Hatred towards Syfy and among other things

[Keeper]

jelgate,



You say the show was "bad" as thought it is objectively so. Uh uh. Many many people have greatly enjoyed SGU.

firstly, jel said the show did badly. he didn't weigh in with whether he thought it was bad or good.

secondly, it did do badly on airing viewers. first half of the first season* lost approximately a million viewers - this isn't a performance that suggests a successful show, no matter how many people are watching it, when the initial audience was around 2.3 million or so. maybe they were watching it in other ways, that's their choice. they didn't support it as it aired.



*i specify this period for a reason. people like to talk about the day change - but all season 1 was aired on fridays. then they like to criticise the mid-season break - part of the stargate broadcasting pattern, as far as i'm aware, since the show started on showtime, and retained on scifi/syfy. fair enough, those criticisms can be levelled whether fairly or unfairly, but it does not change the loss of viewers, nor indeed their lack of return at any point.

[Kanten]

No, SGU's situation wasn't the same as Sanctuary's because SGU lost most of its audience within its first 10 episodes - before it was moved. Because it was too expensive to survive on those numbers it was moved to give it a second chance. In contrast, Sanctuary's numbers were pretty steady right up until the move and it had already been renewed. So, its move was more about trying to help Urban Legends than Sanctuary.

Give it a second chance by moving it to a night where the TV viewing audience doesn't even think of the word 'Syfy'? Sure, whatever. Even when the show's momentum did pick up in Season 2 it didn't have any chance to get that audience. The show was being killed, plain and simple.

If MGM wasn't willing to share a bigger piece of the SGU pie or lower its fees to Syfy, then what was left to negotiate?

You post this as if you know for a fact whether it did or didn't happen.

[Briangate78]

I am only grateful to Syfy for giving us 12 seasons of Stargate. They did not have to even give us that. I am sure it was a hard decision for them to make knowing how many years Stargate has with the network, but in the end, if you are losing money you have to be let go.

[KEK]

If MGM wasn't willing to share a bigger piece of the SGU pie or lower its fees to Syfy, then what was left to negotiate?

What makes you think MGM wasn't willing to do either of those things?

And, why do you consider it Syfy's responsibility to inform the cast and crew?

I don't, I never said I did.

Shouldn't that have been BW/RCC's responsibility?

Yes, but they weren't given chance to. Brad was on an aircraft carrier and Joe was in Japan. It was leaked because of Syfy's ineptitude, and then to add insult to injury they release a weak tweet conforming it. There was absolutely nothing stopping them from letting the producers announce it to those involved before posting a proper press release. It's no wonder so many of those involved were pissed off.

[carmencatalina]

I am only grateful to Syfy for giving us 12 seasons of Stargate.

See, I think this is silly, why should I be grateful for a business decision, any more than I should be hateful for another business decision?

Syfy didn't run Stargate to make me happy, to do me a favor, or even to keep me as a customer. They did it to make money. And now that it doesn't make business sense, they no longer will.

If you want us to see it as a business decision to cancel SGU, and not engage in ridiculous "hatred" rants (which I agree with), then you should also realize that running SGU (and SG-1 and SGA) was also a business decision, and not deserving of gratefulness, any more than I should be grateful that McDonald's has chocolate shakes when that is my favorite flavor.

[Kanten]

If you want us to see it as a business decision to cancel SGU, and not engage in ridiculous "hatred" rants (which I agree with), then you should also realize that running SGU (and SG-1 and SGA) was also a business decision, and not deserving of gratefulness, any more than I should be grateful that McDonald's has chocolate shakes when that is my favorite flavor.

I dunno, I've seen people get mad when the McRib goes away.

[carmencatalina]

I dunno, I've seen people get mad when the McRib goes away.

Ha! So true! But it is a business decision, you should be mature enough to realize that McDonalds isn't in it to personally make your sandwich-choosing situation a sad one!

(I also think they may have a plan to periodically take the McRib away and return it, just to keep interest in the sandwich. A very scary sandwich, IMHO, but there are those that love it.)

