I can't think of many cases before now where a show that had been cancelled & disbanded was brought back on the air, as is supposedly happening now with shows like Family Guy and Futurama.
The notable exception being, again, Star Trek. Well, almost. There was a short-lived animated version in the 1970s, and they almost made it back to TV in the original format several times, most notably Star Trek: Phase II, which was cancelled just before the first day of filming. (The script and sets were subsequently reworked for use in "Star Trek: The Motion Picture", and some of the new cast were retained - although new models, props, uniforms etc. had to be fabricated.)
Y'know, I'm supposed to be an ex-Trekkie. I guess it's impossible to unlearn all this trivia...
I don't know about its air status in the US, but "The Cage" was aired at least once on BBC2 in the early-to-mid-1990s (I have a feeling it was either 1991 or 1996, for the 25th or 30th anniversaries, but I could be wrong). I just chose not to say anything before you chimed in, in case someone decided to mod me "-1, Smartass";-)
For the uninitiated (and there probably aren't many on/.), Star Trek's second pilot (at the time, an unprecedented feat in TV) was called "Where No Man Has Gone Before" and aired as the third episode of the first season. This is why the uniforms, consoles and equipment (and some of the sets) don't match up - although the sets went through a near-constant process of upgrading, so there's a clear but gradual change between "The Man Trap" (the first regular episode) and, say, "Balance of Terror".
OK, I just earned myself 2D10+5 geek points for that little FYI...
There's a lot of stuff in Roddenberry's notes, and I acknowledge that Andromeda was drawn from there. But basically, the Andromeda we have now was made from those notes and updated by other people, and Gene's name was only used as a crowd-puller (i.e. brand recognition for Trekkies).
All I'm saying is, Gene's been dead for over a decade. Isn't it about time TV stopped making shows from his thirty year-old rough drafts? Strikes me as a combination of authorised plagarism (his widow and son are involved in it) and grave robbery...
No, I'm calling it the high point of modern (post-1987, non-theatrical) Trek. Sure, like any show, it had trash and treasure - but it also had some well-made, thoughtful episodes, a reasonably good Dominion War arc, and the lovingly produced 30th anniversary special, "Trials and Tribbleations". Remember, even TOS had "Spock's Brain" - and weighing it up on my favourite episodes, it outshines TNG, Voyager and Enterprise. Of course, DS9 will never be as good as classic Trek...
It's not the best TV scifi ever made, but it beats the pants off Voyager!
(The best recent scifi are the three Fs - Farscape, Firefly and Futurama!)
Shows have survived in syndication with less. There were, if I remember right, 79 episodes of Star Trek (plus the original pilot, which remained unaired til the mid-1990s, although it was released on video around 1984-85) when it went into syndication.
That said - the original Star Trek was a good series. I've seen some Andromeda, and while it looked okay and had the occasional interesting moment (not to mention some impressive visuals and sets - I remember seeing a giant observation deck with a diplomatic function going on), it never hooked me. Probably part of it was that I can't stand Kevin Sorbo - although DeepWater Black's Gordon Michael Wolvett was a welcome addition to the cast, and Lexa Doig is reasonably easy on the eye.
No offence to those who like Andromeda, but I think it's about time people stopped cashing in on Gene Roddenberry's name just to get ratings. (modern Trek's high point was DS9 - since then, it's just been flogging a dead franchise!)
DISCLAIMER: The above views of TV shows are just my opinion. Yours may vary. Remember, opinions are like assholes - kindly stop shoving yours in my face;-)
What's next - day trips to a biohazard site? Oh, wait... that would be a tourist hot zone... and the gift shop would have tshirts reading "I visited a contaminated area and all I got was this lousy ebola"
"Hi, I'm Douglas Coupland. You may remember me from such books as Generation X, Microserfs and All Families are Psychotic" </troy mcclure>;-) The Coupland File, for more info.
... that it runs a *NIX-based OS.
Just imagine how dangerous it could be to have Windows in charge of all that. One blue screen of death and you could start a major international incident!
