Sci-Fi Channel: Farscape, Roswell, and "The Big Bomb"

The BBQ Pit
1

To the Sci-Fi Channel: Dear Sirs, Madams, and fuckwickets,

I watched the latest episode of Farscape on Friday night. While not being the best Farscape episode I’ve ever seen, it was still a good presentation. It possessed the charm and sense of humor that I identify with Farscape, and that I have come to know, love, and appreciate. I could only sit there, watching the show that was soon to disappear, with a sense of enjoyment that was heightened by my knowledge that only 3 more episodes remained. As of now, I haven’t heard anything, official or un-official, that indicates that you have any intention of changing your mind and renewing the show.

Then, sirs and madams, I saw two commercials that provoked me to rage. After seeing those two commercials, I could not contain myself.

The first commercial was for your latest acquisition, “Roswell.” Are you not familiar with “Roswell”? Did you buy it just because of it’s name? It does have aliens in it, yes, but in substance it is little more than “Dawson’s Creek” with Little Green Men stickers on it. Is the teen demographic one that you’re so desperate to get ahold of? I will state for the record that I didn’t watch “Roswell” when it was on the WB Network, as I dislike teen angst melodramas, and I will not watch it when you get it on your channel. And playing your ads for it at least once a commercial break won’t change my mind, it’ll only strengthen my resolve to avoid it at all costs.

But the second commercial was the one that really upset me. It was an ad for the upcoming “world television premiere” of “Battlefield:Earth.” Just what the hell were you thinking when you bought the rights to that piece of crap movie!?!?!? BF:E was soundly denounced as the worst movie of all time, and won the most Raspberry awards that any movie has ever won! Virtually all of the people who saw that movie regretted it! Everyone in the theater with me demanded their money back! I would’ve demanded my money back, too, if I hadn’t gotten in to see the movie for free! And yet, I still wanted those two hours back. Battlefield Earth was a complete waste of time. Do you know why BF:E was so inexpensive? BECAUSE NO OTHER CHANNEL WAS STUPID ENOUGH TO TOUCH IT! And yet, you still paid them money to license it! They should have paid you to let it see the light of day once more!!!

And so, ladies and gentlemen, it is “Battlefield:Earth” that completely undermines all your arguments for cancelling Farscape. Farscape was declining in quality, you say? I say, Farscape has been of very high quality in the past, and still is of good quality now. In contrast, BF:E was crappy quality from the start. And yet, you paid good money for a movie which you knew sucked. If BF:E is up to your standards of quality, then Farscape passes that standard with plenty to spare. Farscape has never even been considered for a Razzie, let alone won any.

Declining numbers, you say? Farscape is still in the top 13% of all ad-funded cable shows. It’s quite frankly the best show you’ve got. Need I even try to mention that BF:E bombed so hard at the box office that they had to dig holes to get to the appropriate numbers? How much Drain-O had you smoked when you thought that a movie that was ignored in such huge numbers at the box office would be embraced by huge masses of people on cable?

Spiralling costs? Well, BF:E was one of the most expensive flop movies in history, and yet you had no problem paying for that. Farscape at least has potential, very realistic potential, to make you money. And let’s face it, even the morbidly curious who watched BF:E, all three of them, aren’t gonna watch it again.

So, in conclusion, you yourself have undermined all your arguments for cancelling Farscape. You’ve paid money for crap, and crap which has little-to-no potential cash inflow for you, to boot. Farscape is a gem, a quality program that is a Sci-Fi original, while the crap you’ve bought has been available elsewhere. I would recommend that you ditch your “pay money for as much crap as we can, cause we’re desperate for shows” approach to programming for your channel, and focus instead on your strong shows, first and foremost of which is Farscape.

Vengeant

P.S.: So, it’s my first thread, what do you think? I feel kinda bad for not lacing it with more expletives and interesting insults, but I’m actually thinking of editing the few insults out of this post and actually sending it to Sci-Fi. So, any feedback will be appreciated. Unless it’s crap of BF:E depths. :slight_smile:

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Well, my first question is, if you refused to ever watch Roswell, how do you know it’s not worth watching? Also, are you really surprised that the Sci-Fi channel is courting teenage viewers? Traditionally, it has been viewed as a genre for children and teenagers. For that matter, are you surprised by any television network trying to get teenage viewers? Everyone wants teenage viewers. If CBS could figure out a way to get 18 year olds to watch Diagnosis: Murder, they’d go for it. It’s the Holy Grail of Marketing Demographics.