[Tanith0709]

If Sanctuary's ratings don't recover when it's moved back to Friday, then its fans will be justified in blaming Syfy for screwing the show over.

If Sanctuary keeps performing badly in its current slot (with worse numbers than SGU was getting) and then recovers when it's moved back to Fridays, wouldn't that at least support the argument that Monday is a terrible night for a scripted show on their network & that the day change did more harm than good?

Given that Eureka was pulling close to that and W13 had a few 3 million weeks, it wasn't entirely out of the realm of possibility that SGU could do the same.

Though to be fair both Eureka & W13 achieved those numbers mainly in the summer months when there is considerably less competition from the other networks. I think SGU was originally meant to also air in the summer, not sure why it wasn't.

But, they did show faith by committing to 2 seasons up front

That has been confirmed as being false. Craig Engler originally said that they had a 2 season deal which quickly resulted in Joe Mallozzi stating that was simply not true and a day later Craig confirmed that Joe was "probably right".

It makes the most logical sense that they wouldn't agree to a 2 season deal up front anyway as it has been said many times Syfy is a business and that kind of deal up front would of been a bad business decision.

I think SGU would have lasted longer if it had been delayed a year. That way, MGM/Syfy/BW/RCC could have benefited from Caprica's failure and structured SGU differently.

Agreed. If they delayed it a year and ended up making season 1 more along the lines the way season 2 was done then I believe it would of been a lot popular. A 6th season of Atlantis with a satisfying conclusion could have greatly reduced the hostilities in the fandom as well.

[jelgate]

jelgate,



You say the show was "bad" as thought it is objectively so. Uh uh. Many many people have greatly enjoyed SGU.

Thier is a huge difference between being finanical bad versus the personal enjoyment I have in the show.

[Occulus]

Quick question before I go get ready for work: several years ago- when the network was still called SciFi- they had SciFi Fridays, wherein they put all their 'flagship' shows on a single night.

Were the ratings for those shows better, as a group, than they are now? I know for a fact I'm not the only one who wants the network to bring back that single evening blitz, and if I recall correctly, the shows had great lead-ins going into the time of evening the network broadcast them.

All my friends that watch SyFy want that back. My question is, is it a better decision to spread the shows out?

Also, SyFy needs to get away from the 'moveititis'. They shuffle their programming around faster and more confusingly than a shady three-card monty game on a Queens streetcorner. That can't possibly be good for their shows as a whole....

[Lythisrose]

That has been confirmed as being false. Craig Engler originally said that they had a 2 season deal which quickly resulted in Joe Mallozzi stating that was simply not true and a day later Craig confirmed that Joe was "probably right".

It makes the most logical sense that they wouldn't agree to a 2 season deal up front anyway as it has been said many times Syfy is a business and that kind of deal up front would of been a bad business decision.

Agreed. If they delayed it a year and ended up making season 1 more along the lines the way season 2 was done then I believe it would of been a lot popular. A 6th season of Atlantis with a satisfying conclusion could have greatly reduced the hostilities in the fandom as well.

I agree with these last points about Season 2 vs Season 1 and also about running a final season of Atlantis to introduce SGU. Regarding the second season SGU deal, remember Joe M said on his blog, night before last:

The second season pick-up of Stargate: Universe was a foregone conclusion once we hit the rating average required for the second year component of the deal to kick in.

So there was a deal, just not an unconditional one.

[prion]

Fact is that without SyFy (aka SciFi) Stargate would have been toast after Showtime shoved it off the cliff. As it stands, we got many more years of SG1, 5 years of SGA, and 2 years of SGU. All in all that's a great run for a franchise. It's just a shame that SyFy/SciFi STILL does not know how to deal with PR regarding cancelling shows. The SGU fans seem just as livid at the cancellation as the SGA fans were when their show went, etc. I decided to just watch the shows without all the fan chatter, that, and the fact that I've had nothing but problems when trying to get on to Gateworld or the SyFy boards (who refuse to recognize my addy or password or whatever). Of course, people can be pretty petty on Twitter too

SGu got knocked off by bad ratings, pure and simple. It's hardly the first show to suffer that fate, and sure won't be the last.

