Atlantis's problem was the same faced by SG-1's later years: tremendous power creep removing the tension. SG-1 at the beginning was plucky humans up against godlike aliens with armies of loyal devoted soldier/worshippers, fleets of starships, and a vast interstellar empire we couldn't hope to defeat. The plucky humans survived by making timely alliances with even more advanced aliens and playing the bad guys off against one another. And it was great.
Then all of a sudden the plucky humans have squadrons of starfighters, capital ships, energy weapons, invincible shields and there's a neverending arms race where Big Bad Guy would get really powerful and Last-Minute Breakthrough allows us to defeat him, only to be replaced by Even Bigger Badder Guy and on and on and on for the last five seasons or so.
Atlantis was the same way only on an accelerated time scale. The first season was nice and tense, the expedition was cut off and completely on its own with an enemy fleet bearing down on them. Then they got a ship that could take on the enemy cruisers with little difficulty. Then they got a second ship. Now the city is flying around. Before you knew it they were blowing through ZPMs like candy.
Still a fun romp, but losing that sense of being greatly outclassed technologically made the shows suffer.
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKERS
Atlantis's problem was the same faced by SG-1's later years: tremendous power creep removing the tension. SG-1 at the beginning was plucky humans up against godlike aliens with armies of loyal devoted soldier/worshippers, fleets of starships, and a vast interstellar empire we couldn't hope to defeat. The plucky humans survived by making timely alliances with even more advanced aliens and playing the bad guys off against one another. And it was great.
Then all of a sudden the plucky humans have squadrons of starfighters, capital ships, energy weapons, invincible shields and there's a neverending arms race where Big Bad Guy would get really powerful and Last-Minute Breakthrough allows us to defeat him, only to be replaced by Even Bigger Badder Guy and on and on and on for the last five seasons or so.
Atlantis was the same way only on an accelerated time scale. The first season was nice and tense, the expedition was cut off and completely on its own with an enemy fleet bearing down on them. Then they got a ship that could take on the enemy cruisers with little difficulty. Then they got a second ship. Now the city is flying around. Before you knew it they were blowing through ZPMs like candy.
Still a fun romp, but losing that sense of being greatly outclassed technologically made the shows suffer.
SGC didn't have a large space navy. Barely had a fleet. They have a few nice toys, but overall they're tiny group in that universe.
Atlantis's problem was the same faced by SG-1's later years: tremendous power creep removing the tension. SG-1 at the beginning was plucky humans up against godlike aliens with armies of loyal devoted soldier/worshippers, fleets of starships, and a vast interstellar empire we couldn't hope to defeat. The plucky humans survived by making timely alliances with even more advanced aliens and playing the bad guys off against one another. And it was great.
Then all of a sudden the plucky humans have squadrons of starfighters, capital ships, energy weapons, invincible shields and there's a neverending arms race where Big Bad Guy would get really powerful and Last-Minute Breakthrough allows us to defeat him, only to be replaced by Even Bigger Badder Guy and on and on and on for the last five seasons or so.
Atlantis was the same way only on an accelerated time scale. The first season was nice and tense, the expedition was cut off and completely on its own with an enemy fleet bearing down on them. Then they got a ship that could take on the enemy cruisers with little difficulty. Then they got a second ship. Now the city is flying around. Before you knew it they were blowing through ZPMs like candy.
Still a fun romp, but losing that sense of being greatly outclassed technologically made the shows suffer.
SGC didn't have a large space navy. Barely had a fleet. They have a few nice toys, but overall they're tiny group in that universe.
Towards the end of Atlantis they had something like five cruisers, each of which carried multiple squadrons of fighters and were armed with energy weapons that could one-shot anything the Wraith and Ori could throw at them. They didn't need a large fleet.
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKERS
Breaking Bad was also adjusted in the other direction (as is every show)--it had to be ready to have each season finale be a possible series finale, at least for the first couple seasons.
As far as I know, Babylon 5 was the first show to call its shot and say, this is how many seasons we're going for, and the we're going to end, and we're not going to deviate from that plan.
Life On Mars intentionally ended at season 2. As far as I'm aware this was even against what BBC producers wanted but the writers basically said 'nah, this is the end' and did so.
Which is why that silly spin off I can't even remember the name of happened.
Though if you haven't seen Life on Mars you really, really should.
The system they (mostly) have in the UK is pretty different from how the US does things, though.