As for Battlefield Earth, well, one of the side effects of it bombing so bad is that the TV rights are so cheap you could buy 'em with a gnat’s fart and get change back. Basically, they got this movie so cheap that if they can get, say, twelve people to actually watch it, they’ll recoup their investment. Farscape, on the other hand, cost quite a bit per episode, requiring a much larger audience. One that, apparently, they could not attract. Sure, it was their highest rated show. That’s like being named the world’s tallest midget. It’s a great honor, but you’re still coming up short.

Also, your rant is way too late, as they’ve already torn up all the actor’s contracts and taken chainsaws to the sets. Much as it sucks, Farscape is already dead and buried.

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Even worse, watching Stargate tonight, I saw ads for a show called something like the Dream Team, which seemed to be a talk-show where a panel interprets dreams from the audience.

Just the thought of that show existing at all reduces my will to live. That its on Sci Fi makes me wish the damn network would just go ahead and change its name to USA 2 and go the fuck away.

I used to watch this network every day. Now I only watch it because no other network shows anything worth even sleeping through on Monday nights.

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On the plus side, now that Farscape is gone, they haven’t got anything at all worth watch. So, now I can boycott their entire network for airing John Edwards, at no actual cost to myself.

Silver linings, people. Silver linings.

5

Miller, my thoughts exactly…as soon as Farscape finishes its last few episodes.

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  1. Farscape has 10 episodes left

  2. Dream Team is replacing Crossing Over with John Edwards

  3. I can’t believe I watched Paul Adrian’s new show… trackers or crapers or whatever.

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Exactly. In researching my term paper last semester, I learned that Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman was cancelled at the height of its popularity – eclipsing any other show that dared touch it – because its countless viewers were all too old. The age of the people watching is often more important than the number of people watching.

8

Man, that was terrible, wasn’t it? Aside from apparently being just a much less inspired ripoff of Brimstone, it’s hard to say what cliches they missed. Attractive woman picks up naked alien in middle of nowhere? Check. Alien can’t speak language but picks it up with remarkable speed. Check. Alien doesn’t understand our Earth ways and hilarity ensues. Check. Alien has amazing and inexplicable powers. Check. Not to mention the truly wretched special effects and the whole general feeling of a show whose entire budget is less than Farscape spends on Chiana’s body makeup.

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Why the FUCK did they cancel the Invisible Man? Goddamn I liked that show.

And LEXX. Another GREAT show (granted about half of the earth episodes sucked donkey ass…)

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Ms. D_Odds used to watch Trackers in its syndicated slot late Sunday nights. I watched one third of an episode and realized that I would never waste electrical impulses processing this show again.

Farscape’s problem was costs. It cost too much to make while neither growing its own audience share nor growing SciFi’s overall audience share (just repeating USA Networks mantra, I don’t know how they calculate this).

It’s a shame they destroyed the sets so fast. At the very least they could have given them an episode or two to wrap up any open storylines. I’m convinced that there is a special hell dedicated to TV execs (which I hope is somewhere below the special hell I’m headed to).

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Well, they did just start afternoon reruns of Knight Rider! You wanna talk about quality. I tell you, I’m in the camp of the folks who think the Sci-Fi Channel is getting worse and worse.

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Well, Miller, I actually did see parts of a Roswell episode when I was over at my parents’ place, while my Dad was watching it. (Yep, that’s right, my Dad; he watches Dawson’s Creek, too, or at least he used to.) It’s not my cup of chai; I’m not gonna be watching it, as I get enough teen angst just by having to work with two teenagers for four hours a week.

My biggest gripe with Sci-Fi Channel is basically one of philosophy. What I want to see in a show is quality and originality. Farscape delivered that. Sci-Fi Channel has given us shows that are good-quality and original, but none of the shows – Invisible Man, Farscape, and Lexx, to name three – have lasted very long. And then, Sci-Fi Channel fills its hours with tired, unoriginal stuff. I mean, I can watch boring, generic crap on the networks; why would I want to watch boring, generic crap with a sci-fi flavor on cable? It’s like putting salt on cardboard before eating it. Sci-Fi Channel’s practice of paying very little for low-quality programming just isn’t gonna give me anything that I’m interested in.

