The McCullough-Mitchell Effect

[prion]

What's your source for this claim of SciFi's input?

The series SciFi has the most control over is BSG because their own studio makes it.

Yet, it is of higher quality than either Stargate show and is getting "one of the best show on television" reviews right and left (even with some skin shown now and again). According to Ron Moore's blogs, the SciFi executive who reads their scripts often makes good suggestions...and Moore acknowledges it.

Granted, they also make those Saturday popcorn movies, but they acknowledge that they are trying to make B and C "drive-in" type movies.

Atually, they're more like "D" movies. Lately, some have been simply so dreadful they weren't even worth watching to laugh at.

However, Scifi does have some input but they seem to want to put most of their money and time into BSG, as it's their golden child now. If you look at ads in magazines, it's predominantly BSG now.

If anybody from Scifi is vetting/making suggestions for Stargate, they're either clueless to writing or don't care.

[Skydiver]

What's your source for this claim of SciFi's input?

The series SciFi has the most control over is BSG because their own studio makes it.

Yet, it is of higher quality than either Stargate show and is getting "one of the best show on television" reviews right and left (even with some skin shown now and again). According to Ron Moore's blogs, the SciFi executive who reads their scripts often makes good suggestions...and Moore acknowledges it.

Granted, they also make those Saturday popcorn movies, but they acknowledge that they are trying to make B and C "drive-in" type movies.

there is an interview, and it must not be on GW because i can't find it, in which Rob i believe does say that scifi 'suggests' plots or casting or general storyline areas.

as to bsg being 'better' than sg1 (something i won't debate on, i like bsg tons better than stargate at the moment), the quality of scifi's suggestions are likely contingent on the competance of the suggestor.

anyone can make suggestions, but not everyone can make GOOD suggestions

My 'issue' with scifi is, how often do they make a movie or mini-series that's aimed to be quality and not fit into that tiny 'oh, i love monstermovies' market? Look at their steady diet of saturday night movies....are there any of them that you could see surviving off the scifi channel? to me, the vast majority of them are cheap and trite and cliche ridden time killers. They look like scifi hires high school students to write and produce them.

they do kill two hours, certainly. and there is a degree of fun in watching a movie that's full or horrendous sfx and totally unresearched and factually incorrect in every way...but those movies do nothing to elevate the scifi genre in any way. all they do is perpetrate the stereotype that scifi = cheesy, thin plot, bad sfx, bad acting and all together a waste of time

[Skydiver]

Atually, they're more like "D" movies. Lately, some have been simply so dreadful they weren't even worth watching to laugh at.

However, Scifi does have some input but they seem to want to put most of their money and time into BSG, as it's their golden child now. If you look at ads in magazines, it's predominantly BSG now.

If anybody from Scifi is vetting/making suggestions for Stargate, they're either clueless to writing or don't care.

yep, cause they make more money off bsg. they own it. and everything about it. which means that they don't have to share the pie with mgm or negotiate things with mgm.

bsg just happens to be a better show which makes the preference more tolerable.

as soon as they find something else that can be made cheaper to pull in the ratings, bsg will get the can (actually, sg1 and atl will get canned first, but, all in all, scifi is a very fickle mistress)

[scarimor]

Sky appears to have input into BSG. Anyone know what their role is?

[Piratejenna]

Sky appears to have input into BSG. Anyone know what their role is?

Well, for the first season SKY were basically co-producers - it was their financial input that tilted the balance and allowed the series to be made. Not sure about the second season (I don't watch BSG any more - pompous, humorless and way too much All-American values for my taste...) but I haven't heard that the production arrangements have changed. Which is BSG's big weakness, because it's never done well on SKY. I'm not a betting person, but if I were, I wouldn't be entirely surprised if SG-1 (maybe re-branded as SGC) outlives both SGA and BSG.

[prion]

What's your source for this claim of SciFi's input?

Thomas Vitale, VP of something or other, said in an interview which can be dug up on Scifi.com's site somewhere, that SciFi DOES have financial and creative input into Stargate. However, they thought that the staff was doing fine so weren't meddling (of course, this was back right when season six began, so maybe they SHOULD have meddled).

[Skydiver]

complicating this is also a series of ...inconsistencies between what bridge says and what scifi says

referencing the credits issues early s9.

according to bridge, scifi said to cut them down so that they (scifi) could have more ad/promotion time. bridge didn't want to but had to comply

scifi then later said - one member of scifi's staff said off stage at a con, he conveniently left the stage before the Q&A could start, it's in a con report here on gw somewhere - that yes, they told bridge to cut back the credits so that bridge could have 50 more seconds for the show to tell its story, but the decision was made so late that they couldn't re-edit the show so scifi was forced to fill the time.


ahem, ok, so openly contradicting stories. Personally? as much as i may doubt thier skills in telling stories, i give the benefit of the doubt to Bridge and interpret scifi's statement as pure spin and whitewash, designed to dodge any blame and fan ire. My belief is also based on the fact that being in the credits is usually in an actor's contract, which likely had to be amended when the decision was made, which is something that i just can't see Bridge going to all the effort to do for a measly 50 seconds. the artists that are involved in the show are aware of how important being in the credits is and i don't see them screwing over thier own.

IMHO, you can't trust skiffy any further than you can toss em. they will screw over anyone at any time with any provocation....then spin their way out of it.

[ShardsofGlass]

Sorry, Skydiver, you lost me on the actos' credits thing. What do the actors' contracts have to do with the length of the opening sequence? As far as I understand it, actors' contracts establish where an actor falls in the *order* of the credits, i.e., if he or she is first, second, or third, etc. It has nothing to do with whether or not the opening credit sequence lasts 50 seconds or 10 seconds.

[Skydiver]

it varies with each actor. however, as long as a show has an open, then it's likely in thier contracts which actors are in the open and in which order. IIRC, don and teryl were not originally in the open, but were in the first credits after the open, but that did change through the years.

with the shortened credits, the main actors were taken from the open and put into the first credits, which also bumped everyone else back to

[Carterslave]

scifi then later said - one member of scifi's staff said off stage at a con, he conveniently left the stage before the Q&A could start, it's in a con report here on gw somewhere - that yes, they told bridge to cut back the credits so that bridge could have 50 more seconds for the show to tell its story, but the decision was made so late that they couldn't re-edit the show so scifi was forced to fill the time.

Before "Ask Joe Mallozzi" died a sudden death, JM said that the Skiffy told them they could add 50 seconds of show but that this came after the first 10 episodes had been edited, so they couldn't have made the shows longer until the second half of the season. Pretty convenient for the Skiffy, if you ask me. It gets nearly a minute more ad time for 10 weeks w/o having to share it, although I noticed they wound up doing a lot more huckstering of their own shows (not like they were blushing violets in that respect beforehand).
BTW, Don Davis was always in the opening credits and Teryl Rothery (not being a series regular per se, although many regarded her as one) never did. C'est la vie.