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Sarah Connor Chronicles — Why It Died
brumgrunt writes "Sarah Connor was a non-populist, meditative, complex piece of television on a smash-bang, show-me-the-ratings kind of network. The two were never going to get on. Plus: how the Terminator name proved more hindrance than aid."
It had Summer Glau in it. Jewel Staite and Morena Baccarin are the babes from Firefly. Little Summer needs to grow up a bit, and eat a sammich or two before I'm willing to call her a babe.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
Oh, you mean dull. Or as Homer Simpson would say:
B-o-o-r-i-n-n-g.
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A simpler explanation is that this show was just another attempt to increase the profits of the terminator franchise. I suspect that given the number of people involved, and the number of people that had to be paid off to gain the rights to the characters, ideas, and franchise made the show too expensive. p It seems to me that the same show could have been made with new characters at a lower cost. I am sure the network thought the fact that this was terminator meant that more people would watch it and they would recover the additional costs. Obviously they were wrong.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Which is to say, "Elitist, Slow-Moving, Muddled."
Never watched the show, but thanks for the tip; you've told me all I need to know to stay away from the torrents and DVDs.
The reason I want to see the movie today is because I enjoyed the TV series.
I have to wonder if part of the problem is the "ratings" system itself. Isn't it possible that while Neilsen families aren't watching it, college kids and others are watching it... owe WERE watching it?
Fox and other networks are going to have to put up their OWN bit torrent shares of their TV shows and start seeing for themselves which ones are the most popular and which ones aren't. It won't stop people from looking at the TV when it's on. It won't stop people from buying the DVDs when they come out. (I downloaded every episode of the terminator TV series, bought season one and am waiting for season two on DVD so I can clear up the space on my drives.)
These media publishers and their digital phobias... they need to USE the digital and not fear it so much.
Why it Died: cost > income
Combination - fun iPhone puzzling
Networks are now interested in "reality" shows where they can get a bunch of stupid, likeable-only-by-morons, "contestants" to make complete twats of themselves, and who are naive enough to be easily manipulated into becoming a corporate cash cow and puppet. That is, until the fickle audience grow weary of them; usually within a few weeks.
A lot of TV shows have vanished from our screens because of this: Terminator, My Name is Earl, Scrubs, Frasier, Samantha Who... the list is endless.
And when you have much of the western world swooning over a 48 year old singer who shows up to Britain's Got Talent, why the fuck would you want to pay script writers, actors, researchers, and marketers? These people cost money; they're a drain on profits.
From the boardroom's point of view, you can't beat a bunch of teenagers with mobile phones who are willing to text 30 votes a night, at £1 per message to shove someone onto a global stage and thereby generate even more revenue when you dig them out a year later.
This is the future of television, people; that's why I watch so little of it these days.
THE HONOUR OF THE KNIGHTS - CC Licensed Sci-Fi Novel
Anyone who actually watched the show would know the plot was not like that.
It wasn't some Kung-Fu the Legend Continues. It had a very complex plot with many main characters. Outstanding writing, acting, suspense, and plot development made this the best show on television.
One of the reasons mentioned is the same reason I didn't like Heros and 24. If you missed the first couple of episodes, you may as well go home.
I'm pretty good at gathering threads up just from watching a show for a few minutes (pisses off my wife who can't seem to follow along and she's watched 24 from the first episode).
So I suspect, and the article seems to confirm it, that the show was written with an eye towards releasing it to DVD.
My wife and I watched Heroes first season and I really like it. Enough that I wanted to watch it when it came on for the second season. But with the commercials every 10 minutes and 5 minutes of commercials at the end, I finally bailed. I'm sure I'll get the DVD for the second series and will probably like it a lot.
24 is similar. It's written from start to finish. Like a long movie. You wouldn't come in in the middle of a movie and expect to understand what's going on.
So we'll get Heroes as they're released, my wife'll get 24 (she already has the first couple of seasons), and we'll get SCC when it's out on DVD (if it isn't already).
[John]
Shit better not happen!
I've seen every episode, and I still say the show sucked, but thats my opinion and it differs from yours.
It doesn't even try to kill his grandparents.
Considering the explanation in Terminator about why the Terminator killed those other Sarah Connors, I don't believe Skynet would have even known where to begin with trying to kill John's grandparents. And anyone who knows timetravel knows you don't just go back and kill everything in sight. Skynet could end up ensuring that it never gets created.
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
I'm not sure why this got marked as 'troll'. He's absolutely right. I love me some sci fi TV, but this show was best watched in Fast Forward on my DVR.
It wasn't complex. It wasn't meditative. It wasn't non-populist either. It was crappy, though.
Just because something has a shoddy storyline that barely pieces together doesn't mean that it's complex or meditative.
Blessed be he who reads this post, Cursed be he who tells my boss.
I've jumped around watching a few TtSCC shows from hulu, and from that perspective it's just as full of the same high-school coming of age / romance angst as the rest of teen television (see: Buffy, Roswell, 90210, and a dozen others I'm sure...)
The real question is: What's Summer Glau's next psycho chick series role going to be?
The execs at fox (or whoever sets the schedule) put this show on a FRIDAY evening. I don't know how it is now, but when I was a kid, we didn't stay home (especially during a school year) to watch tv. We were out running around, going to the movies, on a date, raising hell. If the people who produced this show were to somehow relaunch this show on another network, say USA or Sci-Fi, and stick it in a good time slot, it would do better. Sticking a show on a Friday evening is like sticking nails in a coffin.
I have a slightly different take. I thought Season 1 was pretty good and showed promise. The best episodes were on Season 2. Of course, the most god-awful episodes were on Season 2, also.
During Season 1, I remember telling a friend of mine that I like the show, but that I worried it would fall into a cliched formula: meet a new character each week who was there for only the one episode, solve that character's problem, and then forget about the whole thing. Sadly, Season 2 had a lot of this "Touched By A Terminator" nonsense.
The last half-dozen episodes, tying up the whole Riley thread and all, were very, very good. But, the show died because it deserved to. It could have been a good show. Unfortunately, it was a very uneven effort.
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
They gave Dollhouse another season because although the people watching the show live were pretty low, the number of people watching the show on DVR, iTunes, and Hulu were big and kept growing. More importantly, Joss convinced them that he could do the show for less money, and had an episode that he'd basically put together for free to seal the deal.
Everyone says it's because Firefly turned out to be huge after the fact, but I doubt that would have swung the guys at Fox if they weren't able to see a real increase in the bottom line.
Oh, sure! Blame Heinlein!
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
We don't watch to see if he survives, we watch to see how he survives
It's the same with a show like this. We know the protagonist isn't going to die, but we watch to see how he manages it.
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