What Timeslot would have worked?

[Gatefan1976]

OK
I've been wondering after reading many comments around the traps, what do the SGU fans think would have been the "optimal" timeslot for SGU? Friday night really wasn't working (based on losses over S1) Tuesday night was the "death slot" according to many, and Monday had to compete against Monday night Raw. Some say day, some say time, but most of the SGU fans (seem to) agree that Syfy either "screwed it" on dayslot or timeslot.
So what do you think? If YOU were in charge of Syfy, when would you schedule SGU?

On a related note, what would you pair it with?

[Mr Evil 37]

Fridays, during the summer, alongside Caprica and Sanctuary, without a mid-season break. And I also think that if they had run SGU season one alongside a sixth season of Atlantis it would have done much better, as all the people who never gave SGU a chance because they were butthurt about losing Atlantis would be more open to change.

[hercthx]

I would have left it where it was on friday night with a sg1,sga lead in, and sanctuary lead out. also i would have ordered a sga season 6 to lead in or even overlap the two series giving sga time for proper closure, as well as giving the audience time to aclamate to the new show format. I would have used the movies a holiday specials ala dr.who.
I would also have backed it up with some stargate specials, mabey some behind the scenes shows or an audience interactive event. I would have held contests in the syfy forums to garner online support. also would have supported more fun online antics between BW and JH, those stargate/V crossover stuff was entertaining as hell!

[Gatefan1976]

Perhaps I should have added "realistic" expectations

SGA is NOT an option here, MGM made the decision to give it up. Friday nights already lost half the audience live and was replaced with Smackdown.

[MattSilver 3k]

Perhaps I should have added "realistic" expectations

Okay. No alternate universes exist and thus, what has happened has already happened, we should all accept it and move on. Ta-da!

[hercthx]

i agree with matt if we cant include the continuation of sga into a final sixth season ther is no real way, the sudden shift from sga to sgu did a tremendous amount of fan division.

[Gatefan1976]

i agree with matt if we cant include the continuation of sga into a final sixth season ther is no real way, the sudden shift from sga to sgu did a tremendous amount of fan division.

Aren't "vocal fans", positive or negative "immaterial"?
At any rate, that is not my question. My question is, what timeslot would work.

[hercthx]

summer friday nights, sga lead in sanctuary lead out, with no mid season break.

[maxbo]

I don't think any time slot would have worked. Nor do I think airing it in the summer would have helped because the problem was the show not the time slot or time of year. Not enough viewers were interested in it. And, that problem is not unique to SGU because look at Caprica's failure and Defying Gravity's before it. Even BSG had lost a lot of viewers, and goodwill, by the end of its run. And, the same for another show that SGU seemed to try to emulate, Lost.

I think viewers are just tired of the type of shows that seem to promise interesting storyline resolutions in the beginning only to bitterly disappoint by the end.

IMO, moving SGU to Tuesday was its best chance at survival because after losing almost half its viewers in its Friday slot, what SGU needed was to catch the attention of a whole new set of viewers.

And, pairing SGU with SGA would likely have also been a disaster because there is currently more interest in an SGA-type of show than an SGU-type of show. Just look at how much of the audience doesn't stick around after Being Human airs. If SGU and SGA had been paired, then we would probably have seen similar results.

Based on how badly TPTW behaved in the past couple of years to SGU not doing well, I don't even want to think about how they would have tried to even out the ratings between the two shows.

[KEK]

If SGU had stayed on a Friday it would have gained a wrestling lead-in that pulls in over 3 million viewers. Ideally though, I think the show needed to air during the summer without a mid-season break. As well as that it needed better/more appropriate promotion, and probably a name change. Calling the show "Destiny" instead could have avoided the stigma attached to the show by the 'Stargate' title, while promotion could have made it obvious to Stargate fans that it was indeed a continuation of the mythology and get the best of both worlds.

I'm not sure anything could have been done to avoid the 'fan' reaction though, large sections of fandom have been in 'throw your toys out of the pram' mode ever since characters in Atlantis started getting killed off, I don't think any amount of clever promotion of scheduling could change that.

[knowles2]

I would have aired it in the Summer.
I do not think the night it was on would really matter. But having some descent support for the show would, I would have Sanctuary as lead in SGU for the middle and Caprica for the end. Recreating what was successful with Syfy a few years ago. Perhaps putting a BSG special on next SGU to draw in that part of syfy audience.
I would then advertise the hell out of it on channels like HBO and Showtime to make sure there viewers knew it was on. As they clearly have viewers with descent tastes.

An then I would have order the writers to go even darker, moodier and grittier than they did. An to do stuff like blow up Washington and not to frighten of turning Chloe into a fully fledge alien, the only two massive mistakes I think off right now the writers have made during the show.


An I completely agree with KEK view as well especially about the fans.

[maxbo]

I can't see the wrestling viewers sticking around to watch SGU. And, it already had more than enough promotion - both before it aired and after its move to Tuesdays, so more promotion would have been additional money down the drain. After all, it's not like SGU never received the viewers it needed to survive - it received them and then lost them within 10 episodes. That's not the same as a show that had always been under its needed viewership.

The only thing I do agree with is that SGU should have aired without long breaks. If they didn't want to air a new episode every week, then they could have alternated SGU episodes with episodes of another sci-fi show - perhaps Sanctuary. That way, there would have been a new episode every 2 weeks and a shorter between season break.

As for fans of the old shows not liking SGU, that's par for the course. SGA went through the same thing and survived. The bottom line is that you can't force people to watch something they're not interested in. Before SGU aired, even BW said as much - of course he was probably expecting those old Stargate fans that weren't interested in SGU to be replaced by fans new to Stargate.

[EzInKy]

I can't see the wrestling viewers sticking around to watch SGU.

This. It makes no sense to think that a large audience of people interested in action driven plots that resolve in a few minutes would stay tuned to a show whose story lines drags on week after week.

[General Jumper One]

I can't see the wrestling viewers sticking around to watch SGU.

A lot of those wrestling viewers stick around for Sanctuary

[Pharaoh Atem]

8pm sat night winter