes felt like filler. Did we really need *whole* episodes dedicated to killer doctors, union strikes, love triangles etc? These are all *side* issues, and should have remained as such. They could have run the killer doc story amidst the chaos of a cylon attack to add depth to the story if they really wanted to, or similar.
What made these episodes even more frustrating was the lack of continuity. A case point would be the two back to back eps 'A Day In The Life' and 'Dirty Hands'. In the former, Tyrol and Cally get vented into space and are saved by a concerned 'fatherly' Adama - Cally is left in critical condition. Suddenly In 'Dirty Hands' the pair go from admiring Adama to hating him, organising a militant strike (quick recovery Cally?), and end up having Adama threaten to execute them before they bitterly stand down. In following episodes everything is back to normal, Tyroll and Cally both admire Adama, as if nothing had happened... I mean what the fuck?. Sci-Fi shows are always tight on budget and tend to live in the crosshair's of the exec's, they simply should not waste episodes to the extent BSG has in S3.
I therefore am glad S4 will be the end, purely because I feel it may provide the much needed impetus for the writers to get on with the real story, and quit wasting episodes on aimless filler. It really is a great show, when they try.
How do you know there isn't? Have you actually looked? ;-)
The concept is that we here are the product of Cylon/colonial interbreeding. We wouldn't necessarily have wires inside of us.
I mean, I hope you didn't think I was trying to say Battlestar was a dumb-show per say. If ya did, then I misspoke. I just meant that its not this literary masterpiece that requires hours of study to truly delve into the meaning or significance of an episode. Its a TV show. But it is a damn good tv show. :)
:)
And as for the Reality show thing... yeah, ya know I actually have to defend Survivor a lot on this topic. It seems like a lot of people who don't watch Survivor like saying things like that about it. Lets see... Survivor, as a show, didn't dub itself "Reality TV" thats a media/society word thats come about and has been applied to all shows using "real" people. Its basically a game show... a long game show would be a better term for it. As for the scripting/contriving, its kind of like this (and this is something you just couldn't know if you haven't watched a fun season or anything) there are truly times when people break-down, or get angry, or get happy or whatever that just couldn't possibly be scripted. The emotion itself is just too real. I guess they could all be actors, but... I mean we're talking Oscar level if that were the case. And they obviously don't show you everything, so I'm sure the people are being fed and there are probably check-ups and all of this that we don't see, but... thats external, beyond the fact that we're not watching them 24 hours a day, it doesn't change the emotions they show when something happens to them. I would compare that to the fact that theres CGI in Battlestar, and then someone pointing out "Ya know, thats not a real spaceship!" Well of course its not man, its a tv-show, who cares, have fun. So I'd love to say give Survivor a shot, but ya know different strokes... its just this whole "Reality TV" phrase popped up and it (Survivor) ends up getting lumped together with Real World and American Idol and... I dunno Next Model or whatever the f. When, as a viewer, its definitely just a long drawn-out gameshow. But I guess that makes me biased too.
Well, you started off pretty good talking about Gaussian distributions and all, then you blew it on "largest audience possible: stupid people". Looking at your Gaussian argument, the largest audience possible would be the 68.2% of the population with IQs between 85 and 115. One would think that "stupid" people would lie outside the middle two standard deviations and be confined to 13.5% of the population.
Have you ever considered piracy? You'd make a wonderful Dread Pirate Roberts.
For me I enjoyed Firefly at first, then it started to wear on me until it felt like the A-team in space.
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
Indeed; it has the best actors, by far -- and a very interesting storyline that eerily tracks the current "war on terror" theme.
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
Yes, it does get better. I'm not sure if it's the 2nd or 3rd season when they get the ship Defiant, so they can go other places. They get to wander around, get into fights, later on there a few wars...
I watched it from season 2 to 6 I think. The last one got a little high handed.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Great post. Just one thing - the "invisible" dude in the chair bit, as corny as it was, was in the latest Lost episode which aired two days ago. You need to come out of the Lost fan closet and accept who you are, my friend...
I don't like them either and I have a nice easy reason: a soap opera in space is still a soap opera.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
It all depends on where you place the division between stupid and clever and if you can easily produce something that appeals to IQs between 85 and 115.
