Whats wrong with Network scifi

[MarshAngel]

I think you'd need to see the whole show (Invasion) to see what a complete change it made in the second half. Many of the things that were annoying in the first half (Larkin, Rose, Dave) were minimized significantly in the second half and the things that were good (Sheriff Underlay, Mariel) really took the lead. I understand most people, with good reason, wouldn't stick around waiting for that to happen, but if we're going to be talk about the show as a whole, it's only fair that the whole season be examined. It just didn't turn out quite as bad as it began.

I wasn't wowed with the beginning either, but I liked the concept so I stuck it out. Most people don't. And as a writer you can't depend on the audience sticking around so you can fix the mistakes after getting a feel for the audience. By then you've lost the audience and the drooling network execs are hovering over your neck with the axe.

Perhaps a new method is needed. Maybe scifi shows would benefit from being introduced during the spring/summer with an intentionally short season or mini series like they did with Medium and The 4400. That way they can get a feel for the audience, see if they want it continue, what changes they need to make etc. without wasting lots of cash producing episodes they'll never air, and disappointing fans.

If the recent examples are any indication, Scifi simply doesn't draw the huge audiences to compete against other network successes that premier in the fall. So why force them to compete at all? Go for shorter seasons in the summer.

[ShadowMaat]

Yeah, but that's what I mean- shows have to be good right off the bat, or they at least have to show some POTENTIAL to be good so that audiences stick around. I found the first ep so detestable that I refused to watch any more and every commercial I saw for it only confirmed for me that I would hate it.

I'm not saying you have to drop everything in our laps from Day 1, but you have to give audiences a hook- something they can sink their teeth into that will give them a reason to keep coming back. Lost accomplished that by building up a complex mystery and dropping just enough breadcrumbs to keep us curious. The characters were realistic and we were given some "tells" to show us that even the characters who seemed cliched or obvious still had secrets and depths of their own.

Invasion, on the other hand, was shallow shallow shallow: what you saw was what you got and you could predict the behavior of the characters based on the ten million other characters you'd seen who behaved in the exact same ways, sometimes right down to the dialogue.

Surface was a lot like that, too, actually. I loved the show dearly, but most of the time Surface was all surface and the characters were so unwaveringly self-centered that it was hard to feel a lot of sympathy (or I found it hard to care, anyway). Surface had a niggly little seed of a plot to keep it interesting, although at times that seed got a bit overwhelmed by everything else and made it hard to stay tuned. *sigh*

Solid writing, solid characters, and a good sense of knowing what the hell you're doing and where you're going with it all really helps to sell a show.

I also agree that "testing the waters" with summer airings might help. Maybe even have a short-run season of only 15 or so eps. That'll force the writers to really concentrate, it'll give audiences something to watch during the summer without worrying about missing something when the fall season starts, and if it's good enough to hook an audience in the 'trial run' then next time around maybe you can try more eps. Or even stick with the shortness. It works over in England and frankly it'd be more appropriate for a pop culture like ours whose attention span rivals that of a goldfish.

[Shipperahoy]

It will be interesting to see how long Lost can keep the momentum going. I mean, how long can they drag out the BIG mystery? Both seasons a few smaller questions have been answered but more have been thrown out there and things keep getting more and more far fetched and you have to wonder if the creators have even the slightest idea where they are going with this thing but people keep watching because they just have to know the answers to all these questions. What's the island? What's up with all the connections with each other? What's with the freaking numbers? It really sucks you in. Most sci-fi shows, as Shadow said, don't really have a hook like that and with nothing to keep the audience tuned in with baited breath the show's probably going to tank.

Now Firefly was a brilliant show. Brilliantly acted, brilliantly written, just about perfectly brilliant in every way. And it had an excellent hook with the River storyline. It's failure, IMO, was completely Fox's fault. They showed the episodes out of order (they didn't show the pilot ep first) and there was little to no marketing. The thing is that networks think that their audiences are stupid. Not to mention that a large part of the audiences themselves have a bit of a bias against sci-fi. Sci-Fi fans are made in to a joke all over t.v. and movies. To some people we're all a bunch of dorks who wear costumes, speak fictional languages, live in our parents basements, and love nothing more than to talk about the scientific probability of the speed of light and if they were to, heaven forbid, like a sci-fi show then they might just become one of us.

[ShadowMaat]

Fox is death to scifi. I have some theories about how X-Files managed to avoid that, but none of 'em are pleasant and most of them wouldn't be appropriate in a PG forum.

Lost, I think, has passed into the realm of playing it TOO close to the vest, now. They definitely lost me as a viewer halfway into S2 when so many eps were recrossing the same old ground and there was a total lack of forward momentum. Things are also starting to get a bit weird and while that can work on some shows, I'm not sure if Lost can pull it off. They can probably get away with a lot at this point just because the audience is so hellbent on figuring it all out, but I hope Abrams & Co. don't wind up alienating their viewers.

