RE: the TARDIS has been whacked up like that,
That's actually true to the spirit of said series: remember the series with the mahogany panelled control room with the brass console? The only reason they went back to that swingin' sixties thing is the set was improperly stored, and it warped.
RE: and McGann's Doctor is officially #8 (The
No problems there. I did, however see the BBC thing where they asked who should play the next doctor, and some people actually voted for Rik Mayall and/or Adrian Edmonson. Dear God. Imagine Rik fucking Mayall as the Doctor.
"Oh! Oh! Ow! Vat Dalek shot me wight up my bottom! Wight! Hands up, who likes me. Damn! Oh! Wight! I'm gonna kill myself! Oh, damn. I'd have to do that fouw mowe times. Oh well. Eddie, whewe awe we off to then? (rubs hands)... No we awe NOT going to planet MALIBU!" Christ.
They'd need to do more than that - keep in mind that the latter half of Baker's reign (which went on too long) included some truly dreadful stuff.
You'd have to clone Phillip Hinchcliffe and the various writers from that era, go and hunt down every single living relative of John Nathan-Turner and eliminate his genes from this planet...
(or the ones they used to have)
- Decent writing
- Engaging characters
- Mixture of Baroque/High Victorian charm and high-tech
- Some clever sci-fi/horror hybrids
What they need to get rid of is:
- "fanboy" writing (dear God - let us forget the TV movie! The horror! The horror!)
- Overacting (RADA's finest, at their worst.)
- Reducing people to set pieces
- low budgets (they should remake it with Fox money)
- cameos where the people are demonstrating it's a cameo (e.g. that Richard Briers twit in a Hitler Moustache doing his usual set piece)
Let's face it - there was nothing engaging about the final series nor the TV movie. It was an attempt to do a more action oriented piece without the money. I'd take Tom Baker in a pirate shirt taking someone on in a dimly lit fencing duel in the Phillip Hinchcliffe era, than someone taking out a Dalek with a magic softball bat.
The show had atmosphere and tension and a curious interplay with high tech themed High Victorian Gothic/60s modernist and a main character who was Old World in style but McGyver and the Lone Gunmen when it came down to it. When they started dressing up the doctor in bright tartans and playing the same old "kill the menacing alien" routine, it was over. Where was the Green Death of the 90s? The Brain of Morbius of the 80s?
I think the USA and the BEEB should reconsider a merger, cause Who in its heyday was a GREAT show. They should do the Fish Called Wanda and do it American Money, British writing and acting, not American acting and writing, British money.
RE: Is this coming from a person living in a country that killed and tortured the people who were rightfully there first so they could steal their land?
Yeah, but so what? The fact notwithstanding that I don't originally come from there (I'm from the same socialist paradise you post from), I never did any of these things, Mitsubishi however did. This isn't liberal style "ethnic guilt" e.g. you're white therefore you're a slaver... this is fact.
RE: What of the unctuousness of North America on Nuclear Armaments? A country with a near insatiable demand for slave-made imports?
What's your point?
RE: A country that once enslaved people based on their looks?
So did Canada - beware of getting on your high horse.
RE: A country that locked up anyone who looked Japanese because, well, simply because they looked Japanese?
They locked em up - and treated them fairly well. To my recollection there was no Bataan death march in North America. Nor were they forced into slave labor and killed and tortured.
Would this be the same Mitsubishi that tortured, starved and killed American POW's during WWII? And that refuse to acknowledge their evil deeds? And that arranged with the US government to waive its citizens rights to sue them? Just wondering.
What I would really like is a monitor with an oiled Victorian style wooden case, an ornate, Victorian style wooden box, and a keyboard made out of wood with metal keys from a really really early typewriter (those round button style keys) used in place of the plastic cubey keys... with very thick braided old telephone switchboard cable housing for the cables. Victorian lettering on the front, and big ass brass switches throughout.
There was no difference between a CoCo and a Model 1?
uh....