Of course, "stupid" was too strong a word. "Around average and below" would be a better one. Considering the average is 100, 50-115 would be a large-enough group and, if it shows a lower demand for quality than the 115+, they would qualify as the low hanging fruit.
I also suspect the public on the 115+ range is very fragmented and more difficult to hit.
On a side note, I have been observing what is happening here (in Brazil) with the popularization of cable-TV: As more higher income households get cable or other forms of premium content, the more traditional TV stations aim lower income families. The difference in quality, say, of journalism, is astounding, even within the same network.
So, for the disappointed fans of Firefly or BSG, I suggest strongly demanding a better educational system, with special attention to scientific education. Sure it won't come in time to save current series, but it could create a more fertile market for them in the future.
If TV survives the next 20 years.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
Battlestar is a fine show, but it's "Lost" in space. A whole lot of confusing nothing happens every week. That aside, the show is centered around an ongoing plot. It had a beginning, a middle, and it will have an end. Why are people holding on so tight? Let it go, let another good idea take it's slot and it's funding.
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
The trouble is that intelligence may not 'obey' a Gaussian distribution. Frankly, you find me a room full of psychologists (we're the ones who mainly study this) who can agree 100% on a meaningful definition and measure of intelligence as THE definition, and I'll be shocked. As in drop over dead.
Beyond that, most intelligence tests are normalized to fit the Gaussian distribution, so while the statistics are nice, it ain't necessarily that simple in reality. If you want an excellent review of why, then read Stephen J. Gould's "The Mismeasure of Man" for a good treatment of the subject.
Above that, the largest segment of the population is not stupid people--see your own comment about normal distributions. The largest segment is, rather, those individuals within one or two standard deviations of the mean (assuming normality). Thus appealing to the 'average viewer' is not the same as appealing to stupid people (and if you claim it is, then I am assuming that you are comparing them to yourself, in which case evidence that you are actually more intelligent than the 'average' person--say with an IQ 1.5 standard deviations above the mean--which would be 122.5 or above). I'm not saying you're dumb, or that you aren't smart, but that is the impression you seem to be giving.
I am guessing that most slashdottians are thinking that they are in the upper 25% or even higher in terms of IQ, but the truth is simply that programming ability is not necessarily tied to IQ, nor is the ability to work with computers. Frankly, cognitive ability tests are imperfect, and while most people here are probably quite good and capable at what they do, it doesn't mean that people who are NOT good at those things are less intelligent (a common fallacy).
As for the TV execs--they are good at one thing: making money off of TV. Some of them may have technical abilities as well, but not all of them. They will try to appeal to the largest market with an interest in their product. In the case of the Sci-fi channel, this means that they have to figure out what appeals the most to people who are into sci-fi. Frankly, at the moment they seem to be seriously screwing the pooch on this score. First SG-1, now BSG? Next they are going to quit carrying Dr. Who, Torchwood, and Atlantis all at once, start airing Gilmore girls reruns and eventually become nothing more than "Lifetime--IN THE FUTURE!!!!". The wrestling, while sometimes interesting, is more of a thing for SpikeTV. What we need is a well-funded sci-fi channel that continuously shows original and interesting sci-fi in addition to picking up excellent shows like stargate, BSG and Dr. Who.
"We don't know what we are doing, but we are doing it very carefully,..." Wherry, R.J. Personnel Psychology (1995)
TV is mostly crap, it's true. My wife and I religiously watch Lost and Battlestar Galactica, and that's it. My wife's only other guilty pleasure is Judge Judy because she likes laughing at all the morons there. That's really all the TV we watch regularly.
I wish I could get Discovery HD; they should broadcast it over-the-air. For now, though, there's some great shows on PBS HD. Since there's so little worth watching on TV, we decided it doesn't make sense to pay $100/month or more for cable TV (which has worse quality than the HD we get OTA).
Too true. Basically, I think it got better because they started really going with the larger story arc; season 1 and 2 are more episodic.
What I liked best about DS9 was that it had some grit to it: the only part of the ST franchise that dealt with things like money, aliens who were more than europeans with funny foreheads, ongoing resistance to occupation, and an unwilling prophet. For the first time the ferengi were more than a comic foil, and despite the typical ST smarmy-ness, some of the acting was pretty good.