For a start, they almost always get their full run. Easier to do since it's less episodes, but they know that if they get the green light they won't be cancelled half way through (barring something really awful happening). So they can tell a full story and know they get to have an ending. It's only after the series has aired (or during airing, but way after it's all been filmed and edited etc.) that they're told whether or not they get another series (or xmas special or whatever).
It still happens pretty often that a show will try to write an open ending and still not get a second series, but at least they don't have to worry about being canned before even getting there. It also happens pretty often that the writers and producers will decide to just end the series and move on to something else.
Personally, I prefer that way of doing things, but I don't think the comparison is entirely fair.
I actually wound up discussing this while painting the living room about a week ago.
Both me and the the other guy doing it kinda liked alot of American shows but wish they'd just cut out about half of the episodes in any given series.
Breaking Bad was also adjusted in the other direction (as is every show)--it had to be ready to have each season finale be a possible series finale, at least for the first couple seasons.
As far as I know, Babylon 5 was the first show to call its shot and say, this is how many seasons we're going for, and the we're going to end, and we're not going to deviate from that plan.
Life On Mars intentionally ended at season 2. As far as I'm aware this was even against what BBC producers wanted but the writers basically said 'nah, this is the end' and did so.
Which is why that silly spin off I can't even remember the name of happened.
Though if you haven't seen Life on Mars you really, really should.
The system they (mostly) have in the UK is pretty different from how the US does things, though.
For a start, they almost always get their full run. Easier to do since it's less episodes, but they know that if they get the green light they won't be cancelled half way through (barring something really awful happening). So they can tell a full story and know they get to have an ending. It's only after the series has aired (or during airing, but way after it's all been filmed and edited etc.) that they're told whether or not they get another series (or xmas special or whatever).
It still happens pretty often that a show will try to write an open ending and still not get a second series, but at least they don't have to worry about being canned before even getting there. It also happens pretty often that the writers and producers will decide to just end the series and move on to something else.
Personally, I prefer that way of doing things, but I don't think the comparison is entirely fair.
I actually wound up discussing this while painting the living room about a week ago.
Both me and the the other guy doing it kinda liked alot of American shows but wish they'd just cut out about half of the episodes in any given series.
It is a little telling that Life on Mars had 2 series of 8 episodes each and told a complete story, while the US remake had 1 season, that was cut short and ended up with only 17 episodes (they wanted more, probably 22), and failed to tell much of the same story.
The fact that Atlantis never was able to produce more ZPM's was the dumbest choice. They had an effective way to stop the power creep - the same issue the Lanteans originally had - there were so many Wraith, they couldn't hope to go toe to toe with them, even with a ridiculous technological advantage. I mean, fuck. From a straight ground combat standpoint, Earth was far better equipped to win a war than the Goa'uld ever were. And it probably had as many people on it as most of the rest of the galaxy combined.
Breaking Bad was also adjusted in the other direction (as is every show)--it had to be ready to have each season finale be a possible series finale, at least for the first couple seasons.
As far as I know, Babylon 5 was the first show to call its shot and say, this is how many seasons we're going for, and the we're going to end, and we're not going to deviate from that plan.
Life On Mars intentionally ended at season 2. As far as I'm aware this was even against what BBC producers wanted but the writers basically said 'nah, this is the end' and did so.
Which is why that silly spin off I can't even remember the name of happened.
Though if you haven't seen Life on Mars you really, really should.
The system they (mostly) have in the UK is pretty different from how the US does things, though.
For a start, they almost always get their full run. Easier to do since it's less episodes, but they know that if they get the green light they won't be cancelled half way through (barring something really awful happening). So they can tell a full story and know they get to have an ending. It's only after the series has aired (or during airing, but way after it's all been filmed and edited etc.) that they're told whether or not they get another series (or xmas special or whatever).
It still happens pretty often that a show will try to write an open ending and still not get a second series, but at least they don't have to worry about being canned before even getting there. It also happens pretty often that the writers and producers will decide to just end the series and move on to something else.
Personally, I prefer that way of doing things, but I don't think the comparison is entirely fair.
I actually wound up discussing this while painting the living room about a week ago.
Both me and the the other guy doing it kinda liked alot of American shows but wish they'd just cut out about half of the episodes in any given series.