One of the things I liked about Lost in the first season was that it was a little out there but it was still more or less believeable. It toed the line, it occasionally did the Hokey Pokey, but it wasn't overly bizarre (invisible mechasaur notwithstanding). I liked the realism of Lost, that's what set it apart for me... but it started to lose that edge and kept going over and over and over (and over) the same timeframes and that made me feel cheated. Which is why I stopped watching.

It's a very precarious balance to maintain and even if a show manages to survive ONE season doesn't mean it can rest on its laurels and goof off. The balance has to be maintained ALWAYS or you risk losing the entire series. I'm not talking about the occasional one-off silly ep or the random badly written ep, I mean the series as a whole- it has to maintain its integrity, staying true to itself, its characters and its audience. Things fall apart; the center cannot hold. Once that happens, the show either dies or staggers on in a hideous half-life, hemorrhaging dignity until it finally decays into nothingness in some forgotten corner of the TV schedule.

[the fifth man]

Fox is death to scifi. I have some theories about how X-Files managed to avoid that, but none of 'em are pleasant and most of them wouldn't be appropriate in a PG forum.

Shadow, I'd love to hear your theories on how X-Files avoided the Fox curse. If you find the time, PM me sometime.

[the Fifth Race]

I think you'd need to see the whole show (Invasion) to see what a complete change it made in the second half. Many of the things that were annoying in the first half (Larkin, Rose, Dave) were minimized significantly in the second half and the things that were good (Sheriff Underlay, Mariel) really took the lead. I understand most people, with good reason, wouldn't stick around waiting for that to happen, but if we're going to be talk about the show as a whole, it's only fair that the whole season be examined. It just didn't turn out quite as bad as it began.

I wasn't wowed with the beginning either, but I liked the concept so I stuck it out. Most people don't. And as a writer you can't depend on the audience sticking around so you can fix the mistakes after getting a feel for the audience. By then you've lost the audience and the drooling network execs are hovering over your neck with the axe.

I wasn't wowed at all about the first half of the Invasion season, I even gave up watching it but went back after Surface went off the air. It did get much better especially when the focus of the story shifted more towards Sheriff Underlay (what a great character). I would have loved to see where they were headed with him, they literally could have gone from the good guy he became to a truly evil guy that wanted to be the leader of the hybrids.

Perhaps a new method is needed. Maybe scifi shows would benefit from being introduced during the spring/summer with an intentionally short season or mini series like they did with Medium and The 4400. That way they can get a feel for the audience, see if they want it continue, what changes they need to make etc. without wasting lots of cash producing episodes they'll never air, and disappointing fans.

If the recent examples are any indication, Scifi simply doesn't draw the huge audiences to compete against other network successes that premier in the fall. So why force them to compete at all? Go for shorter seasons in the summer.

I love that idea MarshAngel!, I think Stargate, SGA, BSG and the aforementioned 4400 benefited big time by using this formula. I love being able to watch fresh new episodes of my favorite scifi shows in the summertime when regular network television is blase.

[the Fifth Race]

Fox is death to scifi. I have some theories about how X-Files managed to avoid that, but none of 'em are pleasant and most of them wouldn't be appropriate in a PG forum.

LOL......so true

Lost, I think, has passed into the realm of playing it TOO close to the vest, now. They definitely lost me as a viewer halfway into S2 when so many eps were recrossing the same old ground and there was a total lack of forward momentum. Things are also starting to get a bit weird and while that can work on some shows, I'm not sure if Lost can pull it off. They can probably get away with a lot at this point just because the audience is so hellbent on figuring it all out, but I hope Abrams & Co. don't wind up alienating their viewers.

I always thought Lost from the beginning suffered from a 'Lack of Progression' but like you stated ShadowMaat the second half of season II has been a grind and I to, have lost (so to speak ) a lot of interest in the show. IMO The season II finale was better than what they had been giving us but it isn't nearly enough. I will still watch season III to see how many ways they can delay the storyline week after week.

It's a very precarious balance to maintain and even if a show manages to survive ONE season doesn't mean it can rest on its laurels and goof off. The balance has to be maintained ALWAYS or you risk losing the entire series. I'm not talking about the occasional one-off silly ep or the random badly written ep, I mean the series as a whole- it has to maintain its integrity, staying true to itself, its characters and its audience. Things fall apart; the center cannot hold. Once that happens, the show either dies or staggers on in a hideous half-life, hemorrhaging dignity until it finally decays into nothingness in some forgotten corner of the TV schedule.