Damn those pesky terrorists
Hmmmm, Sunday night at 10pm is when Battlestar has been airing. People work for a living, and not everyone who wants to watch can watch. In addition to this, without being shown on broadcast channels, it won't get nearly as many viewers. It's a given that because the regular networks broadcast shows over the air, they will have a higher number of viewers than ANY cable channel.
I tend to get annoyed when shows air at 10pm because I have to work the next day.
Seriously? Everyone I know thinks DS9 is the best Trek series ever made.
Oh, I watched it religiously, but many ST fans I know put it one notch above Voyager (which I didn't hate, though TV was pretty dry for SF at that time).
Damn those pesky terrorists
I don't think so :)
I think Starbuck is the 12th cylon.
More predictions: when they get to earth, nobody will be there, empty planet. They fracked up their interpretation of the ancient texts, THEY ARE the 13th colony.
Man, those were some good shows. Ones I watched and enjoyed
Firefly
Greg the Bunny
Dark Angel
Keen Eddie
The Tick
Andy Richter Controls the Universe
With the exception of Dark Angel they were all great; Dark Angel was great in season #1 but lost all sense of itself in season #2 and was unsurprisingly killed.
The one I really cannot forgive is Firefly. Ratings were good, if not great, and you had only to watch one episode (*any* episode) to see that it was quality stuff.
I want my Cowboyneal
Voyager continued because Paramount needed something, anything to keep UPN going. Remember the shows that launched alongside Voyager? Stuff like Homeboys in Outer Space (a criminal misuse of James Doohan) and Moesha, hardly memorable television. Star Trek, wrestling, and maybe America's Next Top Model were the only things that ever generated ratings for UPN, and at the end, even Star Trek couldn't do it.
Making the Cylons "look like real people" instead of shiny chrome disco bots was supposed to save them a bundle of money, while only discarding the most interesting part of the story. Wasn't that enough? Not to mention the money they saved by not buying Steadycams.
Lost is mostly filler/bullshit.
You're right, I never have watched a full season of Survivor. I may try to give it a shot some time, you do make it sound interesting. Thanks for the reply, I had misinterpreted what you were saying a bit.
=)
DS9 was great in a lot of ways--notably, it got a lot of the drama right, which was something earlier trek hadn't done much. By which I mean it had multi-episode story arcs, in part in response to Babylon 5's competition. And "multi-episode," for the first time, didn't mean a two-parter.
On the downside, the dominion war also shifted the writer's mindsets too much--and trek became more about shooting things and less about the characters when the next series came along. (The characters in DS9 were good, with interesting long-term growth, and with good interpersonal dynamics. The characters in Voyager were cardboard, poorly designed, poorly written, and with little knowledge of cadence. The good point in Voyager (hard to find them, but there) was Robert Picardo. (Who wasn't used terribly well in Stargate.))
Yeah, I dub this phenomenon the "Matrix Syndrome." It's a deadly illness that sometimes infects sci-fi shows. The Matrix movies and the Star Wars movies are classic examples. In a related vein, Deep Space 9 and ST:Enterprise are whole series that were sorely challenged by the Matrix Syndrome. A show or series is said to have the Matrix Syndrome if there was a great predecessor, such as ST:TOS, the original Star Wars trilogy or the first Matrix movie, followed by a substantial decline in creative quality of the stories. It's not about special effects, quality of acting, filmwork, etc; it's about how interesting, relevant, creative and compelling the stories are. I agree with the parent that current BSG episodes are still good, mostly. But they are a long way from the greatness of their predecessors in the first season. Note that the BSG writers are still very daring, but being daring is different from being compelling. So I suggest that BSG has a mild case of Matrix Syndrome -- although still enough to be disappointing.
That being said, I don't understand why there is always a "simpsons already did it"-type chorus following any new show as if just because the concept has been done before, it cannot be done again and be good. I mean "Heroes" is just an X-Man rip-off, and not even the only one, but it is still good (anyone remember that other X-Man ripoff show a few years back? Can't remember the name of it now). Sure there are plenty of really BAD remakes and clones , but there are also plenty of really horrible original concepts too (anyone seen Monk lately? Brilliant concept, run so far into the ground is will soon pop out in China). Generally a
The premise is usually one of the least significant signs of a a good show. The most significant parts are not premises or even plot lines, it is the quality of writing. This is what makes shows like Firefly good. Who cares if they are "space cowboy" themed or not - they could be riding in a Winnebago around 1960's USA for all I care, it would still be a good show if you have good writing.
