Slashdot Mirror
New Red Dwarf Series Threatened By the Twitter Era
An anonymous reader writes "The announcement that the new series of Red Dwarf is likely to be shot in front of a studio audience, which hasn't happened for the show since 1998, has made one of the show's actors wary of the practicality of it. Commenting on his blog, Robert Llewellyn, who plays servile robot Kryten in the hit British SF comedy show notes: 'The fear among the producers now is that it's impossible to imagine an audience of around 400 people at the recording of a TV show like Red Dwarf, where nobody does a bit of a hint on Twitter, or sneaks a picture on Facebook or posts a bit of badly shot video on YouTube.'"
How far into retardoland can these fucks get? It's like "oh no, artists can't do tours anymore since anyone can post their performance online".
fucktard is a tenderhearted description
All Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube posts will do is generate extra hype for the show at no extra cost to the producers. No one is going to watch a shitty YouTube cell phone capture instead of the actual show. Free advertising is always good and word of mouth is extremely valuable. If someone sees a commercial for a TV show they just file that away with all the other advertising they ignore. If they get the pitch from someone they know or better someone with similar interests they're way more likely to pay attention. If I was making a TV show I'd beg my audience to talk about it on every channel they had available.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Red Dwarf is a classic Sci Fi series and something I grew up on and still enjoy today, but it is clearly a series that doesn't work any more. They tried to revive it before when they did a mini series and it was by far the worst episode(s) of the entire thing.
People always cry for remakes and updated versions of older TV series, but some things just don't work in the current climate. Doctor Who is a prime example of a TV series that doesn't work in the modern climate, so when it was brought back it was massively retoned to suit modern TV. But Red Dwarf can't be retoned, when they tried it, it just didn't work. Some times you just need a budget of £10 an episode and a dude wearing a spandex suit rather than massive CGI scenes and unlimited funds.
Red Dwarf is an all time classic and something I hope anything I spawn will get to watch and enjoy as I did, but it feels like the actors have no careers any more (especially Craig Charles, who is now badly dubbing Japanese game shows for cable channels) and just want to milk sucess 30 years ago.
I like muppets.
The WWF (now WWE) has had to deal with this for ages, as their shows are often broadcast days after they're actually performed.
Their solution? Do jack shit.
The fans who don't want to be spoiled, don't look up the spoilers.
The fans who do, do.
Nobody really loses out unless someone on the cast has an unexplained need for secrecy. This isn't Survivor.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Except that the perceived downfall of Red Dwarf ties in with the omission of the studio audience.
It has long been touted by comedy writers such as Richard Curtis (Blackadder) that a studio audience gives them a very solid gauge of what is working and gives them feedback on how things could be done better.
Plus, news that "there will be a new series of Red Dwarf" is one for the TV websites. A story on a technology site about concerns about social media accessibility and it's effect on TV series production is totally appropriate in my view.
And yet The IT Crowd somehow manages to survive being shot in front of an audience of geeks.
The types of people that will read about the episodes on twitter or watch terrible videos from the audiance on youtube are the same types of people that will watch an episode 15x so they can come to work and annoy me with sad quotes. Then they'll buy your show on DVD, the "Editors edition" DVD, the "Extended cuts" DVD and then the box set.
I always thought viral marketing was a good thing?
The people watching are fans the people seeking out the sneak peeks, virals, bloopers, etc are also fans. Its not like they are going to loose anything by letting this stuff get out. Most fan sites are good about hiding "spoilers" for those that don't want to know..and for those that do all it does is generate hype and buzz...which usually is something niche programming clamors for.