Are there are any of those cheesy adventure shows still on the air? You know those ones that are either on at 2:00 pm on Saturday afternoon or 11:00 pm on Sunday night.
Shows like “Lost World”, “Xena”, “Andromeda”, “Adventure Inc.”, “Mutant X”, “Cleopatra 2525” and so on?
It seems that Andromeda was the last one and I’m pretty sure that that’s over.
As bad as they could be, they were certainly fun. One of the “Women” channels re-runs Xena last I heard. Sci-fi channel shows Andromeda and Hercules at times. TNT runs “Lost World” very early mornings. Sometimes Mutant X shows up. I think those are the survivors still being shown. The last New Production was a god-awful Three Musketeers that just never came together. I know of nothing new in production at this time.
I still watch them when they’re on and have fond memories of blowing entire Saturdays on these things.
Would the Stargate series count? They’re produced by SciFi but they seem to show up in syndication almost immediately.
Personally, I miss “F/X: The Series”.
I don’t know of any that are still around, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a resurgeance. In my ill-informed opinion, part of the reason the shows died off in recent years is that all the independent stations that used to air them ended up as WB or UPN affiliates. Now that half of those stations are unaffiliated again, they’re going to be looking for programming.
–Cliffy
We are in a new era of episodic TV, with story arcs and high production values and special effects. It may be that the cheesy shows are being pushed to be better or not bother.
When I met Howard Chaykin at the Orlando MegaCon in February (a writer and producer for such syndicated TV shows as Mutant X and Earth: Final Conflict), he complained to me about the shrinking market, and how the shows are still relatively expensive to produce compared to reality shows, sleazy dating shows like Blind Date, and so forth. He also cited the comparative lack of independent stations as another factor.
My favorite of all those syndicated action shows was She-Spies, which had a very self-aware, tongue-in-cheek sense of humor to its Charlie’s Angels-style hijinx. The attractive female leads were always breaking the fourth wall and joking about their writers and so forth. Plus, it had Carlos Jacott, a favorite actor of Joss Whedon and Aaron Sorkin, as their nerdy boss.
Didn’t She-Spies start out as serious though?
I think VIP with Pam Anderson was also pretty funny and tongue in cheek.
Nope. Started as very parodic, had a very wacky first season, then became more conventional (still had some comic dialogue, but no breaking the fourth wall) in the second season (which was done by a different production company, & lacked Carlos Jacott).
I would love to see a third season, & expect it to look completely different yet again.
Actually the opposite. It started as silly and funny - then got serious (and not coincidentally got cancelled) in the second season.