sf/f TV development news - 2013

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

Has anybody mentioned that A&E is doing a 10-episode Bates Motel series, which is a prequel to the original Psycho? I have no idea if it's going to be in continuity with Psycho IV, but I would have a tendency to doubt it.

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

^ There's a thread on it.

Speaking of A&E, Coma is airing September 3 & 4. It's billed as "medical thriller" but I think it's always pretty obviously been sci-fi. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coma_(TV_miniseries)

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

Sounds like a plot for a later season of Caprica.

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

Josh Friedman was the showrunner for Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which approached artificial intelligence in some interesting ways. Sounds like this could address similar themes. Howard Gordon has a lengthy genre pedigree, with producer credits on Beauty and the Beast, The X-Files, Buffy, Angel, Strange World, and last season's Awake (as well as 24).

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

I havent been posting that news here because I doubt there's any sf/f angle.

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

The thread's over in TV & Media.

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

^^ Sweet. Thank you.

Okay, that makes sense.

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

Fill in the obvious Bad Robot/Good Robot joke...

New JJ Abrams drama at FOX,

At least it's a change from supernatural cops.

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

So, an homage to Mann and Machine?

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

An edgy re-imagining of Holmes & Yo-Yo?

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

^Different from either of those -- or Ernest Borgnine's Future Cop, which came along just months after Holmes and Yo-Yo -- in that it's not just one unique android cop, but a systemwide practice. That should give it a rather different flavor. We're past the stage of having a single prototype android and to the point where they're routinely employed. One wonders what this says about the society as a whole. If there are enough androids for every LAPD officer to have one as a partner, then how widespread are they in society as a whole? How are they perceived and treated as a class? And there's the issue Guinan raised in "Measure of a Man" -- once androids become a race rather than a unique individual, are they perceived as disposable?

If handled intelligently, this could be a much more interesting show than its predecessors.

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

So...I, Bad Robot?

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

It has potential. At this point, I'll give anything done by Bad Robot at least one try.

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

I agree with Christopher, this topic is more potentially interesting if robot cops are a normal part of society.

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

Potentially, yes. It also has the potential of being internally inconsistent. If there are robot cops, does that mean the military has been roboticized? What about the National Guard and forest rangers and Secret Service? What about civilian applications, like construction and ice road truckers and wicked tuna fishermen? How many people have they put out of work? What is the public opinion? Are there restrictive laws? Is "robot marriage" a political issue? Common availability of humaniform robots would change the world drastically-- I wonder if a day-after-tomorrow "buddy cop" show would deal with all that. If so, then, yeah, could be really good.

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

A science fiction show on FOX? Why should we even bother?

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

Because it's been a decade since Firefly ended and it's time to get over it. The FOX regime responsible for that show's sacking is long gone, and the current regime has more than proven to any fair and honest observer that they're willing to give genre shows every possible chance to succeed. They gave Dollhouse two complete seasons despite terrible ratings, when the previous execs would've cancelled it halfway through its first season. They've allowed Fringe to stay on for five seasons and bring its story to a satisfactory conclusion, again, despite low ratings that would've gotten it killed long ago on the old FOX or on just about any other network.

So it makes no sense to continue clinging to this outdated myth that FOX is somehow hostile to genre shows. That myth has always been unfair; the only reason FOX has cancelled so many genre shows is because it's bought so many more genre shows than any other network, and most shows get cancelled quickly, period, on any network -- especially genre shows, which are usually more expensive to make and less likely to get strong ratings than non-genre shows. Look at the history of SF and fantasy shows on every television network and you'll see that their life expectancy on FOX was never any worse than it was anywhere else. And it's complete and utter nonsense to continue buying into the myth today, when FOX is clearly as dedicated to supporting genre shows as any network in television history has ever been.

So seriously. Get the hell over Firefly already and let that kneejerk "FOX kills sci-fi" meme die its long-overdue death. In the context of current events, it's not only unfair, it's wrong to the point of being delusional.

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

Dollhouse should've been axed to give SCC another season.

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

Let's take a closer look at it:

Dollhouse was so bad it simply didn't deserve that second season and in all honesty it would've been better off without it (like that continuation of the 1st season finale that pretty much ruined the best episode that show had). Wasting resources on a show that doesn't deserve it, simply as an attempt to make up for canceling a good show is not a valid reason.

Fringe is an overall great show, but it had a scarily long stretch where it was so bad it was impossible to ignore its begging for a bullet in the head (similar to when nuBSG was turned into a third-rate soap opera with the occasional space scene, just to keep up appearances). It was only during the most recent episodes that Fringe improved enough again to justify the financing to bring it to a satisfying finale.

Sarah Connor Chronicles, Alcatraz? I'm not sure you want to use shows as an example when they're merely an example for how a great premise alone is still useless when their scripts need to be screened over and over again before an episode is even greenlit, because some writers are so bad they shouldn't be allowed to write for more than soap operas and reality shows. They only got somewhere decent when it was already way too late for it to matter anyway.

Then again, there's Touch, which at least makes me believe that by now they were looking to greenlight some undeserving piece of crap to justify getting out if the science fiction business altogether if they want to.

A long history of canceling good shows isn't simply made up for by keeping undeserving ones on life support.

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

You thought Dollhouse was bad, I thought it was brilliant. Opinions are beside the point, because obviously opinions will differ. The point is that the network stuck with the show and let it finish telling its complete story when most networks would've cancelled it far more quickly.

Again, your opinions of a show's quality have absolutely nothing to do with the question under discussion, which is whether it's fair or rational to claim that FOX is a killer of genre shows. Nothing you're saying here does anything to support that belief. If anything, just the opposite, since you're conceding that they kept the shows on far longer than you thought they deserved. So you're undermining your own case.

I did not actually use those shows as examples, so you're being completely counterfactual here. I think FOX did give Sarah Connor the best chance it could under the circumstances, but of course it's ultimately ratings and cost that determine whether a show stays on the air; no matter how much a network may want to keep a show around, they can't if they're unable to bring in enough ad revenue to pay for its cost, and advertisers won't underwrite a show if viewers don't watch it. TSCC was a very good, intelligent show, but was perhaps a bit too sophisticated to hold an audience, and it was definitely an expensive show to make. As with Dollhouse, it was lucky to get the two seasons it got. The old FOX regime would've cancelled it much sooner.

As for Alcatraz, I can't imagine why you'd make the mistake of thinking I would've cited that show in support of my argument, because that show didn't last very long at all, and didn't deserve to. The bottom line is, no matter how supportive the network is, a lot of shows just won't work well enough to make it. Television is always a gamble. We've all seen so many shows in so many genres on so many networks get cancelled after half a season or less that it's bizarre for so many people to react as though it's somehow unique to genre shows or unique to one network.

That is not a valid position, because your personal opinions about the relative merits of the shows in question are not objective truths. Many people would disagree with you that FOX only supported "undeserving" shows.