-Em
RelevantElephants: A Somatic WebComic...
During season 1-2, I came up with the following idea:
'Humanoid Cylons' are really human. They've just been... tweaked.
- genetically enhanced (accounts for increased strength, etc)
- cloned (only 12 versions because of limited starting genetic material, or something)
- brainwashed (into thinking they are 'machines')
- and they have nanites in them (accounts for rapid healing, 'fiberoptic forearms' (the nanites built an ad hoc interface when they sensed the cable), and the fact they can be 'reborn' (nanites store memories somehow, which get placed inthe brain of a newly awakened clone) (or, the nanites 'transmit' the memories/experiences somehow...)
As for the whole 'resurection' thing, I wrote that off to brainwashing (people will tend to be more... fanatical... when they think they cannot die), with some effect of the transplanted memories by the nanites.
Of course, one of the next episodes showed Boomer and 6 resurecting, and blew my theory to hell....
Executive Producer David Eick is quoted as saying, "For those of you who have been paying attention over the years, this is not the first time Eddie has made an announcement about the possibility of the show's end ... I promise you that when Ron and I make a decision about Galactica's future, we'll let you know."
= 0&id=41457
http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?category
If they want the viewership, put it on NBC at same time or separate days like Heroes. Maybe Sunday on SciFi then the following Friday on NBC .. or SciFi-Fri, then following Sunday on NBC.
It might cannibalize the numbers on SciFi a bit, but to justify the production costs of the show, it would alot more likely to get the numbers. It's being limited by SciFi being cable-only.
LOL, yeah--I wonder what the reason was. Probably some Fox exec kept saying, "I don't get it!" iirc that's what got Futurama canceled.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
Do you want to watch House, a show that is so campy it is unintentionally funny but it almost always has a happy ending even against all rational thought, OR Battlestar Galactica, the sci-fi show that says humanity isn't worth saving?
Admittedly, I watch both, leading me to frequently blurt out during episodes of House that the 12 year old girl who's spitting blood is really a Cylon. But, that's a whole other issue involving the need for more TV show crossovers.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
this will force them to wrap up the current story arcs coherently in a reasonable amount of time, something that almost never happens in TV. This show may actually end up making sense in the end.
Look at it this way, it's going to be way better than firefly's ending. They have a whole season to wrap up the story, and do some awesome finale.
I will always thing the original plan for Lost was for it to turn out everyone died in the crash.
Now, I think they let success get the better of them and stalled out the show too long adding along the way so many twists that even the writers aren't sure where to go with it anymore. In the end they will pick and choose the episodes that supports their end and ignore the others (like the X-Files.)
I saw the "pit scene" coming as well, but was trying not to due to how much I liked that character. Fortunately - or unfortunately - the whole island is basically a Deus ex machina so we'll see what the long there results are.
Of course it's a cover! Bob Dylan wrote every song in the last 35 years.
The television will not be revolutionized.
If Firefly and BSG are soap operas, I'd like to know what your idea of a TV show that ISN'T a soap opera would be.
It floors me that Voyager made it past the pilot. That show sucked.
Deal or No Deal.
I don't watch that either, though. I could probably name more if you'd like.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
Perhaps I should have specified--television programs with fictional characters.
Game shows, reality TV, Planet Earth need not apply.
More to the point, I suppose, would be the question, "how is BSG a soap opera?"
Between Survivor and Flavor of Love Girls Charm School.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
I have a better idea, in the second last episode they find earth get settled there and entire fleet lands for technology transfer. In last the episode, Cylons find earth and bomb it from the orbit.
THE END
©God
Wow, you're willing to dismiss someone for not echoing your opinions about entertainment? That's very elite of you.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
But unless there is a completely different series by the same name, married with children was complete crap.
-- To dream a dream is grand, but to live it is divine. -- Leto ][