Thanks for fucking over the loyal viewers, Levin. I’ll be making it a point to never watch the WB again.
Wow. What a way to announce that your industry is in a tailspin, and you know it, but you still don’t have a clue how to get your audience back.
The mega mergers have not paid off in shareholder gains anywhere close to what they were supposed to do. The so-called essential audience (people aged 18-34) have vanished, and TV execs throughout the entire industry don’t know what to do, because they can’t assimilate the new paradigm that’s been created within the past decade.
Read the rest of the article about Jordan Levin that pepperlandgirl posted. The WB is planning to imitate what ABC does with America’s Next Top Model and air the exact same show on multiple nights next TV season. Levin and people like him have decided that the tiny audiences generated by their shows cannot afford to pay for what used to be mainstream programming ie programs with an ongoing story, so they’re using the same tactic used by the movie people: go for the biggest audience you can get on a single three-day stretch, and then drop it.
To buttress your point, here is a quote from a CNN.com article about the Comcast/Disney merger:
Levin is following a losing strategy. The ABC division of Disney has constantly had its financial ass handed to them, and even Comcast admits that the best they could hope to do is run it at a break-even level.
The WB is history. It doesn’t know it yet, but it is.
*Burke is the President of Comcast cable.
Now maybe you know how Firefly fans feel.
Well, yeah. Sorta. I loved Firefly, and was very happy to get the DVDs so that I could see all of the episodes–in order this time. (And, for a handful of them, for the first time ever.) The greatest tragedy with Firefly was that, IMO, its potential hadn’t really been reached just yet. But it was getting there–and quickly, too.
But the Buffyverse? I’ve been following Mutant Enemy’s vamp antics since 1997 and, quite honestly, the end of Buffy made it seem like I said good-bye to a long-time friend. And now that Angel is being staked, it kinda makes me feel as if I just received a letter saying that the same friend just died.
Firefly was great (as I said, I loved it), but it wasn’t around long enough to really mean anything to me as the Buffyverse has over seven years. The Buffyverse’s potential was reached, and then added on to nearly every season with nearly every episode of both Buffy and Angel. I had fun in the '80s as a kid watching television, and I definitely enjoyed the cartoons and campy sit-coms back then. But I didn’t ever really appreciate television (or understand that it could be appreciated) until Buffy came along. (I was out in L.A. when I first saw the posters and billboards advertising the show. “What the hell,” I thought. “Paul Reuben’s death in the movie was pretty damn funny, so I’ll give it a try and groan once it really doesn’t translate to televsion.” I didn’t know that I’d get sucked in for 7 years.
Nor did my wife know that, on the way back from our wedding in Vegas last year, that she’d wake up from her nap on the plane, see Willow crying on my laptop’s screen in a Season 4 episode, ask to listen in for a while, and then get attached, too. She’s now caught up to the end of Season 5 of Buffy and Season 3 of Angel.)
As Tom Robbins wrote in Still Life with Woodpecker (paraphrased): “There are two mantras in life: yum and yuck.”
Yuck.
All that said, I hope Mutant Enemy gets another show. And soon.
Well, I already knew, as I am a Firefly fan and my husband is well…rather rabid in his devotion.
So trust me, this is the third in a hat-trick of grief and pain and spirit crushing defeat. Which is why I’m not just going to shrug and say “Well that’s the way these things go…” Those fuckers are going to hear from me and maybe it won’t do any good, but 20 postcards and 20 emails later, I’m feeling much, much better.
OTOH, it’s already in syndication on TNT, every day. I watched the whole first three seasons last year.
My bad then. I thought you were one of the Buffy devotees who refused to watch Firefly out of spite.
Not me, but I am familiar with the type of person of who you speak.
I don’t understand why a Buffy fan would have refused to watch Firefly out of “spite.” Could someone explain, please?
Because they blame Firefly for what happened in S6. If Joss hadn’t been wrapped up in Firefly, he never would have left Marti in charge, and there wouldn’t have been the crack/black magic Willow storyline, the “bad boyfriend” storyline, the attempted rape, etc, etc. I disagree with the assessment because despite the execution, Joss was in still in charge over what stories were being told. But the bitterness in some circles runs very, very deep. Even now. And then when Firefly actually aired we were starting S7, which wasn’t as disappointing to some as S6, but not what they were expecting/hoping for either.
My Bad. America’s Next Top Model is on UPN, not ABC (eh, they’re one channel away from each other in my nabe).
Still, it’s a big big sign of what we can expect from the future of TV.
So, the WB couldn’t, like, cancel Smallville and put a show that’s, like, actually good in that time slot? No, they actually had to cancel the only watchable hour of television outside of PBS.
I wonder if the predictions that another network wouldn’t think the show is worth picking up are correct. Angel is a critically acclaimed show with a strong core audience. I’m thinking that if ways could be found to shoot the show on a lower budget than it has now (fewer set pieces, move the FG into some low-rent digs appropriate for their fall from grace after the W&H fiasco, etc.), Sci-Fi or maybe UPN might pick it up.
Also, I don’t think it would be disastrous for UPN to pick up the show. I’m one of those who thinks that a big part of the reason S6 of BtVS went so badly awry was that Marti Noxon was using the show as a forum to work through her personal issues. Sure, Joss was technically in charge, but I don’t think he was keeping as close an eye on the show as he should have. If David Fury or one of the Drews had been left in charge, I think the show would have been a lot more fun. S7 I think suffered from a lack of direction due to the fact that it was still up in the air as to whether SMG was going to re-up. Once it was made clear that the show was done for, it pulled back together for a strong finish.
No more sexy Angel! 
I haven’t seen this in any of the recent Angel threads, but it either pisses me off or makes me laugh I can’t decide. I was wandering through my Tivo as I’m often wont to do when I found this thing called TV Rules- Angel.
It’s a little segment about the hundredth show, starts with Ken Taylor who I think is from TV Guide calling Angel- “the successful spinoff from Buffy the Vampire Slayer” waah. Then we have lots of people hugging, a couple of interviews, but the other one that got to me was Alexis Denisof- “I don’t feel a hundred. I think we could make a hundred more.” :: sobs into hankerchief::
-Lil
I think the Rogue Demon Hunter is only 94 or so 
Would that be in demon years?