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What Has Fox Got Against Its Own Sci-Fi Shows?
brumgrunt writes "Dollhouse. The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Fringe. Three science fiction shows that Fox commissioned, put on the air, and — in the case of at least one of them — has won rave reviews. But why does it seem that Fox is trying to kill some of its own shows with crazy scheduling decisions? How can Fringe survive after being pulled for two months, and what hope is there for Sarah Connor and Dollhouse on a Friday night?"
Fox is NOTORIOUS for not sticking with their series (and have been for at least 15 years now). I can name a dozens of great shows just off the top of my head that they've abandoned over the years (usually after moving them around, not promoting them, etc.). In the new millenium, they've gotten even worse. They will cancel series now before they even finish a full season, even if they have the season already "in the can" (Firefly and Wonderfalls are two prime examples). Basically, if you agree to do a show for Fox, you better go into it knowing that it's probably not going to last long (count yourself lucky if they don't pull the plug after just a few episodes have aired).
I once heard an explanation of why networks do this sort of thing. There is a lot of executive turnover at networks, and when a new programming exec comes in, the first thing he wants to do it to advance his own projects. You see, on his own pet projects, he gets to take full credit for them if they succeed. But if one of his predecessor's pet projects succeeds, he doesn't get to take any credit for it. That means that incoming execs have every motivation to kill off all their predecessor's projects (no matter how sucessful they may be) to make room for their own. So they will often take a show that is successful and start fucking around with it, just so they can justify cancelling it. You take your predecessor's big show, move it around to a shitty night, force a bunch of stupid "notes" down the show-runner's throat ("Hey, can you bring in a sassy robot? How about a cute, wise-cracking kid?"), and then don't promote it at all. Bingo! The show's ratings tank, and you get to go before the studio president and say "Gee, look's like my predecessor's show didn't have any legs. Now let me tell you about *MY* great new show..."
Judging by how much this happens at Fox, apparently they have a *LOT* of turnover.
Oh, and a special R.I.P. to my beloved "Strange Luck," cancelled after just 17 episodes.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
With DVR's becoming more and more popular, the time that a show airs is less and less important. Perhaps the execs realize this and are trying to work it to their advantage. Sometimes you need to take some risks to move forward.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Tivo recording numbers is why they would do this. I've recently read an article about this, and it is clearly a good decision. Shows like Sarah Connor Chronicles (bleh) have small but dedicated followings, and the Tivo recording numbers (also kept and recording by Nielsen) are considerably higher than live-showing numbers. Hence, schedule is irrelevant, since the people who watch these shows will continue watching them regardless of the schedule.
Trust me, kids; don't drink and post.
I read an article several weeks ago saying that Dollhouse may be still alive because of lower expectations on Friday night. If it were to pull in the viewers it did on say a Tuesday night it would already be gone. Also I never recall watching new episodes on a day other than Friday and that was long before Tivo.
...is thank god BSG is on Sci-Fi channel and not Fox. Otherwise we'd likely have had only one season of it.
what hope is there for Sarah Connor and Dollhouse on a Friday night
Well I don't know about a dollhouse, but Summer Glau is welcome at my place any Friday night...
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
Friday isn't all that bad for Sci-Fi. The longest running sci-fi show in history, Stargate:SG1, spent most of it's life (if not all) on Friday nights. It's spinoff, Stargate Atlantis, also resided on Friday night as well.
There is a lot of executive turnover at networks, and when a new programming exec comes in, the first thing he wants to do it to advance his own projects.
That does not suffice for an explanation. You see, they must notice that the longer you leave a show in a solid time slot the more your established viewership watches it. Case in point: Futurama. I liked the show but I never knew when it was on so I often missed it when it was on the air. They moved it around to death!
... but I'm not inclined to believe Fox has savvy executives in this respect. For all I know, they're moving around shows based on the number of complaints that are filed with the FCC from conservative Christian groups.
Even if they had put it on Saturday at 2pm I would have known when to watch it. Adult Swim is much the same--bad time slot but I know when it's on so I always watch it. Their shows get moved around way too much and as a result, it's harder for me to grow attached to any one show in a solid time slot.
And don't tell me Fox doesn't know this, their syndication of The Simpson all through high school at 5 & 5:30 on weekdays was very popular. No, I attribute this to just sheer stupidity--maybe even the logic that if they move it around they will collect more viewers who normally don't watch the regular time slots.
You would think thorough statistics would solve this problem
I heard the Futurama folks were looking at doing another TV slot but were just too jaded from their Fox experience to wanna start it again. I think they should get into their contract a solid time slot on a day to ensure success. I wouldn't blame them if they opted to go the straight to DVD route forever or try to work something out with Comedy Central.
My work here is dung.
Like Firefly.
"Dolls Unite" campaign proposed to build buzz about the show before it airs, in an effort to prevent cancellation WAY in advance.
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
I just want to know if anyone else saw it. There was an old style CRT TV set and there was a pink alien hovering below it! Maybe this explains why FOX is uninterested in sci-fi programs-aliens exist, and they've taken over Slashdot!
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
If sci fi shows are for nerds... Most nerds have DVRs of some sort if they happen to be out on a Friday night (yeah right).
It doesn't seem like any night is a "bad" night.. Nor, really, a "good" night.
I tried watching Fringe. It was a crappy low-rent X-files ripoff with little redeaming value.
I tried watching Dollhouse. It was a crappy creepy low-rent show about mind-wiped prostitutes...
Test your net with Netalyzr
Just sprinkle a little Torgo's Executive Powder in Fox's water supply.
Sarah Connor Chronicles is wonderful so far, but I fear it will turn into Heroes of Battlestar real quick here. Some of the Dialogue regarding John Henry has been wonderful.
"You taught him rules but you never taught him ethics"
"So what rules would you teach him?"
"I would start with the first Ten."
-------
Also John Henry playing with legos Bionical and wanting to ask god why he didn't use more ball joints
or if he is a child of god.
There are plenty more examples of Brilliant Dialogue between characters and the AI system.
In fact about the only TV I watch is on Hulu, so what do I care if they put something on Friday night.
And the capcha is "manure". Very fitting
With the exception of Firefly. I tried to get into Dollhouse, but I kept falling asleep, so I cannot speak much to it.
Sarah Connor Chronicles could be good, but I feel like they're trying to do a poor version of a Lost type story arc. Sarah Connor's narratives at the beginning of every episode are cheesy. The look of the show is great though. That and Summer Glau keep me watching, but no love lost if they cancelled it.
Firefly's handling was a travesty. Great show that was scheduled to death.
But Dollhouse sucks on its own. It's Fantasy Island with anorexic girls.
The executives at Fox are conservative morons, and they hate science, even things that pretend to be "sciency".
and in the case of at least one of them, has won rave reviews
{{citation needed}}
A lot of science fiction shows throughout the years played on fridays; didn't X-Files even air on Friday?
This stems from the fact that TV execs assume that science fiction fans are nerds with no life, and so Friday is the perfect time to play these shows.
I don't really care when the shows are on, I just download the torrent a couple days later. And, I'd never trust Fox not to cancel a good show; in fact, that goes for any tv (broadcast or cable) station. I've been burned too many times by their stupidity.
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I haven't been watching much TV now that I've started working on my Master's again (nor did I had time to upgrade my MythTV box before the DTV switchover). What do you guys think of Dollhouse so far?
When I was younger I remember watching new episodes Star Trek The Next Generation at 10pm on Friday nights on CityTV. I don't think anyone can argue that TNG did poorly.
Unless that was just a CityTV thing, or it was an encore presentation for new episodes or something.
It almost seems like fox thinks that nerds are more likely not to have plans on Friday night than other groups. Either that or maybe they think nerds are more likely to have DVRs? What are they thinking?
The sad thing is that Fox has financially backed and brought numerous very innovative shows to the TV screen over the last 15 years. The problem is not in the sourcing or early backing of shows, more it is that they (Fox) insist on too much control over the airing/scheduling. They unilaterally decide to air shows in the wrong order for the story line. This confuses viewers who then take more time to "get into" a show and then Fox kills the show because instant ratings were not achieved. Firefly was a classic example of this. They put promising shows like Fringe on hiatus for no good reasons so fans move on to view other shows, which are aired more consistently and then don't return immediately to the early hit show which loses viewership and then becomes a sudden candidate for cancelation. The weird thing is that THIS trend of poor management of shows is so clearly seen and understood by outsiders and NOT by Fox as they do not change their style.
Wasn't X-Files on Friday night? Maybe Fox is rolling the dice that with the current economic situation people will be staying home more instead of going out and they'll be looking for something decent on the tube. (can we still call it 'the tube' or should we switch to 'the panel'?)
Never argue with a man carrying a water buffalo
I really enjoyed the firefly series after purchasing it on DVD, and watching the episodes in order. FOX seemed to do everything in their power to kill this show..