As parent says, it certainly does look like a hell of a ride. Elena's work is haunting, and as a part-time poet, I find it deeply inspirational.
I'm hoping to write a short series based on some of these memorable images, and will definitely have to try and forward some to Elena when I'm finished!
I thought that was Johnny Ball...
(Come to think of it, how come Johnny Ball Reveals All* got cancelled, and that piece of drivel they call How 2 stays on the air?)
*No, Mr. Smartass. Johnny Ball Reveals All wasn't about a male stripper...
I was holding out to see Richard E. Grant in the role, as he did an excellent job during the recent BBC/Cosgrove Hall co-produced web animation, "Scream of the Shalka".
That said, I'm more interested than disappointed, because I've seen some of Ecclestone's other work and I think he could bring a new perspective to the role. (And I'm also very grateful that the role didn't go to Joanna Lumley. That joke's been done to death since the mid-1980s, and the Comic Relief episode a few years back is as close to that prediction as I want to get!!)
All we need to know now is, who are his new companions?
The quick loadtime is one reason I'm dying to try Linux; I recently used a Knoppix CD and found that it ran much quicker than Windows XP - even when booting into KDE!
I, too, have a funny feeling that this is a move to make people think "Ooh, how useful!" and sneak DRM-compliant BIOS under the radar. Am I hopelessly paranoid, or will the next move be "Sorry, you can't download our trailer/demo/free song/sample chapter PDF unless your OS is DRM-compliant" (read: Windows with new BIOS)? And as other posters have said, will this lead to a proliferation of BIOS-targeting viruses?
Just as an aside, any thoughts on how I should go about making a permanent move to Linux?
I do agree there, that's a good point and something I didn't address. I guess not everyone has the conscience to avoid piracy (the Katie Melua songs I was sent WERE pirated, but I deleted them when I bought the album).
D'you think it would benefit people to make that choice more often? I'm pretty sure it would, for the reasons I outlined.
Generally, I feel that paying for a CD is important because supporting the artist's work means they can continue to produce work - but I'm not a sucker. I buy my CDs at either the supermarket or a chain called Music Zone, because their prices, even on new titles, are very good. My local supermarket had Katie Melua's "Call Off the Search" and Norah Jones's "Home" for GBP9.77 each, and I picked up a Best of Catatonia double album and a Best of Queen triple album for GBP5 each in Music Zone. (And three Blondie re-issues for a fiver each, but they were in the sale...)
And it's not just CDs, either - they give good prices on DVDs too. Music Zone had the extended "Fellowship of the Ring" DVD at something like GBP15 a year ago, and the local supermarket had the same version of "The Two Towers" for GBP20 just before Christmas - in both cases undercutting Amazon, HMV, Virgin etc.
These are not sale prices!
I advocate two things - first, check out a decent supplier. If you're in the UK, there should be a Music Zone store near you. Apparently the way they keep their prices low is that rather than having a delivery to every store from distributors, the stock goes to a central warehouse and they run their own delivery fleet. Dunno how it works, but it works.
Supermarkets can keep their media prices low because they've already got the staff, the floor space, the warehouse space, the distribution network, the EPOS system etc. in place - so their operating overheads are low anyway.
But I digress. The other thing I advocate is listening to BBC Radio 2. Why? Because some of the biggest names in music today got their first play there (including Norah Jones). Their playlist is varied and they do specialist programming in the evenings, so you might find something new and interesting in all that variety!
Just my 2c, for what they're worth. I mean, it works for me this way, but whether it works for you is a different matter. Anyone else got good advice on finding stuff at a decent price?
Just over a year ago, I released my first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, as an experiment in what would happen if I allowed my precious copyright to be slightly eroded by one of the Creative Commons licenses. I chose the most restrictive CC license available to me, staying cautious, and I waited to see if the sky would fall.
