Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
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.
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".
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?
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
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Same reason music execs continue to act as they do:
Their medium has (for as long as THEY can remember) been the way it is NOW, and it's going to STAY THAT WAY.
Let's follow a TV executives train of logic and actions:
1. Something worked in the past.
2. If it worked in the past, it will always work at any time.
3. If it doesn't work, blame rivals/Internet/liberals
4. Make random, unnecessary changes, to line-up, encourage shows on-air to add more sassy, one-line spewing half-dressed women in gun-fights, even if it's a sitcom or gameshow.
5. 6 words: "This week's special guest: Justin Timberlake!"
6. Collect bonus.
7. Repeat steps 3 through 6
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.