1. Friday night scheduling.
2. Airing the episodes out of order.. I mean HELLO ?? The order was 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 4, 5, 9, 10, 14, 1; with 11 â" 13 unaired
The wikipedia entry for Firefly contains more detailed criticism of Fox for their treatment of this series. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Firefly_episodes
Fox is definitely the last place you want to try out a new series. It's hard to start watching a new series on their network, knowing their track record for killing off anything that might be halfway decent.. Why bother getting interested in a show that won't be around tomorrow ?
far...out
I know a guy who was president of Fox TV in the 90's. I used to get the impression (listening to him) that the network was always working against itself (they had had something like 6 presidents in a row lose their jobs in brief stints). I recall talking about Jennifer Love Hewitt's failed series that was a spinoff from "Party of Five". When I asked him about show he said "They dressed her horrible. They should have put her in a tube top and forgot about it". Since then whenever I hear the expression "screw up a wet dream" I think of Fox Entertainment.
All the TV magazine and blog articles I've read have agreed that that Dollhouse is on Friday night because that's a graveyard shift. NO show attracts blockbuster numbers on a Friday night, so the network wants something a little more high-end than reality programming (to lure better advertisers) that will attract a devoted core. In other words, they know that Joss Whedon's fanbase will watch anything... and is mostly sitting an home on Friday night anyway. If Dollhouse were on any other night of the week, it would have been pulled after the first two episodes.
While I'm at it, I'm as big a Joss Whedon mark as anyone but I'm going to go ahead and say it... Dollhouse simply SUCKS for me so far. With the possible exception of Echo's "handler", all the other characters simply do not interest me. They are one-dimensional stock characters (e.g. the arrogant nerd who tries to be funny, the gruff security guard who always wants to use the violent option, the obsessed FBI agent chasing chasing after Kaiser Soze, etc). Other than Eliza Dusku and her handler, the acting is pretty poor and the premise itself pretty retarded. Nothing has really "hooked" me yet.
Worst of all, the scripts are virtually devoid of wit and humor. WTF?!? That's the whole POINT of a Joss Whedon show... characters that pull you in and make you care about them, and intelligent dialog that catches you off-guard with laughs. Take that out of the equation, and you're just left with goofy sci-fi/fantasy ridiculousness and some mushy political/feminist messages.
Sorry... but if this goes, I won't miss it.
I love Joss Whedon and I still carry a huge torch for Firefly but I watched two episodes of Dollhouse and they just weren't very good. The characters are totally one-dimensional, the action is boring and the dialogue isn't funny. Compared to Firefly it's hard to believe they came from the same guy.
And I'm sorry, but you lost me at the word "Terminator". I have zero interest in seeing yet another retread of that franchise. Find another stone to squeeze blood from.
Never approach a vast undertaking with a half-vast plan.
I wouldn't blame them for pulling it. Episodes 1-2 were terrible. 3 was bearable, yet only because of a plot twist. Episode 4 actually went somewhere, finally had some of the clever banter between characters that made Firefly special. Finally starting to care about what happens to them.
I'd say it's entirely Joss's fault if Fox wants to cancel it. I have better things to do than watch garbage like eps 1-2. Had I not gotten bored and ended up watching Ep3, I would have left and never come back. We know what Joss is capable of, and this certainly isn't it.
And here I thought the OP was going to talk about sci-fi shows like CSI (any), or even to a lesser degree L&O, but then I realised that those aren't Fox shows. So I immediately assumed it was 24, which makes CSI:NY look like a reality show.
Who cares about at what time it's on tv? We all download it as a torrent anyway.
Can you remember the last time you stayed at home to watch some tv program?
Could it possibly be that FOX does want to kill the shows?
I cite StarTrek Enterprise as my example. I was a loyal follower while the show was on in the middle of the week, but when it went to Friday I had to resort to the old VCR trick to watch, and it was only shortly after moving it to the Friday nights that OMG they terminated the show.
Now did they take into consideration the save the show efforts of the StarTrek fans? Maybe, but ultimately the studio did not want the show on the air any longer regardless of what the fans thought.
Regards,
Ryan Pritchard
Fun Extends All Basic Life Expectancies
are not Fox's demographic.
If Hannity doesn't get it, Fox doesn't care.
What sense does it make to watch stuff on THEIR schedule? Seriously. Just netflix it (or whatever). There are many ways of having what you want when you want it.
I don't understand why anyone still buys into that antiquated model for entertainment delivery. Except maybe in the case of watching live sports...since when-it-actually-happens has some significance to the experience...but apart from that the whole scheduled viewing deal is silly.
I thought the first episode of Fringe sucked, and I dropped the show.
But then for some reason I watched a few more episodes later... and kept watching. It's really a better show than the first few would lead you to believe.
I don't think it's an X-Files rip-off, at least there are no aliens (and the producers say there aren't any either exactly because they do not wish to be yet another X-Files show). The basis for the show is unique and I think interesting from a story perspective.
Dollhouse started off terribly. But in the next few shows, I thought again the story unwinding got interesting. However fundamentally there, you're right that it's a hella creepy show about mind-wiped prostitutes, which is so morally repugnant that I really have a difficult time liking anyone on the show. But for some reason seeing how the character kind comes apart (or back together)? mentally has some interest that draws me back.
I guess what I'm saying here is that I hope Fringe comes back for a whole next season, but if dollhouse died it would probably be better for me. Sorry Josh, but I find it hard to care about what Fox does to your shows after you come back to them after Firefly. When they put out the hand of reunion you should have spit on it and produced it yourself. Honestly the Dollhouse story could have been done just as well Dr. Horrible style.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Is another X-files. A big hit that they can milk for years, and in all likelihood drive into the ground. Fox usually doesn't want to wait too long for a hit, its sink or swim with them.
I still like my share of fox shows, but lets be realistic about their marketing, this is after all the people who brought us "Hole in the Wall"
The world isn't run by weapons anymore, or energy, or money. It's run by little ones and zeroes, little bits of data.
The same thing happened in 1979 with Battlestar Galactica. The network green lighted the show. Heavily promoted it and it was doing well. The demographics were great. Show with the most college graduates watching had the under 35 crowd going for it. So why did it have to die?
In a word, production costs. An hour of Galactica could cost 1 million dollars which would bring in 2 million dollars. Thus a 1 million dollar profit. On the other hand 30 minutes of Happy Days and 30 minutes of Mork and Mindy would cost the network a total of $250,000. But it would bring in 2.5 million.
So do the math. Decent sci-fi show 1 dollar out for every dollar in. Cheap but good rated comedy gives us 2.25 dollars out for every dollar in.
The network starts looking at that time slot and sees that it can put in 2 sitcoms, or a Law and Order, or a CSI and make twice as much money. At that point the show has to die.
In the case of classic Glactica they put the show in hiatus. Then brought it back without advertising, they changed what time it was on. They changed what night it was on. The fans were to loyal. They would hunt the show out and find it each time. The ratings were not dropping fast enough. They had to convert the show into "Galictica 1981" (shudder) to finally kill the thing.
As with most business decisions. Follow the money.
vi +
I work for Fox scheduling shows, and me no like some of things you people say. Me a special person with lerning disebility and it not nice make fun of me. Me thought decision to put Futurama on right after sporting events that usually run long real good idea. Me put scifi on Fridays too because geeks no have life and watch TV Fridays. Me like reality shows more. Funny people yelling at each other. TV need more of this. Scifi sometimes too hard to understand. Me like Family Guy. Fat guy is funny. Me like lots of jokes with little plot. Me special.
Yep, fox and other networks do really stupid shit such as cancel good shows and continue running garbage such as Fear Factor and American Idiot.
My wife and I enjoyed viewing the Dresden Files and Moonlight. I wasn't hip to Firefly until after it was canceled, but think it was better than most of the garbage of the airwaves that continues to run for what seems like decades.
Just the other day I was walking through a job site cafeteria and observing individuals viewing repeats of some 10 season long retarded sitcom on fox. The jokes weren't funny, and the canned laughter sounded stupid. Those doing the viewing looked like zombies focused on the green slime coming from the screen. I had the thought that the producers of most shows like this must think the viewing population are morons needing to be shown, by canned laughter, what constitutes entertainment.
If it weren't for the DVR I would sell the flat screen and get a life. Validation of the prose: "Watching TV is the same as giving up."
"Suppose you were an idiot...and suppose you were a member of Congress...but I repeat myself." Mark Twain
For taking Space: Above and Beyond off the air. Fox has a bad track record with sci-fi shows and I think viewers are a bit wary about getting into new ones on Fox. I know I am.
Sure, it exists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friday_night_death_slot) but that doesn't mean that dumping a show on that slot will kill it.
If you want to see something crazy, follow the #dollhouse hash tag on Twitter on Friday nights. People love the show, even if they hate it, they watch it so they can complain about how much it sucks. The same goes for Galactica, even in its death throes, there's a hell of a lot of live Twittering going on while the show is airing.
CBS' Ghost Whisperer and Numb3rs have survived that slot for a long time, but at the same time, the last show that they added was killed in just a few weeks.
The moment of truth is going to be when BSG goes away. If people were watching Dollhouse simply to wait for BSG, then Dollhouse's ratings will take a hell of a dive. If the show stays up, especially after the promised change around episode 6, then maybe if the show is good enough it doesn't matter how you schedule it, as long as you do it.
As for Fringe, I don't know what the hell is their problem, they need to get that show back up immediately. That's the most promising new show we have seen in a while. Geeks love bad science, it gives them a chance to prove that they know more. How many of you have pulled your hair whenever Walter starts spewing out pseudo science crap? I know I do at least once per episode, and my friends that follow the show really like that part of the show.