Not (just) because I'm a swell guy, a big-hearted slob. Not because Tor is a run by addlepated dot-com refugees who have been sold some snake-oil about the e-book revolution. Because you -- the readers, the slicers, dicers and copiers -- hold in your collective action the secret of the future of publishing. Writers are a dime a dozen. Everybody's got a novel in her or him. Readers are a precious commodity. You've got all the money and all the attention and you run the word-of-mouth network that marks the difference between a little book, soon forgotten, and a book that becomes a lasting piece of posterity for its author, changing the world in some meaningful way.
The long and short? Putting stuff online like Doctorow, like musician George Michael, like Baen Books, or my friend Jules Reid (guitarist, singer-songwriter extraordinaire, English major... if you're in the Liverpool area, please support him! </shameless plug>) gets it out there - it's free advertising.
IMHO, I'm more likely to buy a videogame if I've played a demo version first. The same goes for picking up a dead-trees book, or buying a CD (or, in the near future, using a pay-per-download MP3 service). Sure, some people abuse the system, but it's still a beneficial system.
Going back to Cory Doctorow, for example. I've read his books. I would LOVE to get dead trees copies. I've passed the URLs around my friends, and some of them in the US have bought his books. Not once have I cost him a sale by passing around copies of his work, nor have I cost any other author a sale by telling people about sample chapters online (although I don't always buy the books - I don't like everything I read!). Similarly, a friend sent me a couple of MP3s of a singer called Katie Melua, and I liked her work so much I bought the album.
So, to sum up: my thoughts on media in the digital age are that licenses should be loosened and more made freely available, purely because it allows for word-of-mouth (i.e. free) advertising, and - much like a movie trailer, or putting a track on the radio - if people can see/hear/read/play it for themselves (or a cut-down version thereof; I personally think there needs to be a new kind of web-based movie trailer where you can download a couple of scenes as they appear in the film, or a 5-minute sequence, rather than the jazzy wham-bang 30-second TV trailer), they can judge it for themselves, and if Joe Public finds he likes the album/book/videogame/movie in its sample form, he's more likely to pay for the rest of it.
(Sure, people can read e-books on their PC, but what if they want a book for a flight? And okay, they can burn MP3s off the net to audio CD, but I don't have a comeback for that yet.)
Anyone want to support or refute what I said, or toss their two cents into the ring?
"Lord only knows what"? Well, that's the nicest thing anyone's said about me in the last couple of years.
I dunno how life is where you guys -- sorry, you trolls -- come from, but over here we have something called conversation.
The people with whom I spend my days are somewhat lacking in IQ, spritely repartee, banter, culture... I've learned the hard way that the best attitude towards finding anything special online is healthy scepticism.
On the other hand, it sure wouldn't go amiss to have someone intelligent and literate to talk to. So, sorry to disappoint anyone hoping for something sordid - not my cup of tea.
And also sorry to disappoint re: lack of a homepage. I'm not terribly inclined towards HTML, and everyone knows that "there's no place like 127.0.0.1";-)
We now return you to our scheduled off-topic half-conversation and excessive trolling
That sounds like an offer I can't refuse. Although I'm waiting to get modded off-topic for dragging this out... tell you what, go leave a comment in my journal about where I can find you, and we'll pick this up later on.
No, but Windows just beat me at Battleships:-P
(Well hey, you try doing better without making a Pearl Harbour joke. That would be the fastest way to get modded -1, Tasteless Humour! Meh, how come there are no nice geeks of a female persuasion in my locality to have this kind of fun banter with?)
Well, I could be arrested by the government of Dictatoria for being a capitalist - but if you send me $20,000 to cover the legal fees, we can transfer the accounts into your name and move my assets of $15,000,000 (FIFTEEN MILLION DOLLARS) out of the country. Your fee, as foreign partner, will be 30%; I get 60%; and 10% will be used to cover sundry expenses. Please fax me your bank account details at 555-0419.
Personally, I'm more worried about the US government tracking me down. This morning I saw a black helicopter; any day now they'll find out where I'm hiding, and then I'll be--%20[CARRIER LOST]
Slashdot Mirror
I can see the headlines now:
"Discoverer of Atlantis finds lost city in Pacific, loses 2D6+3 SAN"
What makes this guy so sure he's found Atlantis and not Ry'leh?