In some ways, sure... but not so in others. The TRS-80 series (Mod 1, etc) were a different class than the CoCo. No chicklet keyboards on the Mod series, for starters...
How is this a troll? Tentacle pr0n has been
a part of Japanese culture for ages. Given the Slashdotian interest in warped pr0n like that, it seems like a perfect match of interests. I wish I had a dollar for every time there was some Elfin-half-human-half wombat three quarters naked anime bondage tentacle pr0n chick on some slash-geek page.
A blanket statement. The McGill student ghetto crowd loves em. Hey, in the St. Denis area a guy can walk down the street in a sarong and noone bats an eyelid. Go east of Berri and try it, though, amongst the various pure-laine butt-rocker types and unwashed Quebecois squeegee punks. "Hostie de tapette, tabarnak!"
RE: and the Quebec gov encourages other cities to do the same.
Sez who? Not Lucien "we pure laine people must be having more babies" Bouchard. Certainly not Jaques "thanks you ethnics" Parizeau. Quebec's government loves the idea of culture, so long as it is pure laine, classic Quebecois language, pure laine, classic Quebecois heritage, etc.
RE: pow(2,n);/* where n is the number of generations from mine. ex: 4 grand-parents */
Just that you listed four nationalities.
RE: I don't recall saying I was.. Anyways, human genetical diversity is good.
I agree. According to many parts of Quebec, no.
RE: I havent yet explained my political views, only described my thoughts on multi-ethnicity in Quebec.
Sure you have. Quebec's official policy is you're very welcome so long as you already speak French, and intend to completely assimilate. You've declared yourself as a Montrealer and interested in multiple heritages, which is a political stance in La Belle Province.
RE: I think you're forgetting that the city of Montreal keeps talking about how proud they are about their multi-ethnic status,
Montreal has also talked about seceding from Quebec if Quebec secedes from Canada. You're doing the equivalent of an American saying "yes, I know all about Canada. I stayed a couple of days in Toronto." Head up to Beauharnois or Riviere-De-Loup.
RE: and how the government keeps applying pressure to send immigrants to smaller cities (Sherbrooke, Quebec City, etc.)
a) The immigrants don't want to go (they only speak French in Quebec City!) b) the Quebecois pure laine ethnic purity before everything types in the banlieues don't want em.
RE: I was told that the people here are dumb and close-minded, but a massive amount of Arabs,
Like from French speaking Algeria...
RE: Africans,
Many parts of Africa speak French
RE: Also, Quebec doesn't have a strong and invasive culture as the United-States, so merging cultures is much easier.
Well according to Bernard Landry we don't have any culture, period, and according to Lise Beaudoin France isn't French enough. To which I say relocate em ALL to Rimouski, wall em in with enough creton, Pepsi and Jos Louis and cigarettes to keep em for life. They can apply for Canadian government grants to play the spoons or whatever and keep their "Habitant" culture alive.
RE: p.s. I have a lebanese name/origin, I am also from italian, irish and quebecois origin.
Wow. How many parents did you have?
RE: I'm what you could call a "pure-Montrealer", since one of my parents is francophone, and the other anglophone; both are from different religions. Beat that;)
Then you're not pure laine. According to Parizeau it's your fault for ruining the separatist election.
RE: Pardon me, but it's the business's decision to whom they cater, not being forced by the Government.
Not according to Bill 101.
RE: Just as someone pointed out, what if a bookstore with only English Language books, for all those who wanted to learn English or knew English and wanted to read, setup shop there?
It would be required by law to be called "Librarie Anglaise Hendrickson" and have signs twice as large in French as in English inside - CUISINE cooking: with police coming in with rulers to check the font sizes.
RE: Forcing them to spend more money on something they won't use is just hurting the business, which will hurt the government with lost taxes.
Thanks to Trudeau, Quebec is in essence a welfare state leeching off English Canada. It does not require internal taxes - it gets "transfer payments" from the rest of Canada, who pays taxes to subsidise this fascism.
RE: Any Government which legislates mandatory restrictions on how people can speak, deal business, and live, to the point that it has to be this certain way and no other, has come down to the point of being a Fascist State. And that is not a State of which I would be proud.