It is a little telling that Life on Mars had 2 series of 8 episodes each and told a complete story, while the US remake had 1 season, that was cut short and ended up with only 17 episodes (they wanted more, probably 22), and failed to tell much of the same story.
The way shows are monetized hugely shapes what they are. American shows are designed for ad revenue (which means they need lots of regular content) and syndication (for which the magic lucrative number is 100 not-terribly-serialized episodes). British shows are mostly monetized in home video sets, which naturally incentivizes short, self-contained series, because those are easier to package and sell and more satisfying to buy and watch than 800 mostly-filler episodes on 300 discs.
(For another example, Japanese anime is rife with stylistic and narrative techniques designed to sell miniature figures and other merchandise, because that's how their television is monetized.)
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Mego Thor"I say thee...NAY!"Registered Userregular
British shows are mostly monetized in home video sets, which naturally incentivizes short, self-contained series, because those are easier to package and sell and more satisfying to buy and watch than 800 mostly-filler episodes on 300 discs.
Is that why a single season of Doctor Who is so expensive?
British show talk reminded me of Broadchurch and Gracepoint.
Gracepoint is the US version and is basically a shot-by-shot remake of the original (it even stars David Tennant in the same role!), but somehow not as good. The actors playing the murdered boy's parent weren't as good, the cinematography wasn't as good and despite being nearly identical to the original made odd changes just so it wouldn't end the same (it did with one minor change). Also David Tennant's California accent is atrocious and very distracting.
Basically there's absolutely no reason to watch Gracepoint over Broadchurch.
Though for some reason they are making a season 2 of Broadchurch. Who knows why since the story was wrapped up completely in season 1, but maybe it'll be good.
British shows are mostly monetized in home video sets, which naturally incentivizes short, self-contained series, because those are easier to package and sell and more satisfying to buy and watch than 800 mostly-filler episodes on 300 discs.
Is that why a single season of Doctor Who is so expensive?
No, that's purely price-gouging by the BBC.
The making of the show is funded via the licence fee all UK TV-owners have to pay. Any cash the DVDs and Blu-rays bring in is pure profit.
They've completely abandoned the horror roots of the show and it's become some kind of bullshit urban fantasy thing.
I agree with a lot of your points, but Supernatural has ALWAYS been an Urban Fantasy thing with dashes of horror, not the other way around.
It's just that starting with around season five, they decided to go whole hog into the Angel/Devil thing.
Season 1 was definitely more horror than anything else. It was all ghosts, urban legends, and monsters with about 3 episodes of demons and one of vampires. Season 2, even when the demon arc was kicking into full gear, you still had episodes like Playthings, Everyone Loves A Clown, Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things, that H.H. Holmes episode (blanking on the name). Up until about season 4, the vast majority of MOTW eps were ghosts or monsters and everything was shot in the style of a horror movie. But once they started straying from the original formula, everything got brighter, all the monsters became poor misunderstood creatures, demons and angels became boring and ordinary, and they completely abandoned any sense of terror or tension because clearly they need to devote that screen time to Sam and Dean arguing about who's lying to who for the 4987439687th time.
Breaking Bad was also adjusted in the other direction (as is every show)--it had to be ready to have each season finale be a possible series finale, at least for the first couple seasons.
As far as I know, Babylon 5 was the first show to call its shot and say, this is how many seasons we're going for, and the we're going to end, and we're not going to deviate from that plan.
Life On Mars intentionally ended at season 2. As far as I'm aware this was even against what BBC producers wanted but the writers basically said 'nah, this is the end' and did so.
Which is why that silly spin off I can't even remember the name of happened.
Though if you haven't seen Life on Mars you really, really should.
The system they (mostly) have in the UK is pretty different from how the US does things, though.
For a start, they almost always get their full run. Easier to do since it's less episodes, but they know that if they get the green light they won't be cancelled half way through (barring something really awful happening). So they can tell a full story and know they get to have an ending. It's only after the series has aired (or during airing, but way after it's all been filmed and edited etc.) that they're told whether or not they get another series (or xmas special or whatever).
It still happens pretty often that a show will try to write an open ending and still not get a second series, but at least they don't have to worry about being canned before even getting there. It also happens pretty often that the writers and producers will decide to just end the series and move on to something else.
Personally, I prefer that way of doing things, but I don't think the comparison is entirely fair.
I actually wound up discussing this while painting the living room about a week ago.
Both me and the the other guy doing it kinda liked alot of American shows but wish they'd just cut out about half of the episodes in any given series.