Maybe we should make some commercials for archaeological pillaging:
Let's all go to Atlantis, let's all go to Atlantis, let's all go to Atlantiiiiis -- and loot some artifacts!
I can't think of many cases before now where a show that had been cancelled & disbanded was brought back on the air, as is supposedly happening now with shows like Family Guy and Futurama.
The notable exception being, again, Star Trek. Well, almost. There was a short-lived animated version in the 1970s, and they almost made it back to TV in the original format several times, most notably Star Trek: Phase II, which was cancelled just before the first day of filming. (The script and sets were subsequently reworked for use in "Star Trek: The Motion Picture", and some of the new cast were retained - although new models, props, uniforms etc. had to be fabricated.)
Y'know, I'm supposed to be an ex-Trekkie. I guess it's impossible to unlearn all this trivia...
I don't know about its air status in the US, but "The Cage" was aired at least once on BBC2 in the early-to-mid-1990s (I have a feeling it was either 1991 or 1996, for the 25th or 30th anniversaries, but I could be wrong). I just chose not to say anything before you chimed in, in case someone decided to mod me "-1, Smartass" ;-)
/.), Star Trek's second pilot (at the time, an unprecedented feat in TV) was called "Where No Man Has Gone Before" and aired as the third episode of the first season. This is why the uniforms, consoles and equipment (and some of the sets) don't match up - although the sets went through a near-constant process of upgrading, so there's a clear but gradual change between "The Man Trap" (the first regular episode) and, say, "Balance of Terror".
For the uninitiated (and there probably aren't many on
OK, I just earned myself 2D10+5 geek points for that little FYI...
There's a lot of stuff in Roddenberry's notes, and I acknowledge that Andromeda was drawn from there. But basically, the Andromeda we have now was made from those notes and updated by other people, and Gene's name was only used as a crowd-puller (i.e. brand recognition for Trekkies).
All I'm saying is, Gene's been dead for over a decade. Isn't it about time TV stopped making shows from his thirty year-old rough drafts? Strikes me as a combination of authorised plagarism (his widow and son are involved in it) and grave robbery...
No, I'm calling it the high point of modern (post-1987, non-theatrical) Trek. Sure, like any show, it had trash and treasure - but it also had some well-made, thoughtful episodes, a reasonably good Dominion War arc, and the lovingly produced 30th anniversary special, "Trials and Tribbleations". Remember, even TOS had "Spock's Brain" - and weighing it up on my favourite episodes, it outshines TNG, Voyager and Enterprise. Of course, DS9 will never be as good as classic Trek...
It's not the best TV scifi ever made, but it beats the pants off Voyager!
(The best recent scifi are the three Fs - Farscape, Firefly and Futurama!)
Personally, I'm waiting for the obligatory fat sarcastic comic store guy/Simpsons reference.
"Worst. Episode. Ever!" in 5... 4... 3...
Shows have survived in syndication with less. There were, if I remember right, 79 episodes of Star Trek (plus the original pilot, which remained unaired til the mid-1990s, although it was released on video around 1984-85) when it went into syndication.
;-)
That said - the original Star Trek was a good series. I've seen some Andromeda, and while it looked okay and had the occasional interesting moment (not to mention some impressive visuals and sets - I remember seeing a giant observation deck with a diplomatic function going on), it never hooked me. Probably part of it was that I can't stand Kevin Sorbo - although DeepWater Black's Gordon Michael Wolvett was a welcome addition to the cast, and Lexa Doig is reasonably easy on the eye.
No offence to those who like Andromeda, but I think it's about time people stopped cashing in on Gene Roddenberry's name just to get ratings. (modern Trek's high point was DS9 - since then, it's just been flogging a dead franchise!)
