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BSG Prequel Series Caprica Canceled
Kethinov writes "The sci-fi TV series Caprica, a prequel spinoff from Battlestar Galactica, was just canceled by the Syfy channel. In response to the cancellation and the recent theme of many similar good sci-fi shows getting canceled over the last few years, I've written an editorial arguing that Caprica's cancellation reflects the decreasing sustainability of the cable TV business model. A better, more modern business model could have saved Caprica from cancellation. If this model is adopted in the future, it could save many other similar niche genre shows from the same fate down the road." Another perspective here might be that a boring, ponderous show got yoinked because nobody watched it. Just sayin'.
It could also have to do with HUGE break between the first half of the season and the second... Just sayin'
"You're awefully cute, but unfortunately for you, you're made of meat."
But like the summary says, it turned in to a boring show where they tried character development, but it just fell on its face. It was just about at the level of a plain drama with a little peppering of sci-fi.
Now SyFy shows wrestling on Friday nights. I won't say that's better than Caprica, but it must be paying the bills...
Instead of relaxing like I've done for the last 10+ years - watching SciFi channel on Friday nights (where did GvsE, Lexx, Brimstone, Dresden Files, Farscape, etc go?), I'm now doing other things with my Fridays... I'm not going to watch wrestling. Talk about fiction!
Subby's a moron. His blog starts out: "Suppose for a moment that I had been CEO of NBC Universal at the time Caprica was picked up in 2008. If I had been CEO at that time, then Caprica would not have been canceled during its first season two years later because it would have been one of the many thriving, profitable properties owned by NBC Universal."
You personally would have managed NBC better than NBC itself? According to your blog, you're a web programmer at Paypal. Maybe you need to check that ego and realize that you don't have a clue what you're talking about. Why does Slashdot link to this crap?
Same here. The writers lost my respect and interest with their handling of the latter portion of BSG and in particular the finale. As a result I never cared to watch Caprica and actively ignored it. If any sizable portion of the viewership felt the same way, that would account quite well for the lack of viewership.
I know that there are folks who enjoy wrestling as much as I enjoy sci-fi/fantasy but never made sense to me that they'd stick them both on the same channel. I don't know if they just needed *any* channel to air it and it was purely economical but I can imagine some exec thinking, "Well, the demographic for sci-fi/fantasy is mainly male. Therefore, they will like wrestling." I recently canceled all but the most basic cable and Internet after realizing that every time I wanted to watch something on sci-fi I found either some idiotic ghost busters reality show or wrestling.
Caprica wasn't bad. Wasn't the best thing on TV, but wasn't bad. But, much like BSG, SyFY didn't know what to do with it and tried to milk it for all it was worth and killed it in the process.
Stupid, stupid stunts like calling NINE SHOWS a "season" and postponing new shows for almost a YEAR. Who can follow a complicated story arc after that?
And horrible, horrible publicity. In 1978, many people enjoyed the Cylon ride at Universal Studios. Although there were a few billboards and a window painting in Hollywood during BSG 2003's last season, and the Vanity Fair spread was a nice touch, often it seemed that BSG was the bastard child of Universal. Even though BSG was owned by Universal, there was NO promotion of BSG when I went to Universal Studios during season 4! A golden opportunity to promote a show in a venue that people from all over the country visit, and there was NOTHING for BSG except in a privately owned comic store on the Citywalk. Lousy, lousy promotion. Yet disposable crap like the "Mutant Shark of the Week" or whatever is everywhere.
It is obvious that SyFy has no clue whatsoever what to do when it somehow stumbles on decent programming. Even as the critics were raving about BSG being "the best thing on TV" Universal/SciFi did not know how to pitch it, nor did they seem to want to try.
Yes, it was flawed. I liked it in spite of that, perhaps even for some of those flaws. Yes, it could frustrating, yes, much of the characters were not likeable or identifyable (no "everyman" character). But it was trying to do something, really, it was. The acting and production values were top-notch, and they really did delve into all manner of interesting topics for debate, from morality to philosophy to the nature of humanity. And we just got one payoff this week, a nice action sequence with a cylon followed by an iconic phrase ("by your command") at the end. I guess we can re-edit that scene to be syfy headquarters. I'll miss caprica. It was the last reason I had to tune into the pathetic shell that occupies what was once the Sci-fi channel.
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
It's much harder to make it work, in terms of continuity, without an overall plan. Try watching all of Babylon 5, and there are things foreshadowed in the first season that didn't get explained until years later. Apparently even the episode writers didn't always know what they meant - JMS had an overall plan for the series and would make the writers add little parts of it to each episode.
That said, you also have to be adaptable. You can also see some things foreshadowed early on in B5 that never happen, typically because the relevant actor quit the show, but sometimes because the network messed them around and they had to delete bits from the overall arc to fit the major story in. With the final five in BSG, even if they had had an overall plan, they'd probably want to revise it based on feedback. If all of the fans are obsessed with the final five, and the series ends without mentioning them other than to say 'yup, they were rubbish, we boxed them, it's a bit embarrassing' then fans would have been disappointed.
Unfortunately, BSG managed to get itself into a state around season 4 where any ending would be unsatisfactory. An overall plan can help avoid that kind of situation, but only if it's very carefully thought out.
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That's what TNT thought in 1998 when they acquired Babylon 5. "Well we have lots of wrestling fans, who are male, so they'll probably like a male-oreinted sci-fi show."
What they forgot to take into account is IQ. While the demos are the same (males 35 or younger), the IQ is not. Wrestling fans tend to be less educated while Scifi fans are college educated, or college-destined. The two have some overlap but not much. Result: B5 fans did not watch the wrestling that immediately followed it, and Wrestling fans did not watch the scifi show that preceded.
It appears NBC/Sci-Fi is making the same error.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
What was wrong with the finale?
How about the "we are the last of our race and fighting for survival", then dropping everyone on a planet and abandoning all their technology. They didn't even strip the fleet for shelter and hunting/farming implements. Or... we have shuttles that can land anywhere on the planet, but we're going to drop you in a field and make you walk for miles to a place suitable restart civilization?
The show was canceled and the writers were done. They just half-assed the finale to wrap things up.
Another day, another update to a Google android app.
But endings are impossible. You try to tie up every loose end, but you never can.
And yet, despite all the issues around season 4/5 production, JMS still managed to tie up almost every loose end in Babylon 5 (even if you didn't realise it, because he tied some of them up several series earlier).
Most of the Star Trek series finished with some sort of decent final story arc.
Both SG1 and SGA finished quite neatly (and wrapped up the loose ends of the main story arc with an actually decent TV movie in the former case).
It can be done. Not all TV shows have to be BSG (or Lost, or FlashForward, or...), meandering aimlessly through forever in the hope that the writers will come up with something eventually.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.