Pedro
----
The Insomniac Coder
All of you bashing Dollhouse and saying "I'm done" after three (or fewer) episodes are exemplifying what Fox does. For crying out loud, let it develop. I'll admit the first two weren't rock'em sock'em but I stuck with it and episode three was quite enjoyable. Go back and look at how corny the first few Buffy episodes were. You talk about ditching the show so quickly and yet wonder why Fox does it...gee, I wonder.
They said the same thing about Star Trek.....
Well, having worked more than 3 years as a NewsCorp subsidiary at DIRECTV, I can say that FOX is the most far-seeing network among the big 4 (or 5 if you count WB as a big one).
TV viewership, as in sitting and watching shows on their times aired, while sitting through the commercials and what not is dwindling very rapidly. The fans of sci-fi genre, are above and beyong when it comes to the average technology fancy person. So, put two and two together. Most if not all sci-fi lovers have some sort of DVR functionality available to them and if they like the show, they will record sand watch it regardless what time it airs. Hence, why waste the prime time spot with sci-fi series ? People who are avid Desperate Housewives fans, will not choose a sci-fi flick over their extended soap drama no matter what you do. There is no point fighting the facts.
Cheers...
__________
The more I know people, the more I love animals
I know a guy who was president of Fox TV in the 90's. I used to get the impression (listening to him) that the network was always working against itself (they had had something like 6 presidents in a row lose their jobs in brief stints). I recall talking about Jennifer Love Hewitt's failed series that was a spinoff from "Party of Five". When I asked him about show he said "They guessed her horrible. They should have put her in a tube top and forgot about it". Since then whenever I hear the expression "screw up a wet dream" I think of Fox Entertainment.
Its been going on for years. Fox did similar goofy things with Futurama years ago, which was popular enough back then, gained a huge following while it was on Cartoon Network and the recent straight to DVD series of movies they released did well. The main reason the series didn't do better on Fox was because you never knew when it would be on. They often were changing the day/time it was scheduled or bumping its time slot to show something else and so I probably saw the show 2-3 times when it was on Fox and still had new episodes.
With a DVR I really don't much care WHEN they schedule a show. It's always showing when I want it to.
I only watch Galactica because of a DVR. Otherwise, I would not bother to stay up. Being in Mountain time zone doesn't help, but it would not be worth my time to wait up late for a show.
Lots of other shows, not just on SciFi, I watch *only* because I can record them. Dancing With the Stars, Big Love, *Apprentice, Biggest Loser, and others too mundane to list here.
Torrents are the equiv. of a DVR, save that the quality is sometimes marginal (yeah, my DVR is NTSC until I spring for the new money sink LCD) and always a pain to find and load unless I do more than push the 3 buttons it takes to schedule a recording. All I need is enough space to save my shows and my wife's month of soaps..
If I wanted to improve the experience, I'd run Boxee or MythTV or something on a leftover PC, and make my life even more miserable tending and feeding the complexity. Do I want my futhre HDTV to just plug into my network and stream? Hell yeah. Will I get that? Nope.
But scheduling? Just shift it. Do we have to write in and tell SciFi we actually *do* watch it?
ps- I think sometimes they cancel a show just to annoy us. When it comes back, we are rabid ferrets for it, and they got us by the eyeballs. Then there are the shows (*cough*Galactica*cough) that get so whack and stupid they have to take half a year off to figure out how to wrap it up. Call it Sopranositis.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
If "renumbering" shows bugs you, never move away from the US, where a network might buy shows from there, dub it and air it. Air it "whenever we're done dubbing", that is.
That way you get the XMas shows in mid-summer, the halloween specials during easter and the in-jokes about elections about 2 years after the election is done and forgotten.
But to the point, yes, the carelessness of some networks when it comes to sequence of shows, especially shows that have a developing plot, irks me to no end. It's confusing as hell to see a character die, only to have him waltz in the next day without any explanation, simply because what happened yesterday didn't really happen yet.
Don't think it's a Fox-only feat. Networks around the globe do that because, essentially, for them, the program is the necessary evil between the ads.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I first encountered Firefly on DVD, years after it was canned. And I wondered, how could such a completely original sci-fi show that's so fun to watch fail to achieve great success? Then I remembered that I was discovering it on DVD years after it was canned, and the answer presented itself. Fox needs to learn how to schedule (consistently!) and promote.
Mmmmmmmm... anorexic girls *drool*
I'm not sure why anyone would think of CSI, L&O or 24 in a conversation about Sci-Fi. If they qualify for the category it's only very loosely and there are lots and lots of shows that fully qualify (the only thing sci-fi about 24 is their dubious use of the term "socket")
I honestly don't think these shows are as good as people like to think they are. But I think the reason may be due to getting more value for the advertising dollar.
I recall years ago being told about how reasonably popular shows are dropped because they're not catering to the most profitable segment of the population. The commercials being run during these shows probably aren't resonating with their core viewer. And these viewers are probably less likely to be motivated by those commercials to buy those products.
So instead the network goes for programs like American Idol and other crap that caters to that demographic. They're almost certainly the most impressionable segment of the tv viewing crowd.
Of course this is generally speculation, but given how absolutely everything on television, including documentaries of all things, is being dumbed down I tend to think it's true.
Part of it is definitely Fox's fault that good shows get canceled 'cause they don't know a good show even when it bites them on the ass (arrested development anybody?). Another part of it though is just the nation as a whole. They flock to those damn reality shows and sitcoms. Sitcoms aren't terrible (some of them are damn good in my opinion, but only a few). People don't want their brain to have to be turned on to understand their shows. They just wanna kinda go along in neutral like your car at a car wash. They feel like its too much effort to follow a show that actually kinda requires you to follow every episode. I think this is a shame. There's really only one show going on right now on the major networks that has this requirement and it's doing just fine. "Lost" is the only show I can think of that has this kind of structure in that if you miss one episode, you *need* to watch it somewhere else before you can catch the next week's or you'll be lost.
Our country needs to wake up and realize that relaxation and fun doesn't necessarily require us to turn off our brains.
how can you say friday night is a bad night for a scifi show? what else are nerds gonna do on a friday night? go on a date?
I've had a DVR for a number of years now (first from Time Warner, now Tivo), and I have to tell you, they make it completely irrelevant what time or day a show is on. When my son was growing up he didn't even know when his shows were on: to him, when it was time for SpongeBob or Power Rangers, they were always just there.
While I understand not everyone has a DVR, when people say they don't watch Conan O'Brian or Robot Chicken or SNL or whatever because they can't stay up that late...well, neither can I. But I record(ed) Conan every night and would check it out the next day. Sometimes I'd listen to a monologue while shaving the next morning.
For a long time, that kind of activity was transparent to the networks from a Nielsen perspective, but Nielsen is finally tracking DVR usage, and its making a difference, i.e. Nielsen Reports DVR Playback Is Adding To TV Viewing Levels. My family is watching Dollhouse, but have never watched it on Friday. On Monday March 9 we watched the episode that aired Friday Feb 7. We still have an episode on the Tivo from Friday March 6. And I know I'm not the only one that's doing that...reports are that viewership went up 30% once time-shifting was factored in.
So while I think that Fox are boneheads because they have canceled and/or otherwise botched a number of my favorite shows (Futurama and especially Firefly), I genuinely don't think that being on a Friday night matters anymore, especially to a possibly more tech-savvy (and likely to DVR or internet time-shift) sci-fi audience.
Some of you already have those cute little shirts on that say disco sucks, right? That's not all that sucks.-Frank Zappa
People still watch TV live? I thought DVRs were considered mandatory to prevent brain-rot from advertising.
I have no idea when most of the shows that I follow are aired, as I check in the with DVR every couple of days and catch up on anything interesting.
unzip ; strip ; touch ; grep ; find ; finger ; mount ; fsck ; more ; yes ; fsck ; umount ; sleep
Sci Fi is as guilty of destroying themselves as Fox I'm afraid. just look at eureaka. their most popular show, and they still couldn't show more than 8 ep's last year. and they are not even bothering to make a new season this year; they are just showing us the remaining 13 from last year that they didn't air.
All American Idol, all the time.
Those who can do... Those who can't get a certification from Cisco or Microsoft.
Tivo is horrible at managing conflicting shows. You have to go in and manually handle every last little detail or you end up with:
And my all time favorite, for which there's no solution other than telling it a set channel and time:
And I have no plans on switching to a multi-tuner DVR, as I'd have to give up my DVD burning capabilities. I've thought about switching from satellite just so I didn't get told every other day that some channel has moved, but I'm not willing to give my money to Verizon or Comcast after incidents in the past.
And I particularly hate Fox for their Futurama timeslot that resulted in my recording 20 minutes of a sports game week after week, but the Friday timeslot isn't the kiss of death -- if I remember correctly, that's where X-Files was, 12 years ago.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
I haven't watched an episode of T:TSCC on TV. Rather I've downloaded them all via BitTorrent. I generally forget that it's on or am busy when it is. Same goes for Prison Break, Hells Kitchen and a bunch of other shows.