[maxbo]

Give it a second chance by moving it to a night where the TV viewing audience doesn't even think of the word 'Syfy'? Sure, whatever. Even when the show's momentum did pick up in Season 2 it didn't have any chance to get that audience. The show was being killed, plain and simple.

So, you think the numbers it got for 1.5 were good enough to sustain the show despite Syfy stating otherwise? Also, why do you believe the show was "killed"? What reason could Syfy have for deliberately trying to kill a show that it had already paid so much money to air? And, if you believe Syfy wanted to get rid of the show, then why do you think they didn't just simply not renew it. After all, that would have been the cheaper option.

You post this as if you know for a fact whether it did or didn't happen.

Nope, they didn't consult me so I don't know, but the fact that there wasn't a deal tells me that if MGM offered anything, it wasn't enough to cover what Syfy needed. Whether this was because MGM truly couldn't get approval for concessions or because it wasn't as interested in the SG franchise as it once was we'll probably never know.

What makes you think MGM wasn't willing to do either of those things?

I just answered this above, so I'll just copy and paste -- here you go:

The fact that there wasn't a deal tells me that if MGM offered anything, it wasn't enough to cover what Syfy needed. Whether this was because MGM truly couldn't get approval for concessions or because it wasn't as interested in the SG franchise as it once was we'll probably never know.

Yes, but they weren't given chance to. Brad was on an aircraft carrier and Joe was in Japan. It was leaked because of Syfy's ineptitude, and then to add insult to injury they release a weak tweet conforming it. There was absolutely nothing stopping them from letting the producers announce it to those involved before posting a proper press release. It's no wonder so many of those involved were pissed off.

I don't buy this. There's no way this decision was made without Brad's knowledge and I wouldn't expect Joe to be the one to tell them because it should have been left up to Brad since he was the head honcho. In fact, a couple of the actors said that they did find out from Brad, so why didn't he alert all of them? And, given how low the ratings were, he should have better prepared them for the possibility of cancellation.

No, I think a large part of the problem was that Brad didn't think the show would be cancelled, despite the low ratings, so he didn't have a system in place to alert the entire cast and crew at the same time. As a result, I think at least one actor said he found out via tweets while others had been told by Brad before the tweets. I find that very strange considering there were rumblings from those not directly involved as early as the day before the tweets, so no way did Brad not know by at least the day before also.

Getting your show cancelled was bad enough, but to find out that way was indeed inexcusable, but the responsibility for keeping the cast and crew in the loop was not Syfy's or even MGM's responsibility, no, it was Brad Wright's.

If Sanctuary keeps performing badly in its current slot (with worth numbers than SGU was getting) and then recovers when it's moved back to Fridays, wouldn't that at least support the argument that Monday is a terrible night for a scripted show on their network & that the day change did more harm than good?

I won't argue that Monday could be a terrible night for scripted shows, but I think what people who use this argument in connection with SGU forget is that the show didn't do well on Friday and it didn't do well on Tuesday, so by the time it was moved to Monday, it didn't really matter anymore.

Sanctuary's case is different because this move feels like an experiment to me. I think Syfy's primary concern was to try to save Urban Legends and that its secondary plan was to see if any of it's current shows could do well on Monday. Hmmm, now that I think about it, SGU was probably part of that same experience - sort of a last ditch, let's see what would happen if we moved the show to Monday. Since the show had already been cancelled they had nothing to lose. It was sort of the Sanctuary situation in reverse.

Though to be fair both Eureka & W13 achieved those numbers mainly in the summer months when there is considerably less competition from the other networks. I think SGU was originally meant to also air in the summer, not sure why it wasn't.

I also heard that SGU was supposed to air in the summer, but that it was changed to the fall. Would that have made a difference? Who knows? Maybe, or maybe not. At the very least, perhaps the show could have gotten a larger audience at the beginning so that when it lost almost half its audience, it still would still have had enough viewers for renewal.