I agree with your premise here, most great scifi TV shows improve in the second season, which IMHO Lost has gone backwards in season II. What will season III bring?.

[MarshAngel]

It's a very precarious balance to maintain and even if a show manages to survive ONE season doesn't mean it can rest on its laurels and goof off. The balance has to be maintained ALWAYS or you risk losing the entire series. I'm not talking about the occasional one-off silly ep or the random badly written ep, I mean the series as a whole- it has to maintain its integrity, staying true to itself, its characters and its audience. Things fall apart; the center cannot hold. Once that happens, the show either dies or staggers on in a hideous half-life, hemorrhaging dignity until it finally decays into nothingness in some forgotten corner of the TV schedule.

Do you think there are shows that have achieved this balance?

I think a certain amount of irony lies in the fact that if a show manages to survive past its third or fourth season, it usually begins a decline, where things really begin to fall apart, the magic and mystery disappear and the behind the scenes machinations become glaringly obvious.

If however, the show doesn't survive that long, it's not because it wisely chose to end at a high point and wrap the storyline but because it has prematurely declined, failed to live up to expectations, or just never began well from the first.

I think that part of the problem is the fact that making TV is a business. network execs don't need TV to be good, they just need it to be watched. As a result, if a show is good and/or being watched it should continue to do so for as long as it has an audience. This is rarely good for plot however, because writers inevitably begin recycling and grasping at straws. Shows have a shelf life and successful ones, more often than not, go well past their deadline.

Ideally, shows should have a stopping point, agreed upon before they even begin so the writers have enough material and no more; the story ends well and they know where they're going from the outset. Anything beyond that should be an entirely new show, spinoff perhaps. I don't know if this would make for good business but I think it would make for better viewing.

[ShadowMaat]

Do you think there are shows that have achieved this balance?

For their entire run? None I can think of. Most shows manage 3-4 good seasons and then fall apart. And then there are ones ho manage only ONE good season and spend the rest of their run oozing stupidity.

Most of the best shows seem to last a season or less... although that could work to their advantage as they never have a chance to decline.

I do agree that shows SHOULD have a beginning, a middle and an end. I cringe whenever I hear a producer say, "Oh, there are MILLIONS of story possibilities!" or "The show has the potential to go on for YEARS!" because invariably they stick to the same three or four ideas instead of the millions they claim to have and/or they make me wish the show WOULDN'T last for years. Have a beginning, have a middle, have and end and for god's sake, DON'T PUSH YOUR LUCK! If the show reaches a natural conclusion, END IT!! Don't try and drag it out past its expiration date just so you can milk more money out of it. Either drop it and find something new or drop it and do a spinoff THAT IS NOT AN EXACT FRACKING DUPLICATE!!!

I'll guess that B5 comes closest to concluding naturally without an embarrassing drop in quality, but I only saw a handful of eps, so I can only guess based on what I've heard from folks who DID watch.

[Jedted]

Fox is death to scifi. I have some theories about how X-Files managed to avoid that, but none of 'em are pleasant and most of them wouldn't be appropriate in a PG forum.

Shadow, I'd love to hear your theories on how X-Files avoided the Fox curse. If you find the time, PM me sometime.

Does one of those theories involve Mulder's first name being Fox? I allways figured that was more than a coincidence.

[the Fifth Race]

I'll guess that B5 comes closest to concluding naturally without an embarrassing drop in quality, but I only saw a handful of eps, so I can only guess based on what I've heard from folks who DID watch.

IMHO I would rank B5 and DS9 the two naturally best ending scifi series I have ever seen. Especially DS9, they set up the way it was going to conclude 2 1/2 seasons (Dominion war) before it did so they could take there time instead of rushing and putting a quick and frazzled ending into a few last episodes.

[warmbeachbrat]

Shadow, I'd love to hear your theories on how X-Files avoided the Fox curse. If you find the time, PM me sometime.

I'd like to hear that, too. Is there anyway to sum it up without going beyond PG?

[ShadowMaat]

I'd like to hear that, too. Is there anyway to sum it up without going beyond PG?

Let's just say I think he was in bed with the Suits and giving them a, um, helping hand... although it was probably mutual.

Do I mean that literally? No, probably not. Although it was probably as close as it could get without crossing that fine line between analogy and reality.

[warmbeachbrat]

Let's just say I think he was in bed with the Suits and giving them a, um, helping hand... although it was probably mutual.

Do I mean that literally? No, probably not. Although it was probably as close as it could get without crossing that fine line between analogy and reality.

Do you mean Chris Carter? or David Duchovny? Sorry, don't mean to be dense....

[ShadowMaat]

Do you mean Chris Carter? or David Duchovny? Sorry, don't mean to be dense....

Carter. Duchovny couldn't be bothered.