RE: How many Canadians do you see wrapping themselves in the American flags saying "Praise the Lord, pass me my gun"?
Me and many other brain-drainers who took Chretien up on his oft-repeated line "hiff you doan like hawl dem tax, den you can leaf for da younited state."
I'll leave your schizophrenic (Albertan fundamentalists on one side, Quebecois militants on theother), rights-removing, tax-fattened, opportunity starved, falling to pieces by the day socialist paradise.
RE: So basically you're saying that the inclusion of any female in any action show is sensationalist and that all female action stars are there merely as sex objects?
Right. The inclusion of Jeri Ryan was a plot device to advance DS9 to high art. The fact that she's one of the few women who don't require Federation Standard Issue Padding in the chest area had nothing to do with it. The fact that they knew the geek hordes would start trading her picture in terabytes over the Internet the moment she was cast - come on, how chauvinist. They were only interested in her for her splendid acting ability - noone else does that Borg monotone so well!
Let me ask ya this. That woman on the Lone Gunmen. Or even the stripper on "FPS" in X files. Were they REALLY necessary? No. They were eye-candy of the most offensive, objectifying sort.
The day they render Lara Croft as a 230 lb woman with acne, we'll talk.
I was referring to the perspectives of media buyers. Not to the average public.
"Stereotypes of what Geeks are like (not good writers),"
Hollywood wants a 90 minute script, crisis at the 45 minutes mark, boy gets girl in the end, preferably with explosions and jiggling boobs. There's actually a template they expect you to follow. Unless you're doing "art" pictures or "independant" cinema, in which case you aren't in Hollywood.
RE: and what they like (boring details about the evolution of life on planets 1.4 times the gravity of Earth with a Methane atmosphere).
Most people like sci-fi when it's cowboys and indians, but zargs vs. zoombas in fast rocket ships. That's why Star Trek (white hat Federation, black hat enemy-of-the-series, we're riding on the range, oops in the Federation space on the star cruiser, long range scanner indicates injuns whoops I mean Klingons/Borg/Ferengi/whatever, lots of lasers, cap'n we've got a problem, just "remodulate the frequency..." FIRE! BLAM take us outa here.) did well. And why Babylon 5 was inaccessible to most people.
RE: Sterotypes of what Hollywood Screenwriters are like (cocaine-snorting yes-men cranking out mindless drivel)."
Oh, I'm sorry, you're so right. They're all English majors, attempting the next version of Citizen Kane. WRONG. They're looking for proven formula of this month, and then to patch a few relatively original ideas onto it. e.g. There's Something about Mary begat Tomcats begat Freddy Got Fingered. OR Saving Private Ryan begat Pearl Harbor will beget another bunch of WWII films...
From the perspective of a media buyer, yes, all geeks who write are boring. You might find Asimov and Stephenson riveting, but the average slopehead would rather see the relatively more to-his-cerebral tastes Mad TV, or something. Whether or not something is visual or not is immaterial. Remember, Gibson wrote Aliens III, and they rejected it. Something about not having enough money on the planet to do the special effects he envisoned, or something. He was ranting on about the Aliens being some kind of death force to counteract the life force, whereas most people just wanted to see Jigglin' Sigourney waste some bugs.
RE: Why, for instance, is every single gay character depicted as a clean, good-hearted, middle-class, sassy best-friend type?
Consider the tightrope you walk on this one (don't count Showtime's show). Make the guy in ANY way some kind of freak (leather, whips etc) and the Falwell crowd will go more psycho than normal. They're probably writing letters just for having the nice sassy clean upper-middle class neighbour with a cat.
Make the guy evil, insulting, gross, stereotypical in a nasty way, whatever, and you get to deal with the same Politically Correct hordes that shut down Dr. Laura (rightly). And shut down they did.
This particular community LIKES being portrayed as clean-cut, affluent, upper middle class and excitingly interesting. Why not cater to em?