DISCLAIMER: The above views of TV shows are just my opinion. Yours may vary. Remember, opinions are like assholes - kindly stop shoving yours in my face
What's next - day trips to a biohazard site? Oh, wait... that would be a tourist hot zone... and the gift shop would have tshirts reading "I visited a contaminated area and all I got was this lousy ebola"
"Hi, I'm Douglas Coupland. You may remember me from such books as Generation X, Microserfs and All Families are Psychotic" ;-)
</troy mcclure>
The Coupland File, for more info.
... that it runs a *NIX-based OS.
Just imagine how dangerous it could be to have Windows in charge of all that. One blue screen of death and you could start a major international incident!
As parent says, it certainly does look like a hell of a ride. Elena's work is haunting, and as a part-time poet, I find it deeply inspirational.
I'm hoping to write a short series based on some of these memorable images, and will definitely have to try and forward some to Elena when I'm finished!
Y'know, I think Jesus had one hell of a lag problem. It took him three days to re-spawn...
I thought that was Johnny Ball...
(Come to think of it, how come Johnny Ball Reveals All* got cancelled, and that piece of drivel they call How 2 stays on the air?)
*No, Mr. Smartass. Johnny Ball Reveals All wasn't about a male stripper...
I was holding out to see Richard E. Grant in the role, as he did an excellent job during the recent BBC/Cosgrove Hall co-produced web animation, "Scream of the Shalka".
That said, I'm more interested than disappointed, because I've seen some of Ecclestone's other work and I think he could bring a new perspective to the role.
(And I'm also very grateful that the role didn't go to Joanna Lumley. That joke's been done to death since the mid-1980s, and the Comic Relief episode a few years back is as close to that prediction as I want to get!!)
All we need to know now is, who are his new companions?
The quick loadtime is one reason I'm dying to try Linux; I recently used a Knoppix CD and found that it ran much quicker than Windows XP - even when booting into KDE!
I, too, have a funny feeling that this is a move to make people think "Ooh, how useful!" and sneak DRM-compliant BIOS under the radar. Am I hopelessly paranoid, or will the next move be "Sorry, you can't download our trailer/demo/free song/sample chapter PDF unless your OS is DRM-compliant" (read: Windows with new BIOS)? And as other posters have said, will this lead to a proliferation of BIOS-targeting viruses?
Just as an aside, any thoughts on how I should go about making a permanent move to Linux?
I do agree there, that's a good point and something I didn't address. I guess not everyone has the conscience to avoid piracy (the Katie Melua songs I was sent WERE pirated, but I deleted them when I bought the album).
D'you think it would benefit people to make that choice more often? I'm pretty sure it would, for the reasons I outlined.
Generally, I feel that paying for a CD is important because supporting the artist's work means they can continue to produce work - but I'm not a sucker. I buy my CDs at either the supermarket or a chain called Music Zone, because their prices, even on new titles, are very good. My local supermarket had Katie Melua's "Call Off the Search" and Norah Jones's "Home" for GBP9.77 each, and I picked up a Best of Catatonia double album and a Best of Queen triple album for GBP5 each in Music Zone. (And three Blondie re-issues for a fiver each, but they were in the sale...)
And it's not just CDs, either - they give good prices on DVDs too. Music Zone had the extended "Fellowship of the Ring" DVD at something like GBP15 a year ago, and the local supermarket had the same version of "The Two Towers" for GBP20 just before Christmas - in both cases undercutting Amazon, HMV, Virgin etc.
These are not sale prices!
I advocate two things - first, check out a decent supplier. If you're in the UK, there should be a Music Zone store near you. Apparently the way they keep their prices low is that rather than having a delivery to every store from distributors, the stock goes to a central warehouse and they run their own delivery fleet. Dunno how it works, but it works.
Supermarkets can keep their media prices low because they've already got the staff, the floor space, the warehouse space, the distribution network, the EPOS system etc. in place - so their operating overheads are low anyway.
But I digress. The other thing I advocate is listening to BBC Radio 2. Why? Because some of the biggest names in music today got their first play there (including Norah Jones). Their playlist is varied and they do specialist programming in the evenings, so you might find something new and interesting in all that variety!