It is a little telling that Life on Mars had 2 series of 8 episodes each and told a complete story, while the US remake had 1 season, that was cut short and ended up with only 17 episodes (they wanted more, probably 22), and failed to tell much of the same story.
The way shows are monetized hugely shapes what they are. American shows are designed for ad revenue (which means they need lots of regular content) and syndication (for which the magic lucrative number is 100 not-terribly-serialized episodes). British shows are mostly monetized in home video sets, which naturally incentivizes short, self-contained series, because those are easier to package and sell and more satisfying to buy and watch than 800 mostly-filler episodes on 300 discs.
(For another example, Japanese anime is rife with stylistic and narrative techniques designed to sell miniature figures and other merchandise, because that's how their television is monetized.)
I think British TV owes a lot more to having it's origins on BBC Radio, so the creative teams are generally smaller and budgets are lower (combined with the license fee, so there's a set pot of money that doesn't really change that much based of the success or failure of a few programs. Short series are easier to write, cheaper to make and you can get a lot more of them (which is important when several of the BBC channels have a mandate to serve a minority audience so are going to need to cover a much wider range of subjects with their programs than a commercial channel would.
The BBC, both with it's TV and Radio channels, is such a big part of UK TV that it's demands then shape how people learn and what sort of style of series have multiple chances of getting picked up - plus what is considered normal by viewers.
The fact that Atlantis never was able to produce more ZPM's was the dumbest choice. They had an effective way to stop the power creep - the same issue the Lanteans originally had - there were so many Wraith, they couldn't hope to go toe to toe with them, even with a ridiculous technological advantage. I mean, fuck. From a straight ground combat standpoint, Earth was far better equipped to win a war than the Goa'uld ever were. And it probably had as many people on it as most of the rest of the galaxy combined.
They had an unfortunate habit of nerfing the aliens, especially the bad guys. In the first season of SG-1, the Goa'uld were trying to nuke earth every other episode and motherships were powerful enough to wipe out entire planets by themselves. However, later on, Goa'uld ship based weapons are suddenly about as powerful as cannon balls.
They did the same thing with the Asgard and the Ancients. When the Asgard first showed up, their ships can fly across the galaxy in seconds. Later on, their ships got retconned to be much slower. The ZPM was supposed to be powerful enough to blow up an entire planet (or maybe it was a solar system), but then every ZPM they get are drained by almost everything they do.
The fact that Atlantis never was able to produce more ZPM's was the dumbest choice. They had an effective way to stop the power creep - the same issue the Lanteans originally had - there were so many Wraith, they couldn't hope to go toe to toe with them, even with a ridiculous technological advantage. I mean, fuck. From a straight ground combat standpoint, Earth was far better equipped to win a war than the Goa'uld ever were. And it probably had as many people on it as most of the rest of the galaxy combined.
They had an unfortunate habit of nerfing the aliens, especially the bad guys. In the first season of SG-1, the Goa'uld were trying to nuke earth every other episode and motherships were powerful enough to wipe out entire planets by themselves. However, later on, Goa'uld ship based weapons are suddenly about as powerful as cannon balls.
They did the same thing with the Asgard and the Ancients. When the Asgard first showed up, their ships can fly across the galaxy in seconds. Later on, their ships got retconned to be much slower. The ZPM was supposed to be powerful enough to blow up an entire planet (or maybe it was a solar system), but then every ZPM they get are drained by almost everything they do.
That's what happens when you decide to up the stakes by upping the power-levels without any regard for what that means long term.
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Mego Thor"I say thee...NAY!"Registered Userregular
The fact that Atlantis never was able to produce more ZPM's was the dumbest choice. They had an effective way to stop the power creep - the same issue the Lanteans originally had - there were so many Wraith, they couldn't hope to go toe to toe with them, even with a ridiculous technological advantage. I mean, fuck. From a straight ground combat standpoint, Earth was far better equipped to win a war than the Goa'uld ever were. And it probably had as many people on it as most of the rest of the galaxy combined.
They had an unfortunate habit of nerfing the aliens, especially the bad guys. In the first season of SG-1, the Goa'uld were trying to nuke earth every other episode and motherships were powerful enough to wipe out entire planets by themselves. However, later on, Goa'uld ship based weapons are suddenly about as powerful as cannon balls.