The thing about Survivor IV: Boot Camp on Temptation island is that like Cops, Cannibal Pets Attack part IV, whatever...
They get FAT ratings, and they're cheap to make. Let's face it, the participants are HOPING to win $1,000,000. On some shows *cough FRIENDS cough* they expect that per actor per episode.
This is cable, not network TV. They operate by different rules - if the channel is "all yoga, all the time" or whatever, then a show on yoga is to be geared to people interested in yoga, so you're cut some slack.
I haven't seen Invisible Man, but I'll check it out.
Fox really doesn't have that same luxury - they're pitching a show based on the population as a whole, not a subset interested in X.
This also explains why stereotypes ABOUND on network TV.
Consider how much time you have for a show. Not long (assume 30 minutes). Now. Remove time for credits on both sides (we're left with 25 minutes, say), and commercials. You have about 16 minutes in which to construct a story, set it up, let it roll, wrap it up, and move on.
This explains why, for example, if you need a drug dealer, you don't have a clean cut white kid, and then waste three minutes explaining how he got into selling drugs. And even then, half the audience will drool into its cheetos cause you didn't put "THIS GUY IS A DRUG DEALER" in ten inch high letters on his shirt. You're supposed to have a sleazy looking, shifty eyed hispanic guy in a hairnet with a pistol going "chu wan coke, mon?" 10 seconds guaranteed, vs three minutes, maybe. You think assembly language coders strive for efficiency in clock cycles, you ain't seen network TV.
Slashdot Mirror
RE: the TARDIS has been whacked up like that, That's actually true to the spirit of said series: remember the series with the mahogany panelled control room with the brass console? The only reason they went back to that swingin' sixties thing is the set was improperly stored, and it warped.
RE: and McGann's Doctor is officially #8 (The
No problems there. I did, however see the BBC thing where they asked who should play the next doctor, and some people actually voted for Rik Mayall and/or Adrian Edmonson. Dear God. Imagine Rik fucking Mayall as the Doctor.
"Oh! Oh! Ow! Vat Dalek shot me wight up my bottom! Wight! Hands up, who likes me. Damn! Oh! Wight! I'm gonna kill myself! Oh, damn. I'd have to do that fouw mowe times. Oh well. Eddie, whewe awe we off to then? (rubs hands)... No we awe NOT going to planet MALIBU!" Christ.
They'd need to do more than that - keep in mind that the latter half of Baker's reign (which went on too long) included some truly dreadful stuff.
You'd have to clone Phillip Hinchcliffe and the various writers from that era, go and hunt down every single living relative of John Nathan-Turner and eliminate his genes from this planet...
(or the ones they used to have)
- Decent writing
- Engaging characters
- Mixture of Baroque/High Victorian charm and high-tech
- Some clever sci-fi/horror hybrids
What they need to get rid of is:
- "fanboy" writing (dear God - let us forget the TV movie! The horror! The horror!)
- Overacting (RADA's finest, at their worst.)
- Reducing people to set pieces
- low budgets (they should remake it with Fox money)
- cameos where the people are demonstrating it's a cameo (e.g. that Richard Briers twit in a Hitler Moustache doing his usual set piece)
Let's face it - there was nothing engaging about the final series nor the TV movie. It was an attempt to do a more action oriented piece without the money. I'd take Tom Baker in a pirate shirt taking someone on in a dimly lit fencing duel in the Phillip Hinchcliffe era, than someone taking out a Dalek with a magic softball bat.
The show had atmosphere and tension and a curious interplay with high tech themed High Victorian Gothic/60s modernist and a main character who was Old World in style but McGyver and the Lone Gunmen when it came down to it. When they started dressing up the doctor in bright tartans and playing the same old "kill the menacing alien" routine, it was over. Where was the Green Death of the 90s? The Brain of Morbius of the 80s?
I think the USA and the BEEB should reconsider a merger, cause Who in its heyday was a GREAT show. They should do the Fish Called Wanda and do it American Money, British writing and acting, not American acting and writing, British money.