Another one is True Blood. I don't Get HBO, so I wait a couple days after the current episode airs, snatch it off of TPB Or Mininova and watch it on say.. wednesday or thursday.
Stupidity only gets you so far, then you've gotta try
geeks will stay in on friday nights or more likely record the shows, I mean Stargate SG-1 was on for 10 years on Friday night, I never missed an episode, thanks to TiVo.
TIVO, DVR. Duh. Who watches TV live anymore? Who cares when the air the show?
Fox is definitely the last place you want to try out a new series. It's hard to start watching a new series on their network, knowing their track record for killing off anything that might be halfway decent.. Why bother getting interested in a show that won't be around tomorrow ?
Fox doesn't love you, they just want your money, and everyone else's. A lot of people go to Fox with a show because they know Fox is the only network that will put it on the air, and if they wait for a changing of the guard in old media they can grow old and die before they get to make even one season of their baby. Better to have loved and lost, right? Unfortunately what this means is that a lot of great stories will never be told, because Fox owns the rights and can put a stop to it. Just another fine example of the chilling effects of IP law.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Both channels infuriate me. With HBO I finally grew so tired of getting hooked on shows only to have them canceled with no ending that I just dropped it entirely, there are a couple of current shows I'd love to see but just know that as soon as I subscribe again they will be doomed. Carnivale, Deadwood, Rome, JFC...why bother anymore.
Fox does the same, but at least its free to watch. I just usually dont give any show a view until the first season is over now, I'll buy or rent the dvd set and then start watching.
Yeah, not sure why more people looking to get a good show off the ground don't go to TNT or Sci-Fi Channel. Both stations generally keep their shows steady as far as time slots go, and both promote the living crap out of even the lamest shows that they offer. I know they are cable and not broadcast, but really, nowadays most people have more than just the local broadcast channels.
Concur, I've started rewatching Buffy recently and it just has one-liners and retorts that make me literally LOL. Dollhouse has had, what, 2 funny lines?
The Slashdot Paradox: "100% Overrated"
Here's the thing: Fox makes tons of money off of initial ad sales when its found the "next big thing".
"This will be the next Simpsons", "This will be the next 24", "This will be the next Idol".
Phrases like that are what get the ad dollars because companies want their product tied to something big at the very beginning. Fox gets those shows on the air, gets those ad dollars, and gets eyeballs looking at the time slot. Numbers start to wane, another "next big thing" ad opportunity rolls around, and they yank the show and slide in the new one.
Money, people, money money money. They don't give a rat's ass about satisfaction of a small-but-loyal viewer set, they care only about ad revenue.
Firefly's handling was a travesty. Great show that was scheduled to death.
I've always thought that part of Firefly's charm is that it didn't live long enough for Whedon to muck it up and turn everyone into demons, vampires or other super powered freaks. It was nice that everyone was pretty much normal, besides River. But it's easy to see that would have changed.
One word: money. Fox, as a major network, pays their show-runners a *LOT* more than any cable network would. Big network means big money. Just ask Jon Stewart, who makes a fraction of what network late-night hosts like O'Brien, Letterman, and Leno make (a TINY fraction--we're talking $1.5 million a year vs. $30+ million).
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
You folks, the slashdot crowd, are the target audience for both Terminator and Dollhouse. Here's why Friday isn't a problem:
1: You have a DVR and know how to use it.
2: You can schedule your annual date with an actual girl for a night with repeats.
Yeah but if your show lasts 5 years on TNT versus half a season on Fox, seems like in the end you would still make more money.
Don't forget about Firefly or The 4,400. They were both great shows. They were both canceled. As for me, I can't wait until there are enough CSI's to get down to the CSI: Little Falls level. meh
Also, one fallacy in your argument. The most watched station on cable is not ABC or NBC or CBS, etc. It's ESPN. And most of the time they are showing Sports Center, which is basically a few hours worth of sports highlights recycled over a 24 hour period, interspersed with sports games on occasion.
Dollhouse started off slow but has turned out a couple of fantastic episodes (try ep 2, "The Target," or ep 4, "Grey Hour." Word on the street is that episodes 6 onward are fantastic television, although I personally am not important enough to have seen them.
Joss fans hated Firefly at first too. They though the premise was weird and the first few episodes ("Train Job"? "Shindig"?) were not exactly amazing. And then it got good, but it was too late.
Give Dollhouse a fighting chance - WATCH.
http://www.hulu.com/dollhouse
For some reason which has not been well explained imo, (the official FOX claim is that Joss chose to make the changes), the original episode he created was axed at the last moment and was cobbled together with new material to completely alter things and stretch the material over several episodes.
This was a pretty huge blow.
I hunted around and found a copy of the script for the original first episode, and I thought is was very strong compared to the episode which got aired. I've uploaded a copy of it here. . .
First Dollhouse Script
The show feels a bit cut & pasted at the moment, but the themes are very strong. Read the script and see what you think.
-FL
Just look at how favorably we look back on some of their cancelled shows:
Arrested Development
Futurama
Family Guy, before it came back on the air
The Tick
(etc.)
Family Guy has sucked ever since its return, and its long-running shows (The Simpsons, 24) have experienced a precipitous decline in quality (as do pretty much every long-running show). Maybe there's some value in doing things the British way, and running a show for only two or three seasons (and having only six episodes in a season). Sure, the quantity may not be as much, but the quality is far better.
I gave Dollhouse 3 episodes and it's just not that good. Firefly it ain't.
The concept is just stupid, pointless and unoriginal. You have no chance to connect with a character that changes every week. All the other characters are not likable (except for the black guy). And too many people die for pointless reasons.
Granted Fox wouldn't know a good sci-fi show if it bit them in the arse. But as far as the current crop goes, Dollhouse just isn't good and Sarah Conner isn't really either.
At my house we're getting a little fed up as they move Sarah Conner Chronicles around. Even though I'm enjoying the show and want to keep watching it, and so does the rest of my family, we've already missed a few key episodes. I'm just about at the point of giving up on it and buying the DVD eventually. Unfortunately, then I'm paying twice: once to watch it on cable, once for the DVD. I could go the piracy route, but I'm not into that. I want the makers of this stuff to get their legitimate cut for putting together a good show.
So, instead I've come up with a simple plan: as everybody knows, BSG is ending in just a couple of weeks. At that point I'm canceling my cable. I'm tired of paying so much for a service that is 90% crap of no interest to me (sitcoms and reality shows), moves things around on its schedule instead of mine, and I'm tired of setting the DVR and discovering that it's been moved yet again or overridden by a football game that went into overtime. For the price of cable I can afford to buy a DVD box set every month.
So, kiss my advertising dollar goodbye, Fox, and welcome to the future: the TV Judgment Day is coming to my house very soon.
I'd like to have a policy of NOT even beginning to watch a show if it's on Fox, due to their history of destroying good shows (I'll never forgive them after what they did to Firefly). So why am I watching Sarah Connor and Fringe? because I get them from P2P (Yeah, I'm also not about to wait for Mexican cable carriers to bring over an already-cancelled series as they always do). So, I like those shows but didn't know they were on Fox (I just download them). Had I known, I probably would have refused to watch them in the first place: what's the point on getting hooked on them and then having the rug pulled from under your feet.
And shame on J.J. Abrams for doing business with Fox.
Bill Maher learned that lesson the hard way. He left Comedy Central for the big network money; only to discover that more people watching not only means a higher salary, but also a much more sensitive audience.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Even if the execs don't realize consciously why they're doing it, I'd say that it's a fairly deliberate effort at some level.
The shows speak to matters, through the sci-fi metaphor, which play quite heavily in this reality. Firefly was very anti-government, anti-establishment. It died. (Compare to something like 24, which is pro-torture, pro-government, pro-homeland security, etc. That show has no trouble holding its air time.)
Fringe is crap, imho, (I hate "dark and gritty" and the ideas are skewed to shit), but it still looks at the world in a way which is anti-establishment and quite accusatory.
Dollhouse is another great example. Mind control is easy; when you deliberately traumatize a child, they dissociate and it is very easy to program alternate personalities. This is by no means rocket science and it is clear enough to anybody who has looked into this matter that the Manchurian Candidate concept is a powerful tool in the game of politics and cultural subversion. (Before you auto-react against that, please do some research into the field. Start with, Marta Stout's Myth of Sanity and read the, Greenbaum speach to get a better perspective.) --Again, while Dollhouse is a sci-fi metaphor, it's not the sort of thing you want the public thinking about too much if you're trying to keep the public deaf and dumb.
So how do you control the release of subversive material? Well, you put it on FOX where the level of negative government alignment is very much entrenched. That way, it's easy to kill a series before it can gain too much traction.
-FL
I haven't had faith in *any* faith in networks since MST3K was booted from the SCI-FI channel. It had run 10 years and survived, despite the fact that multiple cable networks dumped it, yet Sci-Fi thought it best to replace it with such winners as Black Scorpion...
http://www.allen-poole.com/
Let's say that Fox runs an awesome show that develops a dedicated fan following. That's bad for FOX, because they no longer have control over that market segment. Good shows take time and effort, and passion and dedication by good people who will in general expect to receive respect for their creative output. That's bad for FOX executives because they suddenly have to consider the opinions and needs of a bunch of plebes at the bottom.