They did the same thing with the Asgard and the Ancients. When the Asgard first showed up, their ships can fly across the galaxy in seconds. Later on, their ships got retconned to be much slower. The ZPM was supposed to be powerful enough to blow up an entire planet (or maybe it was a solar system), but then every ZPM they get are drained by almost everything they do.
That's what happens when you decide to up the stakes by upping the power-levels without any regard for what that means long term.
Season 1 was definitely more horror than anything else. It was all ghosts, urban legends, and monsters with about 3 episodes of demons and one of vampires. Season 2, even when the demon arc was kicking into full gear, you still had episodes like Playthings, Everyone Loves A Clown, Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things, that H.H. Holmes episode (blanking on the name). Up until about season 4, the vast majority of MOTW eps were ghosts or monsters and everything was shot in the style of a horror movie. But once they started straying from the original formula, everything got brighter, all the monsters became poor misunderstood creatures, demons and angels became boring and ordinary, and they completely abandoned any sense of terror or tension because clearly they need to devote that screen time to Sam and Dean arguing about who's lying to who for the 4987439687th time.
When my friend moved back home to America about 5 years ago, he started getting into the local tabletop board games to try to find something to fill in the slot that he used to have with us. He was never really able to recapture what we had, particularly because of things like this:
He played a game with a new group (it was the WOD: Hunters game, perhaps you might know where this is going) and he joined their ongoing campaign.
The story? Two hunters, brothers, in fact.
They're on a road trip across the country, fighting monsters and demons along the way,
In search of their father.
Apparently, the two players had no idea that the campaign was plagiarized, and thought their DM was a genius.
To be fair, the first 2 seasons of supernatural do sound like a pretty great rpg game scenario.
3DS Pokemon Y Friend Code: 0645 5780 8920
Please shoot me a PM if you add me so I know to add you back.
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mjn6172King of the Lurkers, also secretly a Freemason (shhhhh.)Registered Userregular
I'm late on this, but having finally caught up and watched the finale I'm going to add Galavant to the list of shows that have gone on too long. Since it's such a recent show and others might be watching/catching up still I'll put my reasons in spoilers:
The show was billed as a 4 week musical/comedy extravaganza. Lot's of entertaining guest stars, a solid premise, and a short fucking lifespan. I don't know when, but apparently someone decided to go back on that promise and end the series on a set of absolutely fucking ridiculous cliffhangers just in case there's enough interest to pick it up for another season down the line. Just for fun, let's make a list of the stupid shit that happened at the end of the last episode:
Galavant is pressed into service as King Richards new bodyguard, King Richard is exiled and is returning to his original homeland to try and win his throne back. Richard is treating this like a buddy-comedy road trip, but that at least is completely in character for him.
Queen Madalena murders new King Kingsley and takes Gareth (Vinnie Jones) as her royal consort, apparently planning to rule together. Neither one has ever looked at the other twice before this.
Isabella and her parents escape back to her 8 year old fiancee's kingdom, where he proceeds to lock her in an enormous doll house where she can be happy forever (from his perspective.)
On the positive side, I really enjoyed the rest of the series up to the end, the music was wonderful (and catchy, I still find myself humming "Jackass in a Can.") Wonderful performances all around, I just wish that there was some sort of conclusion to the show rather than a series of bullshit cliffhangers.
LORD, WHAT CAN THE HARVEST HOPE FOR, IF NOT THE CARE OF THE REAPER MAN?
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NocrenLt Futz, Back in ActionNorth CarolinaRegistered Userregular
Was it just suppose to be 4 weeks? I thought I read somewhere that it was axed early due to low ratings.
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mjn6172King of the Lurkers, also secretly a Freemason (shhhhh.)Registered Userregular
Was it just suppose to be 4 weeks? I thought I read somewhere that it was axed early due to low ratings.
It was billed as being only 4 weeks in all of the advertising for it. I didn't know that the ratings were that bad until I looked it up just this minute, yikes what a drop off (2.0 for premiere, 0.9 by week 3.)
LORD, WHAT CAN THE HARVEST HOPE FOR, IF NOT THE CARE OF THE REAPER MAN?
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NocrenLt Futz, Back in ActionNorth CarolinaRegistered Userregular
Yeah, I was really looking forward to the last week of Galavant, only to discover there was no resolution.
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scherbchenAsgard (it is dead)Registered Userregular
dunno, I did not watch Galavant for a resolution or a powerful arc or any kind of ending.
