Not in real life, although I'd be up for it. No, we need more spaceships on TV. For as long as I can remember there have been shows about hardy humans on elegant crafts slipping through the icy vastness of space, encountering alien races and dealing with scientific dilemmas while revealing something about the human condition, especially the human condition of crewmen in red shirts.
But not this stardate. There are no Star Trek series on the air right now. No funky time travel shows. No alternate dimension realities. No black holes. "Stargate Atlantis" remains, but SG1 has just been shut down. Instead we have a plentitude of normal-situations-with-one-sf-element shows such as "The 4400" and "Eureka," with just "Battlestar Galactica" and "Dr. Who" to sustain we proud space opera freaks. Where are the gadgets? Where are our alien invasions? Where are our defiant captains, charging through the galaxies chin-first to bring American values to the rubbery bug-eyed monsters? Where are our ray guns?
Wacky dilettantes Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie, together in a small pink spaceship bouncing between the stars. They'll, I don't know, move rock in human slave mines or try to plot orbital vectors or something. I don't really care, I just want them off the Earth. Pack in Britney and K-Fed, too.
Right on, Chris. Your keyboard to God's ear. Posts: 2454 | Registered: Jan 2003
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Haven't you heard? TV is on the wane. Networks are strapped for cash, and DVRs are killing confidence in advertising delivery. It's much cheaper to make a TV show about Superman's personal life before he could fly than to pay special effects folks to make him zoom around Metropolis.
Ironically I hardly watch any TV but if it involved space ships, a new sacrificial ensign every episode, and inexplicably amorously compatible aliens, I'd be all over it.
[Edit: How great would an Asimovian Robot series be? Eto Demerzel and his human friend solve mysteries in the colonies etc.]Posts: 74 | Registered: Aug 2006
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Wow.... sorry to get distracted from your column, but I hadn't yet heard that SG-1 was cancelled. I have to say, I'm a bit shocked.
Posts: 2437 | Registered: Apr 2005
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ricree101 - from what I understand the producers are looking into taking it to another network, or going to movies. I wish 'em luck.
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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You know, now I'm seriously thinking about starting a campaign to bring back a show that never actually existed. Talk about meta...
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Special effects are cheaper than ever. Many special effects houses are buying off the shelf computers to do simple special effects work, and saving the high powered stuff for the high powered machines. It's saving them time and money (I know at least ILM is doing this).
I think we'll get a new Star Trek show in a couple years, but they are giving it a lot of time to cool off before they delve into it again. Too many years of bad viewer reactions are giving them pause over what used to be a sure thing franchise.
Babylon Five, Farscape, DS9, Voyager, Firefly, SG1... all the fan favorites and juggernaut Sci-Fi SPACE shows are on the out. It could just be that that generation of sci-fi is over, and the "everyman" sci-fi is in, or sci-fi thriller based on earth.
On the other hand, I think the marked absence of spaceship fun should open the way for SOMEONE to try and crack into that market. There's millions of geeks out there just WAITING for someone to throw a ship into space and tack some phasers on it.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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You won't believe what happens when we cram six very different people into the International Space Station! Watch as the hot chick, the religious freak, the jock, the gay guy, the married woman, and the token minority all learn to coexist in incredibly cramped quarters surrounded by the most hostile environment known to man. They'll have to complete various exciting tasks designed to just barely sustain their lives and each week the audience can choose to vote one of them out of the airlock. Watch the first episode as the hot chick shows everyone what microgravity does to her implants! Thursday nights at 9, right after Survivor: Ganymede.
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Chris, that'd be amazing. I bet you could actually get a huge groundswell going on it, too. You'd have people going to Fox and demanding that they at least release the episodes that haven't been aired on DVD, and folks who didn't get a change to see the ones that did air would be going to their local video stores asking if they were going to get the Haitus complete series DVD set in.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by ricree101: Wow.... sorry to get distracted from your column, but I hadn't yet heard that SG-1 was cancelled. I have to say, I'm a bit shocked.
quote:Originally posted by starLisa: Chris, that'd be amazing. I bet you could actually get a huge groundswell going on it, too. You'd have people going to Fox and demanding that they at least release the episodes that haven't been aired on DVD, and folks who didn't get a change to see the ones that did air would be going to their local video stores asking if they were going to get the Haitus complete series DVD set in.
You know, if I didn't already have several major conflicting projects going on... oh, what the hell. This looks like too much fun to let drop.
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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You forgot to mention 2 or more networks coming up with the same idea in the same year to confuse fans enough to not watch any of them. (Threshold, Surface, Invasion)
Posts: 3134 | Registered: Mar 2005
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With the success of Burt Rutan getting a privately built ship into space and the next big challenge of a private obital reusable vessel there is definitely some material for a future documentary series. Or there should be.
Posts: 57 | Registered: Aug 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: Special effects are cheaper than ever. Many special effects houses are buying off the shelf computers to do simple special effects work, and saving the high powered stuff for the high powered machines. It's saving them time and money (I know at least ILM is doing this).
I agree, and disagree. The cost of entry to get the special effects is cheaper (the computer time). Judging from the vast array of bad special effects employed, the artists are not. A large part of being a good effects artist is knowing the limits of the technology and working around them.
Posts: 74 | Registered: Aug 2006
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You forgot to mention 2 or more networks coming up with the same idea in the same year to confuse fans enough to not watch any of them. (Threshold, Surface, Invasion)
That boxing thing. too many to list really.
Posts: 57 | Registered: Aug 2006
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Chris, don't forget the myspace page to help promote everone's favorite "tv show that never was" Hiatus!!!
Posts: 1918 | Registered: Mar 2005
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GoogleAd at the bottom of the page: The Shat Hits the Fan Sunday August 20 Comedy Central Roast of William Shatner
M'thinks that certain someones have been exposed to a bit too much StarTrek if they expect viewers to go back in time to watch a tv show.
Posts: 8501 | Registered: Jul 2001
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Feel free to link to it, but if you want something to publish in a more formal 'campaign' (or spoof campaign) let me know -- I need to make sure the images I ganked are copyright free. I did it rather fast
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Yes, Belle is truly brilliant. I'm in awe of the possibility for mayhem on other movie forums if that post starts showing up in google searches.
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I've started writing about it in my lj. I'm pondering other fora to spread it to.
Now what would REALLY amuse me, and get this started, would be if OSC would include it in his "Uncle Orson Reviews Everything" column.
Posts: 2849 | Registered: Feb 2002
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I mentioned it on my Myspace blog, and I put a nondescript link to the Save Hiatus page in my forum sig elsewhere. I think letting the link do the talking is more realistic.
I wonder if there's a way to make sure this page doesn't come up at the top of google searches?
Posts: 5422 | Registered: Dec 2001
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I think this is a symptom of a fairly broad shift in the way media is distributed. Used to be the media companies' revenue streams depended on controlling the means of distribution (i.e., film prints, video tapes, cassettes, etc.). Now that the world is going digital, the content distribution business is getting shook down.
I think the days of $200M movies and $3M/episode TV are close to an end. A pity that, some of those things were pretty good.
On the other hand, the same technology is lowering production costs, meaning there's a TON of cheap-but-pretty-good amateur stuff becoming available. For example: you may never see another Star Trek series from Paramount, but "Hidden Frontier" and "New Voyages" represent the sort of semi-professional media production that the future would seem to hold.
Posts: 196 | Registered: May 2005
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