I can't remember reading any direct comments from them regarding this change from summer to fall, but the impression I got from reading BW/RCC's interviews was that they were feeling confident that SGU would appeal to a mainstream audience, so maybe that's why they made the change.

That has been confirmed as being false. Craig Engler originally said that they had a 2 season deal which quickly resulted in Joe Mallozzi stating that was simply not true and a day later Craig confirmed that Joe was "probably right".

I read Craig Engler's tweets and Joe Mallozzi's comments and they ultimately agreed that SGU had a two year deal with Syfy contingent on SGU's numbers for the first half of the season. Joe even confirmed this in one of his blog posts. I have a feeling that there was some nitpicking over semantics more than anything because I remember Joe splitting hairs about whether SGU had a 2 season deal regardless of ratings. So, from what I understand, Syfy agreed to fund 2 seasons of SGU, but only if SGU's ratings for the first half of S1 didn't fall below a certain point.

It makes the most logical sense that they wouldn't agree to a 2 season deal up front anyway as it has been said many times Syfy is a business and that kind of deal up front would of been a bad business decision.

Indeed.

Agreed. If they delayed it a year and ended up making season 1 more along the lines the way season 2 was done then I believe it would of been a lot popular. A 6th season of Atlantis with a satisfying conclusion could have greatly reduced the hostilities in the fandom as well.

No question about it. Although no one can guarantee success, there are so many things that could have been done to give SGU a better chance. As you mentioned, giving SGA a satisfying conclusion would have been a positive move. After this, or perhaps during SGA's last season, they could have slowly introduced us to SGU, all the while keeping an eye on how Caprica was being received. And, I agree that if the show had started along the lines of Season 2 that would have also increased its chance of survival.

It's sad to look back and see the many missteps that contributed to the current situation. For me, the problems for SGU started with the awful writing for much of SGA's fifth season and then just snowballed from there. I've always said that the best way to get people to follow your new project is to make them love your last project and considering that SGA was that last project, they didn't do the franchise or the show any favors by half-assing that season. IMO, even without a 6th season, a great 5th season for SGA would have been a win-win for the franchise and for SGU's reception.

[Replicator Todd]

I don't hate or blame SyFy for SGU's cancellation. Its only partially their fault...and wrestling. I really think it is moreso the viewers and/or fans who weren't watching.

The only show cancellations I have blamed SyFy for is Stargate SG-1 and Farscape.

SyFy still has sci-fi shows I am interested in. I only hope they last. Reality TV is taking over everything.

[KEK]

I don't buy this. There's no way this decision was made without Brad's knowledge and I wouldn't expect Joe to be the one to tell them because it should have been left up to Brad since he was the head honcho. In fact, a couple of the actors said that they did find out from Brad, so why didn't he alert all of them? And, given how low the ratings were, he should have better prepared them for the possibility of cancellation.

They all knew cancellation was a possibility, and the reason he could tell some and not others is because some of them were on the aircraft carrier with him at the time. Elyse and Alaina were definitely were, I'm not sure which (if any) others were. Joe was one of the last to know, he found out through posts on his blog as he was in Tokyo at the time.

No, I think a large part of the problem was that Brad didn't think the show would be cancelled, despite the low ratings, so he didn't have a system in place to alert the entire cast and crew at the same time. As a result, I think at least one actor said he found out via tweets while others had been told by Brad before the tweets. I find that very strange considering there were rumblings from those not directly involved as early as the day before the tweets, so no way did Brad not know by at least the day before also.

Well, you can rationalize anything if all you're going to use if your own guesswork. The reason there had been 'rumblings' is because the numbers were awful. It didn't take insider information to predict the outcome. Brad might have had time had the announcement been planned, but it wasn't was it? Someone leaked the info early, then Syfy bizarrely felt they had to confirm it's authenticity on Twitter. It turned out quite conveniently for them really, I can't recall a more stealthy cancellation announcement.