RE: Is this coming from a person living in a country that killed and tortured the people who were rightfully there first so they could steal their land?
Yeah, but so what? The fact notwithstanding that I don't originally come from there (I'm from the same socialist paradise you post from), I never did any of these things, Mitsubishi however did. This isn't liberal style "ethnic guilt" e.g. you're white therefore you're a slaver... this is fact.
RE: What of the unctuousness of North America on Nuclear Armaments? A country with a near insatiable demand for slave-made imports?
What's your point?
RE: A country that once enslaved people based on their looks?
So did Canada - beware of getting on your high horse.
RE: A country that locked up anyone who looked Japanese because, well, simply because they looked Japanese?
They locked em up - and treated them fairly well. To my recollection there was no Bataan death march in North America. Nor were they forced into slave labor and killed and tortured.
Would this be the same Mitsubishi that tortured, starved and killed American POW's during WWII? And that refuse to acknowledge their evil deeds? And that arranged with the US government to waive its citizens rights to sue them? Just wondering.
What I would really like is a monitor with an oiled Victorian style wooden case, an ornate, Victorian style wooden box, and a keyboard made out of wood with metal keys from a really really early typewriter (those round button style keys) used in place of the plastic cubey keys... with very thick braided old telephone switchboard cable housing for the cables. Victorian lettering on the front, and big ass brass switches throughout.
There was no difference between a CoCo and a Model 1?
uh....
In some ways, sure... but not so in others. The TRS-80 series (Mod 1, etc) were a different class than the CoCo. No chicklet keyboards on the Mod series, for starters...
So, uh, what was that you were saying about not trying to fake old-school cool???
He's differentiating between the Color Computer (CoCo) (a TRS-80) and the TRS-80 model 1... another TRS-80 model.
One was aimed at the home computing market, the other was a "business machine" (with accompanying price tag)
How is this a troll? Tentacle pr0n has been a part of Japanese culture for ages. Given the Slashdotian interest in warped pr0n like that, it seems like a perfect match of interests. I wish I had a dollar for every time there was some Elfin-half-human-half wombat three quarters naked anime bondage tentacle pr0n chick on some slash-geek page.
Animated Tentacle Pr0n generator v 2.0
And a slew of imitators...
And you thought there were too many WINDOW MANAGERS...
RE: I said that Montreal loves multi-ethnicity,
/* where n is the number of generations from mine. ex: 4 grand-parents */
A blanket statement. The McGill student ghetto crowd loves em. Hey, in the St. Denis area a guy can walk down the street in a sarong and noone bats an eyelid. Go east of Berri and try it, though, amongst the various pure-laine butt-rocker types and unwashed Quebecois squeegee punks. "Hostie de tapette, tabarnak!"
RE: and the Quebec gov encourages other cities to do the same.
Sez who? Not Lucien "we pure laine people must be having more babies" Bouchard. Certainly not Jaques "thanks you ethnics" Parizeau. Quebec's government loves the idea of culture, so long as it is pure laine, classic Quebecois language, pure laine, classic Quebecois heritage, etc.
RE: pow(2,n);
Just that you listed four nationalities.
RE: I don't recall saying I was.. Anyways, human genetical diversity is good.
I agree. According to many parts of Quebec, no.
RE: I havent yet explained my political views, only described my thoughts on multi-ethnicity in Quebec.
Sure you have. Quebec's official policy is you're very welcome so long as you already speak French, and intend to completely assimilate. You've declared yourself as a Montrealer and interested in multiple heritages, which is a political stance in La Belle Province.
RE: I think you're forgetting that the city of Montreal keeps talking about how proud they are about their multi-ethnic status,
;)
Montreal has also talked about seceding from Quebec if Quebec secedes from Canada. You're doing the equivalent of an American saying "yes, I know all about Canada. I stayed a couple of days in Toronto." Head up to Beauharnois or Riviere-De-Loup.