It's good to keep people hooked on perpetually churning set of "hot thing of the moment" shows based on replaceable talent and commodifiable appeal.
I mean, who cares if the top star in American Idol has a beef with the producers and walks out? They'll just film it and make more money running a special "Sandra breaks down and leaves!" episode. It's beautiful.
Good TV is a craft, not an assembly line. The assembly line is more efficient, it seems, and Fox has realized it.
-Laxitive
This is nothing new here. And it's so well known to people who enjoy scifi that, at this point, the blame is shared by the creators of the show. So, now, I believe it is safe to say:
If you have an awesome idea/concept/script/pilot for a scifi show and you end up going with Fox to get it on the air, you are a FUCKING MORON.
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Remember when the WB had such big problems with Angel, and used to change the times almost every week for one reason or another. They had all sorts of excuse, but the fan base was there, the viewers tuning in, the ratings , and yet they still wanted to pull the plug on it. David Boreanaz got really upset and left the show because of it (ending Angel all together).
I have never seen a show so undermined by its own creators, and I heard this was not the only instance with the WB, so now I guess after much response from the fans, the producers responsible for these decisions, must have been fired, and are now residing at the FOX network.
They love to stir up sh*t by doing this, and think it makes more free press and headlines, although
Fringe is new and should be given a good push, as Battlestar Galactica needed, and is now doing well. I bet you they keep doing this, and Fringe and the like will get no ratings and they will blame the viewers or the actors or something again.
That you, me, everyone here are the MINORITY right? Maybe 1% of all /. posters are actually normal, everyday, kinds of people. The other 99% of you are anti-social super nerds that no one cares to impress anyways.
The first time any of you had a drink of water, the only thing you could think of is "Yeah, but it has no taste".
This site is full of people who are social rejects and you think YOU can fix such a social construct like TV programming? You can't even make a new friend or confine your worthless monologues to a language anyone but someone who owns every season of the original Star Trek in unopened collector edition boxes could understand anyways.
No one cares about you people because you probably won't have children. Pleasing any of you is the true short-term decision while TV programming is intended to appeal to the rest of the world. The part that matters.
For the past three seasons my DVR has picked up Ghost Whisperer on Friday nights. I would watch the first twenty minutes. That was just long enough for the ghost to be slightly interesting, and also long enough to see just how they were decking out her boobs that week. Since the last 45 minutes always involved a sappy trip from "boob-enhanced ghost story" to "Touched By An Angel" I would never actually watch a whole episode.
Sadly, this season I dropped Ghost Whisperer from my DVR. It's like the deliberatly dress her down now, instead of "up". No shrinkwrapped lingerie, no cleavage... they've lost the plot.
How do they expect boyfriends or husbands to get through an episode now? Take away the boobs and it's bad television.
Fox doesn't hate sci-fi. Fox hates paying for sci-fi. Sci-fi is expensive.
Fox used to ditch any show after a season if it wasn't an instant hit.
Then they realized they could sell DVDs of the shows at a profit.
It's better to have more profit than not. So Fox has started canceling shows after a season or two unless they're raving hits instantly.
They sell the DVDs and make a profit. It doesn't matter if we love the show. If America doesn't love it, it's gone.
The Sci-fi channel decided in the past 2 years to skip well written content in favor of B movies. They figure if it's got aliens and monsters, people will watch. Sci-fi channel thinks people are in it for the aliens and monsters, not the story or production value or plausibility.
and for all you fans of MST3K, it was not sci-fi. It was comedy. Get over yourselves.
They're using their grammar skills there.
It's like the deliberatly dress her down now, instead of "up".
If I find spelling mistakes within 60 seconds of posting I should be allowed to do an edit.
Of course I could proofread better, but I'd rather blame slashdot.
People are under the mistaken impression that Fox is an entertainment company producing shows as a product for viewers who are their customers. Incorrect.
Fox is a media company, and their product is viewers, which they sell to advertisers, their actual customers. Apply this knowledge to "news" channels, etc... and you'll understand a lot.
That business model means that any actual quality entertainment is a fluke. Especially if it's something deemed such quality that a small demographic really enjoys it... that is never their goal. Understanding this, one can look for quality entertainment in books, or films and shows *after* they aired and were reviewed well, despite the system.
The interesting question is not "why does Fox screw up at something outside of their goals." The interesting question is "what method of funding and creating shows as quality entertainment might be sustainable as a business that we could flock to?" Distributed digital patronage or something? Maybe I should submit that as an Ask Slashdot.
That way you get the XMas shows in mid-summer, the halloween specials during easter and the in-jokes about elections about 2 years after the election is done and forgotten.
Does not sound much better then Sci-Fi and Dr. Who. Somehow Sci-Fi does not manage to get the X-Mas specials out within 6 months of X-Mas and the show is in ENGLISH. They also cut out a decent ammount of show just to make it fight all nice and neat in the timeslot. And STILL **AA wonder why I download Dr. Who 24-hrs after it aired on BBC.
No one knows nor cares why Fox purchases science fiction TV shows just to cancel them. It is one of those inexplicable questions, like 'Why does God let bad things happen to good people?'.
No, the real question is: WHY THE FUCK DO THE PRODUCERS OF SCIENCE FICTION SHOWS SELL THEM TO FOX?
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me six thousand, three hundred and forty four times, shame on evolution.
That said, if Dollhouse get canceled, sorry, this one's Whedon's fault. You can't start a show this slow.
Frankly, he would have been better off dropping the 'Who was Echo?' slight mystery, and showing us Echo and her joining, showing up Alpha's attack and escape, and then, hey, we've got something exciting and interesting to start with, a character who's 'dead' we might get back and we'll be watching Echo for, and suspense.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Sounds great in theory, but thats not the practice! I've stopped watching Fox and MBC as they both show huge political biases. Some exec is probably getting promoted due to these decisions, but I can hardly trust their "news" any more because they are views not news.
Not the chilling effects of IP law -- the chilling effects of not having good contracts for proven creative people.
Though IP law reform certainly wouldn't hurt.
I completely agree. I can't believe that after what he experienced with Firefly that Joss Whedon is back in bed with Fox. It's like he's a masochist.
Dr Horrible should have set the stage for online episodes via Hulu. Hell, I know I watch Hulu more often than I turn on my TV.
Check out my sysadmin blog!
Fox is NOTORIOUS for not sticking with their series (and have been for at least 15 years now).
True, but no more so than any other network. CBS spent a fortune producing and promoting "Smith", including hiring several big-name actors to star in it. Then they canceled it after three episodes. It was a serial story too, so not only did they lose the money they sunk into it, they put off the viewers who had gotten into the story and now will never find out how it comes out.
In TV land there seems to be an ongoing war between the Creators (people who want to try new, original stuff) and the Cowards (people who are allergic to risk, and would give us nothing but reality shows, game shows, and low-budget melodrama about cops and doctors). You kind of demonstrate this struggle when you mention
Oh, and a special R.I.P. to my beloved "Strange Luck," cancelled after just 17 episodes.
Yeah, that was a good show, one of the few "quirky" shows where the Q word isn't just a cliche. (I particularly liked the ep with all the pregnant women.) Now, that one came out in Fox's early days, when the Creators still seemed to be dominant, because Fox had to differentiate itself from the existing networks. But the Cowards were there from the beginning: when the suits saw the pilot for "Married With Children" they asked the producers to make the characters more sympathetic — never mind that an unsympathetic family was what the show was about.
And face it, the Cowards managed to kill "Dollhouse" before it even got on the air. It was supposed to be a sort of moral melodrama about people who give up their identities so they can work in a high-tech brothel. But that's not enough action, so the first pilot can scrapped. Now the prostitution angle gets pushed into the background and they keep inventing lame reasons for the "actives" to get imprinted with the personalities of action heroes instead of their supposedly-usual sexual artistes. Damn it Joss, you're notorious for your stubborness and bad temper, why can't you bring these attributes to bear when it really counts?
As for "Sara Conner", WTF cares? It's just lame formula. I was turned off in the first episode when they pulled a major cheat: Summer Glau doesn't start acting like a robot until after it's revealled that she is one.
It's amazing how much hatred there is for CEO's, capitalism, and Fox News. When Fox came on the scene they spanked everybodies ass. They've kicked CNN's ass for like 10 years straight. All of the great shows were on FOX their first few seasons. Yeah, I don't know what the deal is with moving shows all around, but FOX isn't the only one that does that. I've given up on lots of other network's shows because I got tired of trying to adjust my schedule to match theirs. Back when NBC was king the other networks might as well have gone off the air when LA Law, Cheers, and the Cosby Show were on. But they tinkered with the formula, moving shows to other nights, til they killed off their golden goose. They haven't been the same since. But the truth is after 2 or 3 seasons most shows are washed up anyways. I love LOST for example, but for how many years can the writers strings something along like this, just tossing you bait for next week's show? SciFi shows are hard to maintain for long periods of time, you run out of reasonable ideas. I mean how many time travel episodes can you stand? What? The bad guys are coming? Let's just pull the magic lever and move the island. Yeah, the viewers will go for that!
How is Firefly going to survive after airing the episodes out of order and not even showing the pilot... oh wait.
