<sputter, sputter!>
Heretic! By that standard: B5= not-very-good
then Star Trek (all incarnations) = total drivel
Dr. Who (all incarnations) less-than-drivel
and every other SF show on television since the dawn of time = garbage.
There are a few episodes of B5 that are fully as bad as anything they ever did on the original Star Trek. Technomages, anyone? As for acting, I think any random actor from the new Battlestar Galactica is better than anyone on B5, except for G’Kar and Delenn.
Obviously, it’s been taken care of, but it’s not like I didn’t put a big honking warning on it. If people who haven’t seen any of the Whedon-verse output are entering Whedon-verse threads, they ought to be aware that they might get spoilered for five year old episodes.
Actually, a number of reality shows have gone into syndication. Survivor, Fear Factor, The Amazing Race, Dog Eat Dog and The Real World all have been or are currently running. TAR season 1 is out on DVD (don’t know how well it’s doing). IIRC Bravo’s Boy Meets Boy and Gay Weddings were both released on DVD as well, and Bravo has also released some Queer Eye DVDs (unsure if they’re episodes or some sort of compilations). Fox even has a cable station for nothing but recycled reality programming. Then there’s the international markets. Survivor for one is huge in a number of countries around the world (witness the love Rob and Amber got in a various countries when they did TAR). Not that I disagree with you that the vast majority of reality programming is utter crap but there are secondary and tertiary markets for it. And those secondary markets can generate new primary consumers as well. I got sucked into TAR repeats on GSN and now am watching the new TAR Family Edition in first-run.
That actually surprises me. It’s hard to imagine anyone wanting to watch a repeat of a reality show when they know who’s going to win. I guess I can see syndication into new markets that never saw the show.
I’ll grant you the first one. Every show that lasts more than a season gathers its share of clunkers. But as far as acting goes, I’ll…almost give you part of that. The acting on BSG is superb, but so was that of Ivanova, Delenn, Londo, Marcus, Vir, Garibaldi, and Lennier. G’Kar, of course, was beyond good. I’d watch Andreas read a phone book.
What might have been: if Firefly had had a chance to get a backstory developed, and Joss had written stories he is capable of…what might have been Firefly’s “The Body.” Or “Not Fade Away.” Or “Once More, With Reavers.”
Not all reality shows are competition shows, though. There are a couple seasons of The Real World (San Francisco and New Orleans) that I’d still watch despite being well over TRW in general, and would buy on DVD if they were relatively inexpensive, even though I’ve seen both seasons several times already. And after all we’re in a thread about a show that lasted less than one full season yet many of us have watched repeatedly despite knowing how everything turns out.
Well, at least you’re not claiming that Sinclair or Sheridan were good. I’d really have to doubt your sanity if you did that.