RE: and how the government keeps applying pressure to send immigrants to smaller cities (Sherbrooke, Quebec City, etc.)
a) The immigrants don't want to go (they only speak French in Quebec City!) b) the Quebecois pure laine ethnic purity before everything types in the banlieues don't want em.
RE: I was told that the people here are dumb and close-minded, but a massive amount of Arabs,
Like from French speaking Algeria...
RE: Africans,
Many parts of Africa speak French RE: Also, Quebec doesn't have a strong and invasive culture as the United-States, so merging cultures is much easier.
Well according to Bernard Landry we don't have any culture, period, and according to Lise Beaudoin France isn't French enough. To which I say relocate em ALL to Rimouski, wall em in with enough creton, Pepsi and Jos Louis and cigarettes to keep em for life. They can apply for Canadian government grants to play the spoons or whatever and keep their "Habitant" culture alive.
RE: p.s. I have a lebanese name/origin, I am also from italian, irish and quebecois origin.
Wow. How many parents did you have?
RE: I'm what you could call a "pure-Montrealer", since one of my parents is francophone, and the other anglophone; both are from different religions. Beat that
Then you're not pure laine. According to Parizeau it's your fault for ruining the separatist election.
RE: Pardon me, but it's the business's decision to whom they cater, not being forced by the Government.
Not according to Bill 101.
RE: Just as someone pointed out, what if a bookstore with only English Language books, for all those who wanted to learn English or knew English and wanted to read, setup shop there?
It would be required by law to be called "Librarie Anglaise Hendrickson" and have signs twice as large in French as in English inside - CUISINE cooking: with police coming in with rulers to check the font sizes.
RE: Forcing them to spend more money on something they won't use is just hurting the business, which will hurt the government with lost taxes.
Thanks to Trudeau, Quebec is in essence a welfare state leeching off English Canada. It does not require internal taxes - it gets "transfer payments" from the rest of Canada, who pays taxes to subsidise this fascism.
RE: Any Government which legislates mandatory restrictions on how people can speak, deal business, and live, to the point that it has to be this certain way and no other, has come down to the point of being a Fascist State. And that is not a State of which I would be proud.
Which explains the exodus from Quebec.
I believe you would be told "this is a French country, learn the language, or leave. Preferably, leave."
Keep in mind those folks like to be as ethnically pure as possible. While collecting tax money from those they so despise.
RE: How many Canadians do you see wrapping themselves in the American flags saying "Praise the Lord, pass me my gun"?
Me and many other brain-drainers who took Chretien up on his oft-repeated line "hiff you doan like hawl dem tax, den you can leaf for da younited state."
I'll leave your schizophrenic (Albertan fundamentalists on one side, Quebecois militants on theother), rights-removing, tax-fattened, opportunity starved, falling to pieces by the day socialist paradise.
RE: So basically you're saying that the inclusion of any female in any action show is sensationalist and that all female action stars are there merely as sex objects?
Right. The inclusion of Jeri Ryan was a plot device to advance DS9 to high art. The fact that she's one of the few women who don't require Federation Standard Issue Padding in the chest area had nothing to do with it. The fact that they knew the geek hordes would start trading her picture in terabytes over the Internet the moment she was cast - come on, how chauvinist. They were only interested in her for her splendid acting ability - noone else does that Borg monotone so well!
Let me ask ya this. That woman on the Lone Gunmen. Or even the stripper on "FPS" in X files. Were they REALLY necessary? No. They were eye-candy of the most offensive, objectifying sort.
The day they render Lara Croft as a 230 lb woman with acne, we'll talk.
I was referring to the perspectives of media buyers. Not to the average public.
"Stereotypes of what Geeks are like (not good writers),"
Hollywood wants a 90 minute script, crisis at the 45 minutes mark, boy gets girl in the end, preferably with explosions and jiggling boobs. There's actually a template they expect you to follow. Unless you're doing "art" pictures or "independant" cinema, in which case you aren't in Hollywood.
RE: and what they like (boring details about the evolution of life on planets 1.4 times the gravity of Earth with a Methane atmosphere).