And, see, that programming philosophy is something that I don’t quite understand. Is this river of crap actually profitable? Or does their way of picking programs consist of, “Well, it’s the smallest price-tag we’ve seen, and we hope that it might make a few bucks for us before we mercifully cancel it”? Is there actually a cable channel that has become successful using this strategy?

Vengeant

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ScFi needs to bite the bullet in the NOW to pay for good, quality shows and get used to the idea of their current ratings. SciFi is not going to be a top cable network, especially not on this budget, but probably not in any event.

Where they recoup the cost of these series is in the idea that they can play these damned things endlessly for the next millenia. More episodes = more replays, more cycle time, a more complete product.

In other words, they need to focus less on improbable ratings goals and more on the building of Products with substance and a long shelf-life.

14

Part of the problem is the Scifi channel is spending a good chunk of it’s budget making movies. Bad movies. And buying the ‘world premier on tv’ rights for other bad movies.

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Minor nitpick: Roswell was once an interesting show. Then the iron heel of WB ground it into the dust and forced it to become yet another Dawson’s Creek. I mean, yeah there, was teen angst, but there were also cool alien powers and people discovering things in the desert and three people trying desperately to figure out where they came from and how they fit into this world. If SciFi can somehow take the bruised and trampled-on corpse of that show and return it to it’s original wonder and coolness, then it will once again become a show truly worth watching.

Unfortunately, that’s not bloody likely.

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From my limted understanding, ‘Sci Fi Pictures’ just takes released-to-video movies and changes the ‘Fucks’ to ‘Fricks’, and doesn’t actually produce those fine flicks like ‘Dragon Warrior’. Guessing on my part, though.

‘Tremors’ better damn well better be true to the movies. If they take away ‘Farscape’ and fuck me on ‘Tremors’, its pretty much go-time for me. (Well, not really, but…)

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Hey, don’t diss Dream Team out of hand. For all we know, at least one of the Dream Interpreters could be a Joseph in the making.

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Why Scifi is losing me as a viewer:

The problem I have with the cancelled shows that SciFi starts rerunning is that usually I already gave them a shot during their first run and bailed on them the first time around. Roswell, teen angst and aliens in the desert - no thanks. The Tracker, a cheapo retread of Time Trax with the Highlander dude - same old shitty show with a new name and face and a pathetic alien spin. Battlefield: Earth? How many timeslots do you have to stick that thing in before you realize no one wants to watch it? I know they want to get their money’s worth out of it, but the only way people will watch it is if you screen it for catatonics.

I hate alien/Roswell/conspiracy/abduction/little grey men/flying saucers come to Earth shows, books and movies; so I never took to The X-Files, and had no use for the Taken miniseries. Why would I want to watch it now on SciFi, TNT, or syndidcated on weekends on local channels. Are the diehard fans still watching it that regularly in reruns even though they own (or will soon own) all of the episodes on VHS and/or DVD?

I skip past those direct-to-video movies at the rental store, why would I watch them on your channel just because you put the “SciFi Pictures” logo in the ads for them when you show them.

John Edward and The Dream Teammay be cheap programming, but it’s also dull unless you’re a sucker for this bullshit. People don’t even like to listen to each other’s dreams in real life. I notice the promos for it play up the “shocking” sex aspect of the dreams, "You had a lesbian fantasy dream? Tell us all about it!"Sounds like a basic cable-safe version of Penthouse Letters. Too bad you guys can’t snap up the Pet Psychic while you’re at it, by your current programming trend she counts as SciFi.

Tremors and all of the original miniseries and movies you keep hinting at. “Let’s make everything as a backdoor pilot for a series, maybe we can sucker the losers into watching some of them for two seasons, cancel them the instant costs rise, and strip them to run during our weekday schedule. The ones that don’t get made into series, we’ll just rerun during movie marathons over holiday weekends.”

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Yeah, it could be too late to worry about this, but…

EnderW24 is a Nielsen Family.

And wouldn’t you rather go down fighting?

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SciFi is starting to sound an awful lot like Viacom . . .