I wish they would dump American idol. I am so sick of that fucking show!!!!! I wish, oh how I wish, someone with one, or more, gold records would "Try out" and when Paula Fucdul tells them they suck, they just whip out their gold and say "Fuck you asshole, what the hell do you know."
Not the chilling effects of IP law -- the chilling effects of not having good contracts for proven creative people.
Our current vision of IP law is the sickness. No good contracts for proven creatives is the (a) symptom. Similarly, Greed is the sickness of which Corporations are a symptom.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Funny - I've never had any trouble watching Dollhouse whenever I want to. It's always on at the same time - when I want to see it - just by going to http://www.fox.com/fod/
Seriously - Internet TV changes everything. I moved a couple months back, ditched the dual-dish + DVR that we had the old house while we moved. In the meantime, we've been using hulu, netflix, wtso.net, casttv.com, and the like to watch our shows.
Internet TV rocks! We watch what we want, when we want to, with little/no commercial interruptions, LEGALLY! Even when we've never heard of the show before... Downloading torrents is crap. I'm talking about click & play, armed with nothing more than a 3 Mb Internet connection and a Mac mini with a big screen.
Seriously, give it a shot. I don't think I'll ever end up buying an HDTV.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Fox is supposedly running fewer adverts during Dollhouse and Fringe. The theory is that with fewer ads, viewers will sit through the ad and thus actually watch it.
They probably moved them to less desirable time slots to minimize ad revenue loss.
Anybody who is nerdy enough to write in to Slashdot bemoaning the probable demise of these shows is going to have no problem clearing up their busy Friday night social schedule in order to watch them.
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
Buffy, Angel, and Firefly, regardless of the greatness or lameness of the actual plot, always had funny and engaging dialog. Those shows also had ensemble casts who spent a lot of time talking. The characters on Dollhouse hardly ever speak to each other, so Dollhouse has fuck-all engaging dialog.
It's like Joss has written a bad anime series.
I like Joss Whedon. I like Eliza Dushku. But the first episode of Nathan Fillion's new show was better than all of the Dollhouse episodes to this point combined, and it's nothing but a formulaic buddy-cop/detective show that longs be the next Moonlighting.
Fox hates good TV, but so does most of America probably.
Regardless, the couple of hours before Battlestar Galactica are a decent timeslot to bring people to these shows. My BSG group now watches Dollhouse regularly before BSG.
It takes you 24 hours?
I think your torrent client's RSS reader is broken.
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Joss Whedon did an interview with Rolling Stone recently, and his experience with Dollhouse has convinced him to never use network TV again, and to keep with the "Dr. Horrible" method of distribution.
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Given the demographics of the Fox Sci-Fi viewer (of which I know nothing, but conjecture here with me a second), I'd guess that a good portion of them are savvy enough to record them on DVR of choice and watch them whenever.
IOW, time slots matters less for these kinds of shows.
Just my opinion, of course. I'm probably wrong.
Before you design for reuse, make sure to design it for use.
Because Sci-fi would rather re-broadcast "Scare Tactics" or "Ghost Hunters" then develop a show with a high SFX budget and long story arc.
(hint: go check your local cable listings to see what "Sci Fi" is broadcasting tonight)
But Dollhouse sucks on its own. It's Fantasy Island with anorexic girls.
Heh. I was thinking it was like "La Femme Anorexia" or maybe "The Bourne Prostitute".
The enemies of Democracy are
Friday nights the only time of the week that nothing else is on that i like... so you shut up now... NOW DAMNIT
..is horrible, and should die anyway. It's nonsense masquerading as science fiction, with terrible acting to boot. If you're going to make a show where "technology" is the central theme, then that technology should at least be plausible or informed speculation, otherwise it's fantasy. Fantasy is fine, but don't pretend it's science.
The Terminator movies were action flicks with a futuristic background. They had elements of sci-fi, but they were primarily shoot-em-ups. The show doesn't know what it is, other than not great.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Nielson ratings for DVR watchings only count within two or three days of air date. So by putting Sarah Conner and Dollhouse on Friday that give all day Saturday and all day Sunday for people who are more likely to use a DVR to watch their shows.
Calvin:Do you believe in the devil? Hobbes:I'm not sure man needs the help.
GPP got "insightful", PP got "flamebait" - further proof Slashdot's modding system is just broken, abused, and worthless.
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I have a little different perspective on this whole thing. I dont spend much time watching the tube, and when I do it is business shows on business channels, mainly for fast updates on economic stuff. Fact of the matter is that FOX and FOX NEWS are both money making operations; much more so than things like the GE run NBC. It is also a fact that a TV network needs to put faces in front of a tube, not good shows in back of a tube. All that being said I am still pissed about Trippin the Riff not being on the air; but I do have the DVD.
Those who forget history are condemned to go to summer school.
Simply, I think they don't get SciFi. The SciFi Channel, named after the genre itself ran John Edwards for months and currently devotes at least one day a week to people going around with IR cameras going "I feel a presence". What's another name for "really really bad science fiction movie"? "SciFi Channel Original Feature". I keep waiting for them to redo Night of the Lepus when they run out of types of lizards, snakes, and gothic masonry.
People whose perception of the world is filtered through a layer of ratings analysis are often not the best judge of quality scifi.
Unbreakable toys can be used to break other toys.
I wish I had not missed this article this morning. My question is simply, in the world of Tivo and Hulu, how much longer will TV schedules remain relevant?
I could probably answer that, for as long as there are masses of people still relying upon the old-days of racing home to watch a favorite show, rather than watching shows when and where the user wants.
Maybe what is happening to Boxee should give me an idea of the fight still left in these people.
You know, Family Guy has made light of Fox's inability to keep the majority of their new shows around for more than 1 season on more than 1 occasion. While it is funny everytime they make light of it, it is really quite sad.
What really boggles the mind is why on Earth they wouldn't be supporting Fringe to their fullest. It has received amazing reviews and is the #1 most popular new show on network TV that premiered last year, with around 9.5 Million weekly viewers, the most a new FOX show has had in a long time. The pilot was even received well by most, the cast is rock solid, and it's the first show to make their scorned and bitter X-Files viewers take notice and say "ooooo! Neat!".
The very least they can do is not kill off another good show like they did to Firefly. While they may have put Fringe on hiatus until April, hopefully they won't start airing episodes out of order and then promptly kill it after only 1 season.
"I hope you know how very lucky you are to know me, because I am so incredibly incredible."
Yeah but those shows have had a long and successful run. My point exactly. Would either show stand a chance in hell at making it on a big network station. I didn't say that they were choke full of good shows. Half the shows on Sci-Fi are crap. But they promote the shit out of even the crappy shows and keep them in a stable time slot. That's my point.
I was reading this week's TV Guide magazine and it said the show was offered to FOX, but FOX didn't wanted and SciFi took it.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
The original Doctor Who ran straight for 22 seasons from 1963. That was followed by a one-year hiatus before seasons 23-26, then cancellation. Not counting the 1996 TV movie, there was a 16 year gap before the show started up again.
I watched the Firefly pilot on Hulu.
Looked cheap and kind of crappy. If it's all like that I understand why its appeal was limited. No offense, but did the rest of the series get better?
I'm not against low-rent shows, or even crappy shows. I just don't get why people think Firefly is so great, and I still don't get it after watching the first show.
Wow that was a good show. How do you live with yourselves, FOX?
Since Terminator has been moved to Friday night, that is, since the half-season "restarted" in Februrary, it's been crap.
Too much emotional bullsh*t. I hate Riley. I hate the actress which does John's mother. Linda Hamilton from T2 was so much more kickass. Nothing good has been happening since Cromartie's dead except some ghost "UFO-chasing", which is jumping the shark IMHO.
It could have been much more better. Terminator fights, chases, explosions. Show more metal, they are robots FFS! My favorite scene to this day is still that part when Cromartie shows his skeleton to the doctor before they redo his skin. Also, the whole Catherine Weaver/Zeiracorp part could have gotten more violent/important but instead you have Ellision spewing Christian indoctrination all the time and nothing happening.
I don't want to get into some sort of long rant, but everything about Fringe is bad and it insults my intelligence constantly when I try to watch it. The ideas make no sense. There isn't even a hint of realism to draw you into the story. The dialog was all written by aliens from some planet where they are completely unfamiliar with how actual human interaction occurs. The plot twists are entirely predictable *or* completely confusing because they weren't foreshadowed in any manner and actually make no sense.
There's just not a single redeeming quality to Fringe. It makes me vomit in my mouth a little bit just to think about it. The worst part about Fringe is that you can just tell it thinks its good. It's a show that doesn't know how bad it is . . .
Dollhouse and Terminator are a bit silly, but I can still watch them and be entertained -- and that's all that really matters.
Doctor Who did not "go off screen repeatedly". It simply changed to a new lead actor. When the original actor was forced to retire for health reasons, this was integrated into the show. There was never any "wouldn't it be fun if we resurrected" because there was never any question about the Doctor dying, only changing. This did not correspond to wholesale changes of the rest of the show. On only two occasions did the companions also change with the arrival of the new Doctor: once between seasons 6 and 7 (when the show was also moved to color), and once between seasons 23 and 24 (following the hiatus). In both cases, recurring characters showed up immediately to provide continuity. In both cases, the script for the first episode following the change was written by a previous writer for Doctor Who.