Most people like sci-fi when it's cowboys and indians, but zargs vs. zoombas in fast rocket ships. That's why Star Trek (white hat Federation, black hat enemy-of-the-series, we're riding on the range, oops in the Federation space on the star cruiser, long range scanner indicates injuns whoops I mean Klingons/Borg/Ferengi/whatever, lots of lasers, cap'n we've got a problem, just "remodulate the frequency..." FIRE! BLAM take us outa here.) did well. And why Babylon 5 was inaccessible to most people.
RE: Sterotypes of what Hollywood Screenwriters are like (cocaine-snorting yes-men cranking out mindless drivel)."
Oh, I'm sorry, you're so right. They're all English majors, attempting the next version of Citizen Kane. WRONG. They're looking for proven formula of this month, and then to patch a few relatively original ideas onto it. e.g. There's Something about Mary begat Tomcats begat Freddy Got Fingered. OR Saving Private Ryan begat Pearl Harbor will beget another bunch of WWII films...
People don't want risk. They want to get paid.
From the perspective of a media buyer, yes, all geeks who write are boring. You might find Asimov and Stephenson riveting, but the average slopehead would rather see the relatively more to-his-cerebral tastes Mad TV, or something. Whether or not something is visual or not is immaterial. Remember, Gibson wrote Aliens III, and they rejected it. Something about not having enough money on the planet to do the special effects he envisoned, or something. He was ranting on about the Aliens being some kind of death force to counteract the life force, whereas most people just wanted to see Jigglin' Sigourney waste some bugs.
1) Most != All
2) Stephenson, Gibson, etc. write interesting stuff, but it doesn't translate well to TV.
Manboobs don't sell ANY beer whatsoever.
Oh great. Now I've got that image of Eric S Raymond in a latex penguin suit someone described a while back in my head again.
Not exactly the diet plan I had in mind.
RE: Why, for instance, is every single gay character depicted as a clean, good-hearted, middle-class, sassy best-friend type?
Consider the tightrope you walk on this one (don't count Showtime's show). Make the guy in ANY way some kind of freak (leather, whips etc) and the Falwell crowd will go more psycho than normal. They're probably writing letters just for having the nice sassy clean upper-middle class neighbour with a cat.
Make the guy evil, insulting, gross, stereotypical in a nasty way, whatever, and you get to deal with the same Politically Correct hordes that shut down Dr. Laura (rightly). And shut down they did.
This particular community LIKES being portrayed as clean-cut, affluent, upper middle class and excitingly interesting. Why not cater to em?
The thing about Survivor IV: Boot Camp on Temptation island is that like Cops, Cannibal Pets Attack part IV, whatever...
They get FAT ratings, and they're cheap to make. Let's face it, the participants are HOPING to win $1,000,000. On some shows *cough FRIENDS cough* they expect that per actor per episode.
This is cable, not network TV. They operate by different rules - if the channel is "all yoga, all the time" or whatever, then a show on yoga is to be geared to people interested in yoga, so you're cut some slack.
I haven't seen Invisible Man, but I'll check it out.
Fox really doesn't have that same luxury - they're pitching a show based on the population as a whole, not a subset interested in X.
Hence the rules, above.
This also explains why stereotypes ABOUND on network TV.
Consider how much time you have for a show. Not long (assume 30 minutes). Now. Remove time for credits on both sides (we're left with 25 minutes, say), and commercials. You have about 16 minutes in which to construct a story, set it up, let it roll, wrap it up, and move on.
This explains why, for example, if you need a drug dealer, you don't have a clean cut white kid, and then waste three minutes explaining how he got into selling drugs. And even then, half the audience will drool into its cheetos cause you didn't put "THIS GUY IS A DRUG DEALER" in ten inch high letters on his shirt. You're supposed to have a sleazy looking, shifty eyed hispanic guy in a hairnet with a pistol going "chu wan coke, mon?" 10 seconds guaranteed, vs three minutes, maybe. You think assembly language coders strive for efficiency in clock cycles, you ain't seen network TV.