I watched it to enjoy evil-bitch-skank-queen and the king and, to a lesser extent, Galavant and to hear catchy tunes and see funny skits. I got that in spades. and some awesome guest stars as free sprinkling on top.
if I get, maybe, another season out of that with a different premise? sure, sign me up.
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AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
Galavant was produced as a first season, not picked up, and then marketed as a limited series event. I remember the "new shows" roll ABC put out last winter and they definitely tried to get Galavant to be a long lived hit.
Probably made all eight episodes before they sent out the first promo.
Galavant's first episode bored me to tears. It lacked Monty Python's wit and often rapid fire delivery, and it lacked Krod Mandoon's utter lowbrow humor. It felt like it was written for a laugh track since almost every joke was followed by a pregnant pause which seemed to ask, "Did you get the joke?" Beyond that, it tread familiar ground in an unambitious way. Maybe it got better in subsequent episodes, but the first was just completely bland to me.
I actually forgot all about it because ABC abandoned its ad campaign after the second episode.
Galavant's first episode bored me to tears. It lacked Monty Python's wit and often rapid fire delivery, and it lacked Krod Mandoon's utter lowbrow humor. It felt like it was written for a laugh track since almost every joke was followed by a pregnant pause which seemed to ask, "Did you get the joke?" Beyond that, it tread familiar ground in an unambitious way. Maybe it got better in subsequent episodes, but the first was just completely bland to me.
I actually forgot all about it because ABC abandoned its ad campaign after the second episode.
Yeah the first episode wasn't so great, but it got better and better as it went.
Most of them have been discussed here, but the interesting one is My Name is Earl. So I think at this point a lot of people know about the 'ending' it got in the first episode of Greg Garcia's next show- Raising Hope, but according to a commenter, Garcia had a specific way he wanted to end the show:
"I had always had an ending to Earl and I’m sorry I didn’t get the chance to see it happen. You’ve got a show about a guy with a list so not seeing him finish it is a bummer. But the truth is, he wasn’t ever going to finish the list. The basic idea of the ending was that while he was stuck on a really hard list item he was going to start to get frustrated that he was never going to finish it. Then he runs into someone who had a list of their own and Earl was on it. They needed to make up for something bad they had done to Earl. He asks them where they got the idea of making a list and they tell him that someone came to them with a list and that person got the idea from someone else. Earl eventually realizes that his list started a chain reaction of people with list and that he’s finally put more good into the world than bad. So at that point he was going to tear up his list and go live his life. Walk into the sunset a free man. With good karma."
This is actually a really good ending that fits the show perfectly, and now I'm sad it never happened. So I wanted to spread the sadness around.
I liked Galavant and I'm kinda excited by the fact it's coming back. It was a funny show and I was sad thinking it was going to be just an 4-week run.
Then they pulled a "NOPE" and we get another season! But hopefully it will be the last season because I don't think the characters would stand to go on growing past a second season. Maybe.
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Brainiac 8Don't call me Shirley...Registered Userregular
Atlantis's problem was the same faced by SG-1's later years: tremendous power creep removing the tension. SG-1 at the beginning was plucky humans up against godlike aliens with armies of loyal devoted soldier/worshippers, fleets of starships, and a vast interstellar empire we couldn't hope to defeat. The plucky humans survived by making timely alliances with even more advanced aliens and playing the bad guys off against one another. And it was great.
Then all of a sudden the plucky humans have squadrons of starfighters, capital ships, energy weapons, invincible shields and there's a neverending arms race where Big Bad Guy would get really powerful and Last-Minute Breakthrough allows us to defeat him, only to be replaced by Even Bigger Badder Guy and on and on and on for the last five seasons or so.
Atlantis was the same way only on an accelerated time scale. The first season was nice and tense, the expedition was cut off and completely on its own with an enemy fleet bearing down on them. Then they got a ship that could take on the enemy cruisers with little difficulty. Then they got a second ship. Now the city is flying around. Before you knew it they were blowing through ZPMs like candy.
Still a fun romp, but losing that sense of being greatly outclassed technologically made the shows suffer.
Late response to this conversation. :P
Stargate SG-1 is one of my favorite tv series of all time. From season 1 to season 8, it is one of the most perfectly crafted shows ever made. Fun, adventurous, funny, smart, and it had great bad guys. The finale of season 8 was an awesome call back to the movie that started it all.
