Dark Matter: No Season 4? (Updated)

[Gen. Chris]

Syfy and Fantasy go hand in hand. I can only think of three current fantasy shows: Game of Thrones, The Magicians, and Shannara Chronicles.

Hardly saturating the market.

[DigiFluid]

Syfy and Fantasy go hand in hand. I can only think of three current fantasy shows: Game of Thrones, The Magicians, and Shannara Chronicles.

Hardly saturating the market.

You and your "facts"

[Gen. Chris]

To be fair I wasn't considering animate shows too which might add a few more.

Plus I forgot about the show that will never die; Supernatural

Edit: Malozzi is not giving up. Follow his blog and see if there is any way to save it. Even a one season pick up would be better than nothing.

https://josephmallozzi.wordpress.com...matter-latest/

[jelgate]

You and your "facts"

I for one am just glad their is a fan who is seeing reason and not in denial that networks exist to make profit

[Tilarta]

Hopefully Dark Matter will get renewed if we shout loud enough.
A question, if SyFy refuses to renew the show, can another network option the rights?
I think if they believe in the franchise enough to pay for it, then they should be allowed to have the show.

I wonder if there is a dollar value that can be placed on fanbase resentment.
As in, they make the fans angry, so they lose viewers.
There are several factors that might not be considered when they make decisions like this.
Maybe they just think we'll watch anything out of brand loyalty.


From my perspective, sci-fi and fantasy are separate incompatible genres.
Spaceships, advanced technology, modern/advanced societies, galactic exploration are the reasons I prefer sci-fi.
None of those plot elements are present in fantasy entertainment.
Additionally, plots that involve medieval societies, mythical monsters and spellcasting/magic are boring to me.

It could be that my experience has been somewhat different.
Every time sci-fi and fantasy have been allowed to co-exist, sci-fi ends up getting diminished.
And that is where my resentment began, I want my sci-fi fun and there wasn't enough of it.

[aretood2]

The simple fact is people aren't programs who assess everything by numerical values.
If entertainment programs were only produced based on maximized monetary profit, we'd only have two forms of entertainment, one of which would be reality tv.

There's an old saying, money talks.

And there is also the third kind of entertainment, I call it Fakality (Fake Reality).
It's basically just any crime/police or legal/lawyer show.
I don't know how many they made, but it seems like there's a lot of them.
It was a joke in one of my comics that in the future, there would be an entire 24hour channel with only CSI shows, one for each city in America.

That's not a bad idea...I may need a financial adviser and some investment money >.>

The one factor the corporations fail to take into account is fanbase feedback.
Just because a show is made and decided it must be the popular one doesn't make it happen.
Especially if that show is low quality and just made because it's cost effective to do so.

Sadly, the majority of fans won't even know anything until next summer when Dark Matter doesn't come back on. The casual fans. They'll just watch Killjoys and whatever else is available. Not every fan is as attached to a show as some fans. I would say that even fans who sign petitions, most of them just do it just to help out on the off chance, but will continue to watch what there is regardless of this...except firefly fans. They were played dirty, that's one example I am willing to say was some sort of shenanigans behind the scenes.

Hopefully Dark Matter will get renewed if we shout loud enough.
A question, if SyFy refuses to renew the show, can another network option the rights?
I think if they believe in the franchise enough to pay for it, then they should be allowed to have the show.

If it is renewed it won't be SyFy, that's certain. Now we do have the example of Supergirl moving channels. Netflix saving a show. It does happen, and JM really is trying to make that happen. That's where your energy should be focused.

I wonder if there is a dollar value that can be placed on fanbase resentment.
As in, they make the fans angry, so they lose viewers.
There are several factors that might not be considered when they make decisions like this.
Maybe they just think we'll watch anything out of brand loyalty.

It would be less than you think.

[Tilarta]

Well, that's a glimmer of hope at least.
Maybe Netflix will see the potential and acquire Dark Matter.
I don't know much about them as a company, are they credible/reliable?

I do know it has to be done soon though, if the break is too protracted, it will end the show all by itself.
JM said as much, that the sets will be dismantled, the cast and crew will seek other jobs.


What happened with Firefly?
The only information I have is that Firefly was assigned to the slot formerly occupied by Dark Angel and that caused a rift between those fanbases.
If it was the Friday Night Death Slot however, I'd just interpret that as the network trying to diminish the popularity of two sci-fi shows in quick succession.