Just my 2c, for what they're worth. I mean, it works for me this way, but whether it works for you is a different matter. Anyone else got good advice on finding stuff at a decent price?
Cory Doctorow's books ( Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom and Eastern Standard Tribe ) were posted online for free under a Creative Commons license, and Cory reckons it had a beneficial effect on his sales.
Don't believe me? Here's one of Cory's blog entries:Another of his blog entries continues this theme:
The long and short? Putting stuff online like Doctorow, like musician George Michael, like Baen Books, or my friend Jules Reid (guitarist, singer-songwriter extraordinaire, English major... if you're in the Liverpool area, please support him! </shameless plug>) gets it out there - it's free advertising.
IMHO, I'm more likely to buy a videogame if I've played a demo version first. The same goes for picking up a dead-trees book, or buying a CD (or, in the near future, using a pay-per-download MP3 service). Sure, some people abuse the system, but it's still a beneficial system.
Going back to Cory Doctorow, for example. I've read his books. I would LOVE to get dead trees copies. I've passed the URLs around my friends, and some of them in the US have bought his books. Not once have I cost him a sale by passing around copies of his work, nor have I cost any other author a sale by telling people about sample chapters online (although I don't always buy the books - I don't like everything I read!). Similarly, a friend sent me a couple of MP3s of a singer called Katie Melua, and I liked her work so much I bought the album.
So, to sum up: my thoughts on media in the digital age are that licenses should be loosened and more made freely available, purely because it allows for word-of-mouth (i.e. free) advertising, and - much like a movie trailer, or putting a track on the radio - if people can see/hear/read/play it for themselves (or a cut-down version thereof; I personally think there needs to be a new kind of web-based movie trailer where you can download a couple of scenes as they appear in the film, or a 5-minute sequence, rather than the jazzy wham-bang 30-second TV trailer), they can judge it for themselves, and if Joe Public finds he likes the album/book/videogame/movie in its sample form, he's more likely to pay for the rest of it.
(Sure, people can read e-books on their PC, but what if they want a book for a flight? And okay, they can burn MP3s off the net to audio CD, but I don't have a comeback for that yet.)
Anyone want to support or refute what I said, or toss their two cents into the ring?
"Lord only knows what"? Well, that's the nicest thing anyone's said about me in the last couple of years.
;-)
I dunno how life is where you guys -- sorry, you trolls -- come from, but over here we have something called conversation.
The people with whom I spend my days are somewhat lacking in IQ, spritely repartee, banter, culture... I've learned the hard way that the best attitude towards finding anything special online is healthy scepticism.
On the other hand, it sure wouldn't go amiss to have someone intelligent and literate to talk to. So, sorry to disappoint anyone hoping for something sordid - not my cup of tea.
And also sorry to disappoint re: lack of a homepage. I'm not terribly inclined towards HTML, and everyone knows that "there's no place like 127.0.0.1"
We now return you to our scheduled off-topic half-conversation and excessive trolling
That sounds like an offer I can't refuse. Although I'm waiting to get modded off-topic for dragging this out... tell you what, go leave a comment in my journal about where I can find you, and we'll pick this up later on.
No, but Windows just beat me at Battleships :-P
(Well hey, you try doing better without making a Pearl Harbour joke. That would be the fastest way to get modded -1, Tasteless Humour! Meh, how come there are no nice geeks of a female persuasion in my locality to have this kind of fun banter with?)
Well, I could be arrested by the government of Dictatoria for being a capitalist - but if you send me $20,000 to cover the legal fees, we can transfer the accounts into your name and move my assets of $15,000,000 (FIFTEEN MILLION DOLLARS) out of the country. Your fee, as foreign partner, will be 30%; I get 60%; and 10% will be used to cover sundry expenses. Please fax me your bank account details at 555-0419.
Personally, I'm more worried about the US government tracking me down. This morning I saw a black helicopter; any day now they'll find out where I'm hiding, and then I'll be--%20[CARRIER LOST]
;-)
Forget the Brooklyn Bridge, why not invest your $20 in my unobtanium-mining pyramid scheme...