When Sci-fi renewed it for two more seasons after ending their story in such a perfect way it got bad. The new characters weren't interesting, the new villains were stupid and boring, and the storylines were just not up to the same quality level.
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Then all of a sudden the plucky humans have squadrons of starfighters, capital ships, energy weapons, invincible shields and there's a neverending arms race where Big Bad Guy would get really powerful and Last-Minute Breakthrough allows us to defeat him, only to be replaced by Even Bigger Badder Guy and on and on and on for the last five seasons or so.
Atlantis was the same way only on an accelerated time scale. The first season was nice and tense, the expedition was cut off and completely on its own with an enemy fleet bearing down on them. Then they got a ship that could take on the enemy cruisers with little difficulty. Then they got a second ship. Now the city is flying around. Before you knew it they were blowing through ZPMs like candy.
Still a fun romp, but losing that sense of being greatly outclassed technologically made the shows suffer.
SGC didn't have a large space navy. Barely had a fleet. They have a few nice toys, but overall they're tiny group in that universe.
Towards the end of Atlantis they had something like five cruisers, each of which carried multiple squadrons of fighters and were armed with energy weapons that could one-shot anything the Wraith and Ori could throw at them. They didn't need a large fleet.
I actually wound up discussing this while painting the living room about a week ago.
Both me and the the other guy doing it kinda liked alot of American shows but wish they'd just cut out about half of the episodes in any given series.
It is a little telling that Life on Mars had 2 series of 8 episodes each and told a complete story, while the US remake had 1 season, that was cut short and ended up with only 17 episodes (they wanted more, probably 22), and failed to tell much of the same story.
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
stream
The way shows are monetized hugely shapes what they are. American shows are designed for ad revenue (which means they need lots of regular content) and syndication (for which the magic lucrative number is 100 not-terribly-serialized episodes). British shows are mostly monetized in home video sets, which naturally incentivizes short, self-contained series, because those are easier to package and sell and more satisfying to buy and watch than 800 mostly-filler episodes on 300 discs.
(For another example, Japanese anime is rife with stylistic and narrative techniques designed to sell miniature figures and other merchandise, because that's how their television is monetized.)
Is that why a single season of Doctor Who is so expensive?
Gracepoint is the US version and is basically a shot-by-shot remake of the original (it even stars David Tennant in the same role!), but somehow not as good. The actors playing the murdered boy's parent weren't as good, the cinematography wasn't as good and despite being nearly identical to the original made odd changes just so it wouldn't end the same (it did with one minor change). Also David Tennant's California accent is atrocious and very distracting.
Basically there's absolutely no reason to watch Gracepoint over Broadchurch.
Though for some reason they are making a season 2 of Broadchurch. Who knows why since the story was wrapped up completely in season 1, but maybe it'll be good.
There are two more episodes coming in 2015, I believe.
And I've also read it's getting a US remake...
No, that's purely price-gouging by the BBC.
The making of the show is funded via the licence fee all UK TV-owners have to pay. Any cash the DVDs and Blu-rays bring in is pure profit.
I agree with a lot of your points, but Supernatural has ALWAYS been an Urban Fantasy thing with dashes of horror, not the other way around.
It's just that starting with around season five, they decided to go whole hog into the Angel/Devil thing.
Season 1 was definitely more horror than anything else. It was all ghosts, urban legends, and monsters with about 3 episodes of demons and one of vampires. Season 2, even when the demon arc was kicking into full gear, you still had episodes like Playthings, Everyone Loves A Clown, Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things, that H.H. Holmes episode (blanking on the name). Up until about season 4, the vast majority of MOTW eps were ghosts or monsters and everything was shot in the style of a horror movie. But once they started straying from the original formula, everything got brighter, all the monsters became poor misunderstood creatures, demons and angels became boring and ordinary, and they completely abandoned any sense of terror or tension because clearly they need to devote that screen time to Sam and Dean arguing about who's lying to who for the 4987439687th time.
Do... Re... Mi... So... Fa.... Do... Re.... Do...
Forget it...
I think British TV owes a lot more to having it's origins on BBC Radio, so the creative teams are generally smaller and budgets are lower (combined with the license fee, so there's a set pot of money that doesn't really change that much based of the success or failure of a few programs. Short series are easier to write, cheaper to make and you can get a lot more of them (which is important when several of the BBC channels have a mandate to serve a minority audience so are going to need to cover a much wider range of subjects with their programs than a commercial channel would.