[aretood2]

Well, that's a glimmer of hope at least.
Maybe Netflix will see the potential and acquire Dark Matter.
I don't know much about them as a company, are they credible/reliable?

They gave Clone Wars an extra season. Hulu gave Community an extra season. It happens.

What happened with Firefly?
The only information I have is that Firefly was assigned to the slot formerly occupied by Dark Angel and that caused a rift between those fanbases.
If it was the Friday Night Death Slot however, I'd just interpret that as the network trying to diminish the popularity of two sci-fi shows in quick succession.

Dark Angel had nothing to do with it. It was poorly managed, as was the channel in general. It's cancellation, last I heard and remember, made no financial sense.

My resentment of fantasy mostly comes from computer games.
Tabula Rasa was replaced with Aion and the primary product is Guild Wars series.
Champions Online and Marvel Heroes always focus specifically on the fantasy element, with sci-fi being less central.
Elder Scrolls and Dragon Age get all the attention over Fallout and Mass Effect.
World of Warcraft, I wish people would stop telling me "you must play this game".

You have a very odd way of processing things...the way I see things, you can't simply blame or hold a genre/sub genre responsible for being more well liked than another...that just makes zero sense to me. Same applies to TV shows.

[tomstone]

You have a very odd way of processing things...the way I see things, you can't simply blame or hold a genre/sub genre responsible for being more well liked than another...that just makes zero sense to me. Same applies to TV shows.

Actually we can. I know that it turns more into a disliking to the viewership in general, but in the end if you have a big pile of cheap shows that are easy to follow, I cant blame any network that doesnt want to gamble on a shows success that has to be build up properly and needs to be followed every episode. If done right it can work and many shows have become classics that way, but there are just as much others who screwed up down the line. One that comes to mind emmediatly is Sliders. Loved that show.

[Cluas]

It's really a shame. I liked this so much more than Killjoys. But I am not surprised at all. It has happened to almost all the good shows...

[Annoyed]

It's really a shame. I liked this so much more than Killjoys. But I am not surprised at all. It has happened to almost all the good shows...

I looked at Killjoys when it premiered, along with DM. I just didn't like Killjoys, never continued watching it.

[pjt]

I liked both. But both had moderate ratings, so they kept the cheaper, and that sucks.

[Angela V]

Firefly also had the misfortune of being aired out of order. FOX decided to air an action pack episode first so you got thrown into a show not knowing what the hell was going on.

Wish Bell Media had the money to keep the show going on it's own. Kind of like CTV's "Saving Hope" though that's a major channel in Canada so they were able to keep going with the USA's station input. Space is part of the CTV group. Though recently Bell made changes to their tv packages and Space is now offered in the cheapest tier instead of the 2nd one.

[Tilarta]

So the primary motivation in choosing which one to keep was the one that costs less, but would earn them more money in residuals?

I tend not to be a fan of concept duplication, which is why I wasn't interested in Killjoys.
The simple fact is Dark Matter was released for viewing before Killjoys where I live, so it won by virtue of being the first.

There are times when I wish companies with disrespected franchises truly had the financial resources to make their product independently.
That way, they get all of the return profit, 100% of which can be used to keep their franchise sustainable.



It's never good when the network introduces a "continuity snarl" airing order.
I still can't comprehend why they do it, surely it's just confusing to have characters referencing something that they haven't done yet?

You have a very odd way of processing things...the way I see things, you can't simply blame or hold a genre responsible for being more well liked than another...that just makes zero sense to me. Same applies to TV shows.

Well, this is how my logic train goes:
A company makes fantasy products, then consumers buy it, so the retail stockists dedicate more of their display space to the genre, which then is used as a justification to make even more fantasy products and it just keeps escalating from there.
The more fantasy they make, the less time/effort/resources are dedicated to sci-fi products.
And this just results in me having to go through an entire store of unimportant products to find the ones I want to purchase. In some cases, these stores are so dedicated to their fantasy franchises, there simply is no sci-fi stock.

And then it gets worse, because I keep encountering those who are "genre bland".
They assume because I like sci-fi, I must also like fantasy and genuinely don't understand that (from my perspective) they are separate genres.
Because fiction is fiction and it's the same thing (from their perspective). At least, that's what they keep saying to me.

[jelgate]

I know what you mean. How dare a company want to make profit