If a show doesn't stay on the air as long, the actors and writers don't get as many raises and it's not as expensive to maintain a full program lineup.
Does it matter, really, how Fox goes down in flames so long as it honors the laws of gravity?
``Tension, apprehension & dissension have begun!'' - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred Bester's _The Demolished Man_
You can have my geek card now because I dont even know what RSS is. My guess is that it is a automated system that downloads stuff. If that is true then thanks for the offer but I'll have to pass. I dont need my computer downloading more stuff without my knowledge.
For teens and girls. These shows aren't real scifi. Bunches of pretty people and teens with some fake cgi like Knightrider doesn't make it SCIFI. StarTrek NextGen was scifi even though it borderlined PC/multicultural PSA programming. Networks also don't care about art. They care about MONEY $$.
IF they don't get the rating boost then screw it.
Its easier, cheaper and less taxing mentally for Fox to vomit up reality television like American Idol rather than to take five seconds to write out an entertaining and intelligently thought out drama.
World? Hulu is USA viewers only. Along with the networks' websites themselves. :(
Sci-Fi may keep their shows steady in terms of timeslot, but they're completely unpredictable in terms of when they'll run a new season, and when they'll induce their own break in the middle of a season. They've also unceremoniously yanked the rug out from under more than one show at the last minute (Farscape, Stargate: SG-1).
Benford's Corollary to Clarke's Law: "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced."
Ok, only 1 out of the 3 shows mentioned in TFS was any good. Dollhouse I was anticipating but forgot about until my friend showed me. It was aweful. Dialogue was asinine, acting was like robots, plot was retarded. Sarah Connor had crappy dialogue, acting WAS robots, plot was retarded, and some of the things they did made no sense. (A robot putting a gun in it's leg to conceal it... in Texas. In a school with metal detectors. It's a bloody ROBOT. It's made of METAL. Ever heard of a holster or a boot? /rant)
At least Fringe (which was equally retarded as far as sci-fi schtick goes) had good dialogue, fun comedic banter between the characters, and the characters actually had bloody personality. When I found out it wouldn't air again until april my roomie and I nearly shook the screen and screamed at it Darth Vader style. "NNNNNoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!"
Go back and watch "Our Mrs. Reynolds. You may feel differently. Or not. I would agree that the pilot wasn't as good as the rest of the series. But the series is damned good.
A lot of good comments here about business models of the networks. Face it - the networks are a lost caused, part of the 20th century. The world is experiencing a revolution as earth shattering as the development of the printing press. Then as now the old thinkers don't get it. Let them sit in thir ivory towers. There will be some short term inconvenience for TV viewers but it will pass.
TSCC is my favorite show of the four I watch at all - although "Leverage" on TNT is a close number two.
The problem with Terminator can be summed up with two words: Josh Friedman.
Friedman took the Terminator franchise - a set of sci-fi action movies with high action and special effects content - and turned into a slow-moving glacier of psychoanalysis and family drama.
This is NOT the Terminator anybody knows from the movies. And the comments on all the TV blogs say so.
Season one started out pretty well, with nine episodes cut short by the writer's strike. But the pace was fairly good, the hints dropped of future reveals very interesting, the character exploration was excellent, the writing was generally excellent, the acting was excellent, everything was good.
Then Josh threw it all away in season two.
He went overboard on wallowing in Sarah Connor's psychology, turning a smart, capable super-heroine into a hallucinating, sullen, paranoid nutcase. He turned the smart, edgy Edward Furlong John Connor and turned him into a sullen, withdrawn, bratty, emo boy. He turned the hottest female Terminator ever created into a permanently defective pit bull and comic relief and then sidelined her on top of it.
The audience left in droves.
It had nothing to do with being put on Mondays against Monday Night Football and Dancing With The Stars. Fox put it there BECAUSE it was TERMINATOR! The one show virtually guaranteed a chance to survive on Monday nights - until Josh got through with it. Moving it to Fridays and pairing it with Dollhouse was a last ditch effort by Fox to try to save the show - and it crashed horribly. The first three episodes of the supposedly "better" "back nine" dragged interminably through more "Crazy Sarah" antics.
Only in last week's episode did the story arc begin to move forward again - and how? The Terminator is now considered to be permanently defective, so much so that it puts a BOMB IN ITS OWN HEAD and gives John Connor the "kill trigger"!
Why not just shoot all the characters and be done with it?
The ratings at this point are a disaster. TV By the Numbers Web site predicts cogently that the show cannot and will not be picked up for a third season. And the odds of it moving to the Sci-Fi Channel depend on it not falling much more from the point it's at now.
How the HELL do you screw up TERMINATOR?!
Josh Friedman can tell you.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Think about it for a second. What percentage of the world do you think really gets scifi? Now how many of them are going to bother watching it on TV? Firefly, Terminator, Fringe and Dollhouse are victims of not having enough appeal. Moving them around is making it worse, but it's not the problem. Fox is not the problem.
The problem is that 90210, Gossip Girl, Desperate Housewives, So You Think You Can Dance and American Idol are what the majority of people really want. Firefly (for instance) isn't that.
Personally, I really enjoyed Terminator and Dollhouse. Irrelevant. I am not representative of the public. If I was, I wouldn't have a slashdot account.
Don't think this is about intelligence. It's easy to say that So You Think You Can Dance fans are drooling morons, and they'd be better served watching Firefly. But they're not morons, they're just not interested in SciFi. They're interested in real drama. That's the way it has always been, and that's the way it will always be. SciFi has little place on network television.
My favorite new series this year? Life on Mars. A cool mix of SciFi and 70s cop drama. What could be better? Already cancelled, for the same reason: People don't want to watch a mix of SciFi and 70s cop drama. They want So You Think You Can Dance.
I noticed this trend five years ago in the Philippines: Variety shows ruled the airwaves there. Suck drack, but they're cheaper and get higher ratings. What responsible network executive wouldn't pick lower budgets and higher ratings?
Spot on. Together with finding the behaviour of most of the characters utterly incomprehensible I couldn't even sit through the whole first episode. I hope nobody is going to shed a tear for this pile of rubbish.
I bet he said that after Firefly too. If Fox ever starts dangling that big money again, you can bet he'll come running back. Right now he's just trying to save face in case they don't ever WANT him back.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
My thought about what time shows are on is this, I never watch a show "live" any more. I all ways just have the DVR record the show and watch it when it is a good time for me. So with more and more people having some kind of DVR why not have the show come on at some crazy time? for all I care, it could be on at midnight or 3am or when ever. All I know is that it recored it, and I go and watch it when I have the time to.
I'm guessing you do know what RSS is, just not how it applies to torrents:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_(file_format)
In any case, RSS reading functionality on a torrent client does make it so you start downloading things without user interaction, but it's very configurable. I've only had one item start that I didn't want, and that's because I didn't do enough specification on my regular expression. For the most part, it's a huge time-saver, because I can sit back on my couch and watch TV, without having to check my computer every few minutes to see if an item I want has been posted yet. That may sound crazy, but I want to watch something as soon as it's available. It helps avoid spoilers.
Convert FLACs to a portable format with FlacSquisher
apparently don't realize that it has at times hit sixteen million viewers and is very like to get a season two.
And the morons here who don't know what the word "fringe" means and are expecting hard science in every episode - well, you're morons.
The characters are likable - in fact, Anna Torv is the nicest FBI agent I've ever seen, she makes Scully look like "Dr.Evil" - and that really is unrealistic, since real FBI agents are invariably assholes - the episode plots are complicated and interesting, and the overall story arc is moving very nicely in each episode, especially in the last several episodes. The writing and dialog are actually pretty good. I can fully understand why the show is a success. It's a glitzier version of the "X-Files" and fills that void nicely. Compared to the last "X-Files" film which sucked big time, it's far better.
Dollhouse is a harder call. The first four episodes have moved quickly to lay the groundwork for future interesting reveals. They've also seriously overemphasized half-naked females. Not that half naked females bother me, but it seems that either Joss or Fox apparently felt they needed to hook the nerds early. Since Eliza Dushku said that Fox messed with the first six episodes, I guess we should blame Fox for overemphasizing the "stroke" aspects of the show. The episodes have been uneven in quality so far, but the last episode was good, and most of them have some good points.
Terminator is a disaster as my earlier post indicated. That show is doomed, unless the Sci-Fi Channel picks it up. Rumor is Warner Brothers wants to sell the show for cheap to keep it on the air, presumably to drum up interest in the new T-4 movie. And rumor has it that the Sci-Fi Channel is interested, as long as the ratings don't collapse any further. So we'll see.
The smart thing would be for the Sci-Fi Channel to buy the show and then dump Josh Friedman as the showrunner.
As for DVRs, go look at the TV By The Numbers Web site. DVRs DO NOT COUNT! The networks know that no more than 40% of the DVR viewers watch ads and therefore they can't sell their advertisers shows with good DVR numbers. They need LIVE viewers. While this is unfortunate given how many people use DVRs, Hulu, downloads, etc., these days, the Neilsen ratings of live viewers are the only system the networks have to measure show value to the advertisers. Therefore if you DVR your favorite show, you are CANCELING YOUR FAVORITE SHOW! We may not like that, but that's how it works.