The BBC, both with it's TV and Radio channels, is such a big part of UK TV that it's demands then shape how people learn and what sort of style of series have multiple chances of getting picked up - plus what is considered normal by viewers.
They had an unfortunate habit of nerfing the aliens, especially the bad guys. In the first season of SG-1, the Goa'uld were trying to nuke earth every other episode and motherships were powerful enough to wipe out entire planets by themselves. However, later on, Goa'uld ship based weapons are suddenly about as powerful as cannon balls.
They did the same thing with the Asgard and the Ancients. When the Asgard first showed up, their ships can fly across the galaxy in seconds. Later on, their ships got retconned to be much slower. The ZPM was supposed to be powerful enough to blow up an entire planet (or maybe it was a solar system), but then every ZPM they get are drained by almost everything they do.
That's what happens when you decide to up the stakes by upping the power-levels without any regard for what that means long term.
Oh, hey Sylar.
When my friend moved back home to America about 5 years ago, he started getting into the local tabletop board games to try to find something to fill in the slot that he used to have with us. He was never really able to recapture what we had, particularly because of things like this:
He played a game with a new group (it was the WOD: Hunters game, perhaps you might know where this is going) and he joined their ongoing campaign.
The story? Two hunters, brothers, in fact.
They're on a road trip across the country, fighting monsters and demons along the way,
In search of their father.
Apparently, the two players had no idea that the campaign was plagiarized, and thought their DM was a genius.
To be fair, the first 2 seasons of supernatural do sound like a pretty great rpg game scenario.
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Galavant is pressed into service as King Richards new bodyguard, King Richard is exiled and is returning to his original homeland to try and win his throne back. Richard is treating this like a buddy-comedy road trip, but that at least is completely in character for him.
Queen Madalena murders new King Kingsley and takes Gareth (Vinnie Jones) as her royal consort, apparently planning to rule together. Neither one has ever looked at the other twice before this.
Isabella and her parents escape back to her 8 year old fiancee's kingdom, where he proceeds to lock her in an enormous doll house where she can be happy forever (from his perspective.)
On the positive side, I really enjoyed the rest of the series up to the end, the music was wonderful (and catchy, I still find myself humming "Jackass in a Can.") Wonderful performances all around, I just wish that there was some sort of conclusion to the show rather than a series of bullshit cliffhangers.
It was billed as being only 4 weeks in all of the advertising for it. I didn't know that the ratings were that bad until I looked it up just this minute, yikes what a drop off (2.0 for premiere, 0.9 by week 3.)
There was always an intent to continue if the show was a hit, like other advertised limited series like The Following or Under the Dome.
That being said, having a bunch of cliffhangers for such a risky idea is pretty stupid.
I watched it to enjoy evil-bitch-skank-queen and the king and, to a lesser extent, Galavant and to hear catchy tunes and see funny skits. I got that in spades. and some awesome guest stars as free sprinkling on top.
if I get, maybe, another season out of that with a different premise? sure, sign me up.
Probably made all eight episodes before they sent out the first promo.
I actually forgot all about it because ABC abandoned its ad campaign after the second episode.
Yeah the first episode wasn't so great, but it got better and better as it went.
http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-silver-linings-tv-shows-that-were-canceled-too-soon/
Most of them have been discussed here, but the interesting one is My Name is Earl. So I think at this point a lot of people know about the 'ending' it got in the first episode of Greg Garcia's next show- Raising Hope, but according to a commenter, Garcia had a specific way he wanted to end the show:
This is actually a really good ending that fits the show perfectly, and now I'm sad it never happened. So I wanted to spread the sadness around.
Then they pulled a "NOPE" and we get another season! But hopefully it will be the last season because I don't think the characters would stand to go on growing past a second season. Maybe.
Late response to this conversation. :P
Stargate SG-1 is one of my favorite tv series of all time. From season 1 to season 8, it is one of the most perfectly crafted shows ever made. Fun, adventurous, funny, smart, and it had great bad guys. The finale of season 8 was an awesome call back to the movie that started it all.
When Sci-fi renewed it for two more seasons after ending their story in such a perfect way it got bad. The new characters weren't interesting, the new villains were stupid and boring, and the storylines were just not up to the same quality level.
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