Also, in the case of Terminator, if you are a "fanboy" and always applaud what the idiot showrunners are doing on your show, no matter how much the ratings drop and the wider audience is dumping your favorite show, YOU are killing your favorite show again. You have to be critical and pressure the showrunners to change the show if it's not working.
Producers of shows are not paid to produce shows that please the fans, honor the franchise, or write "cool", arty scripts. They're paid to produce a show that stays on the air and produces ad revenue for the network for as long as it does stay on the air. All those other things I mentioned are how you GET to stay on the air. They are not the goal. Producers like Josh Friedman who forget that end up getting canceled and their reputations damaged.
So if you like a show, watch it live (which I can't because I don't have a TV, I have to download) and be critical and vocal about where the show is going wrong if it is.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
One can only hope that one day we will have science fiction shows on tv and that they will be good.
However up to now there is pretty much only badly made sci-fi pop. Who cares if they cut them? Why get attached to the garbage? Yes some of them get lucky and create genuinely great moments, as in BSG, but for the most part the bar is really low.
Give me a shot at writing one of these things and I'll make something rich, deep, loopy and funny that will fly over the head of the herd of cows who watch tv and insult just about anyone who takes fiction (or reality) too seriously.
Shit, when the current crop of shows venture into the denomination of capturing the essence of humanity in a far away scenario they take dead on aim at the fake humanity that appears on every other corporatized, mind controlling fictional program including the "news" (repeaters).
In it's current state, television is for the most part a tool to fill people's minds with propaganda and keep them in a diminished and incarcerated reality. Until someone has the balls to tell everyone else involved in the process to FUCK OFF and creates a real channel or show, why the hell care what gets canned or not.
Liberty.
Well, even Firefly wasn't much good until 5-8 episodes in, as I recall it.
So why the hell did Whedon go back to Fox with Dollhouse?!?! GAH!
That show is taking the runup and is about to make the jump!
They don't pick up sports dealed start times. And it can be done if they where to update the guide info in real time but they do not.
Sci Fi channel killed some shows as well like
Star Gate sg1 and they stopped others from picking it up as well.
Farscape
PainKiller Jane
Flash Gordon it was not that good but was staring to get there.
Invisible Man ended way to soon.
Fox has clearly decided that their viewers would rather watch two whole hours of their "hit" reality show, American Idol, than great sci-fi shows such as Fringe.
If you've noticed, since they got rid of all the prime-time dramas/sci-fi shows, American Idol has been two hours long for the three days it's broadcast every week (Tuesday, Wednesday, and the "results" show on Thursday).
The irony there is that, in a two hour block, you STILL have only about 35-40 minutes of NEW content. Even on Tuesday and Wednesday's episodes (which are the "competition" rounds), the actual performances are only about 30 minutes long. They fill those two hour blocks with commentary from the "judges", shitty "emotional" messages from the family of the AI contestants, show "recaps" of each contestant, etc.
This goes right along with the post I made in last week's "Why TV Lost" article...
tl;dr: Fox thinks the majority of their consumers would rather watch two hour blocks of generic reality shows, filled with commercials and "pork", rather than new, original, compelling dramas or sci-fi shows.
And, according to AI's ratings, they were right. From Fox's point of view, fans of shows such as Fringe and Dollhouse are simply minorities. They make more money by showing ten minute commercial blocks on American Idol every 10 minutes, three nights a week than they do showing these great shows.
American popular culture... gets worse every day.
I just emailed fox at askfox@fox.com
Will it work? Probably not. Worth a try, though. Feel free to reuse and send your own!
Hi!
I am and have been a fan of many Fox shows. But over the years I have noticed a disturbing trend of show and network sabotage! Good shows with many devoted fans are cancelled. Episodes are shown out of order, causing continuity problems. Scheduling is shifted around repeatedly. And, of course, great shows are moved to Friday night. Please, help me understand - is there someone with a sadistic god complex hijacking your schedule? Or do you draw names out of a hat? Why is Fringe off for two months? It is doing great and I'm dying to see what happens next...but the writers' strike showed us that being off for so long is next to a death sentence. Why is Dollhouse starting it's run on Friday nights? I understand it is unproved, but if you look at the internet, there is a whole slew of Joss Whedon fans who will watch anything he does...can't you try to get new fans, by moving it to a more convenient time? Sure, Joss fans may watch no matter when you put it on, but I assume you want to grow beyond that. One would think that you could put it on a different night and then get the Joss fans PLUS others as well, others who may have stuff to do on Friday nights.
There is a good article about others who feel this way here: http://denofgeek.com/television/216974/what_has_the_fox_network_got_against_its_own_scifi_shows.html
And discussion of that article on slashdot, a well known and respected community:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1156631
Gain more fans: Make smart scheduling choices! Or at least offer us some transparency into why you cancel or move shows!
Thanks!! I hope to keep watching!
Me
I really like sci-fi and comics and all that crap, and I haven't seen Dollhouse, but I did watch the first 3 or so episodes of Fringe and I think it was pretty bad. Like a bad mix of X-Files and Lost. And it was getting terrible ratings, so why should they be faithful to it? I gave Sarah Connor an entire season and every second of it I absolutely hated. It is just a plain terrible show. Terrible dialog. Terrible writing in general. Terrible pretty much everything except hot chicks kicking ass. Which is nice and all, but eventually the stupid dialog and asinine plot lines get to you. And I love T2, and I think the premise of the series is excellent, but it just isn't well executed.
They gave Sarah Connor plenty of time to make it. Maybe they didn't give Fringe a good enough chance, not sure, but I certainly am not going to complain. If either of those shows were 1/4 as good as Alias Season 1 I would have stayed for the duration even as it declined into terribleness.
OMG! So no one is gonna mention Arrested Development? Just the funniest show ever on TV butcherd by Fox!
As far as sci fi goes, there was no show like Farscape! only 4 years and the fans had to fund a ending to the show! Nothing supprise me anymore after those!
Go Go Murdoc Ranger!
Hell, before Firefly I was a fan of Dark Angel - good acting, good writing, interesting characters . . . and then Fox started preempting it on Tuesdays at every opportunity, moved it to Fridays and preempted it two weeks out of three even there.
Then they replaced it with Firefly, for no other reason than to kill that after one season.
An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media
True, but SG1 went on for 10 seasons... and SciFi funded 2 movies, and there's still another StarGate spin off coming.
mythtv needs to do a popularity contest like debian does with packages.
Open source ratings, heh.
They need to get rid of Fringe. It is one of the most awful television shows I have ever seen. It's just completely unwatchable. I watched the pilot and the plot was incredibly stupid, and the characters were ridiculously fake and uninteresting. The dialogue went beyond vapidity. The sci-fi element was also crappy. They just threw out random nonsense.
It even manages to be worse than Psych.
Even stupid reality shows are much better than Fringe. One is kind of boring and asinine, the other is painful. Fringe might be preferable to celebrity nonsense, I guess.
Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
The one that got me was "Quid Pro Apple"
I watch all those shows on Hulu (www.hulu.com) when I want so it doesn't make any difference to me when they ACTUALLY air on TV. Watching shows on TV without Tivo is so 90's anyway. I can't believe anyone on Slashdot hasn't figured out how to tape the shows they want so they can watch them anytime. After all this is "News for Nerds".
"Meaningless!, Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless!"
Are you trying to tell me that some person somewhere actually sits in front of a TV and watches a show at it's scheduled time? I dunno about other scifi fans in the world, but myself and pretty much everyone I know downloads their favs and watches them when they have time and when it is convenient. I certainly don't stay up until 2am but have never missed an episode of Poker After Dark, for example. Also, I'm an "old guy" at 41 and have to think younger folks then me are downloading for sure. I watch BSG, Dollhouse, Sarah Connor and other shows who's actual "airtime" I honestly could not now, and never in the past could tell you. I don't even know what day those shows are on. I suppose it is the same day they show up in the torrents, but I don't even really notice that. When they show up, I download 'em. Once night a week my wife and I watch the few shows we like from a USB key on my DIVX-capable set-top DVD player. The only actual broadcast TV users in my house are my 4 kids and one of them almost never watches either. The networks should just face the facts and make everything on-demand. Then even I might watch a show for the full hour with commercials rather than the very time saving 42 minutes.
Officially a geek since 1984
I'll say!
"The Obamas" only just started their new season and Fox is pissing all over it!!
Bavarian Purity Law of Rice Krispie Squares: Rice Krispies, Marshmallows, Butter, Vanilla.
Seriously. Whedon purports himself to be a fairly smart guy, he should have known better than to enter into another TV deal with FOX for fuck's sake. This is as much his fault as theirs. Try getting a Buffy fanboy to admit that, though.
Fox thinks geeks have nothing to do but watch TV on Friday nights. Good scheduling decision if you ask me.
Farscape.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1147437&cid=27056793 keeping those multiple accounts around to mod yourself up with was what was said about you here this past week from your comments list. Is this true? If not, then why did you say that then??
Call it limited perspective, but my point remains. There are legal alternate distribution channels in most free countries which directly challenge the traditional TV schedule, and it is high time these morons pick up on that.