sf/f TV development news - 2013

[Temis the Vorta]

RJDiogenes wrote:

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Exactly. Fashion is different now than it was 40 years ago, and will be different again 40 years from now.

I don't think of changes that are driven by economics and technology as being "fashion," which I associate more with the efforts of individual artists - more idiosyncratic than what's happening in TV, which is driven by rational and impersonal factors.

High fashion in the clothing industry is not driven by technology and it operates in defiance of economics, with clothes being displayed on catwalks that no human would ever want to wear in public. A few individual designers have an outsized impact on high fashion, and they deliberately orchestrate changes from one season to the next in order to create demand. That's "fashion," but that's not very parallel to anything going on in the TV business.

But at this point, we're just quibbling over semantics. If you want to define "fashion" as any sort of change over time, whatever the cause, then fine - that's defining the term so broadly as to sap it of any meaning.

And if there are future trends in the offing that will make TV do a 180 back towards the episodic structure, I can't envision it. The long term trend will be towards more individualization - YouTube is the future. Serialization vs episodic structure will become a moot point in a world of piano playing cats.

The arts should be driven more by creativity than the demands of advertisers.

Well, it will be a mixed bag. The best way to envision the future of internet video (post-TV) is to look at how Facebook games pay for themselves. There are three methods: subscription, ads and "virtual goods" (stuff you buy within the game, usually for pennies).

Subscriptions are a minor part of the whole because people on the internet resist paying for anything, at least not directly; when they do pay, it's in dribs and drabs (virtual goods). Even stuff you subscribe to is still likely to have ads, just less onerous ads.

So you'll have some stuff which is more artistic and personalized for a smaller niche market, and for that you might have to pay a subscription. Or, there will be more commercial stuff, with more ads.

And there will be the highly commercial and manipulative segment, which is free to start with, but where the "art" is calculated to get you to keep paying for virtual goods, because it's necessary to the entertainment experience. I also expect more of a return to the soap opera model of corporations directly funding entertainment and getting their stamp all over it, so that you can't avoid the advertising because it's everywhere, maybe just not obvious.

I have only seen bits and pieces of a few foreign(Non-English) shows, but serialization seems quite heavy in what I have seen. The various Spanish language telenovelas, the Korean soaps. We're certainly not alone in wanting escapism in our entertainment.

Escapism is a different idea from serialization vs episodic structure. A show can have any structure and still be escapist, or it can be profound and meaningful. And yeah, serialized shows are very common all over the world. In America, the episodic structure was more useful to the old model of three networks/no rewatch ability/need to capture channel-surfers.

Maybe in other countries, that system didn't predominate, so the episodic structure never caught on. In any case, technology and business factors are changing so that new competitors are emerging where the episodic structure simply isn't needed as much. Why continue something when the original rationale is vanishing?

[RJDiogenes]

stj wrote:

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Worse, alternative question is whether the apparent huge increase in villainous heroes expresses a newly unashamed imperialist ethos? That may be a more useful question.

I think it's more an artifact of the increasing pose of faux cynicism that came upon us in the Reagan Era.

Temis the Vorta wrote:

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I don't think of changes that are driven by economics and technology as being "fashion," which I associate more with the efforts of individual artists - more idiosyncratic than what's happening in TV, which is driven by rational and impersonal factors.

Fashion is driven by many factors, including economics and technology. Cheap gas spurred the car culture of the 50s. The Internet spurred almost infinite new fashions.

High fashion in the clothing industry is not driven by technology and it operates in defiance of economics, with clothes being displayed on catwalks that no human would ever want to wear in public. A few individual designers have an outsized impact on high fashion, and they deliberately orchestrate changes from one season to the next in order to create demand. That's "fashion," but that's not very parallel to anything going on in the TV business.

But at this point, we're just quibbling over semantics. If you want to define "fashion" as any sort of change over time, whatever the cause, then fine - that's defining the term so broadly as to sap it of any meaning.

No, because that's exactly what fashion is. The "high fashion" definition is meaningless because it's not part of popular culture; nobody, as you said, wears those designs. Fashion is defined by peg pants or bellbottoms, thin ties or wide ties, long hair or mohawks. Things that happen in the real world.

And if there are future trends in the offing that will make TV do a 180 back towards the episodic structure, I can't envision it. The long term trend will be towards more individualization - YouTube is the future. Serialization vs episodic structure will become a moot point in a world of piano playing cats.

I never said anything will do a 180. I said it will be different.

[stj]

Opera and ballet are escapism if that's what entertains you. Many, many serials intensely focus on plastic characters who keep changing in a way utterly unlike real people (especially the ones who change back so they can relive a particularly satsifying fantasy) against an unchanging, indeed unchangeable "world" that is barely there. Is there an increase in this kind of serialization? And could it be a result of diminished hope in real lives, so that more and more people no longer find escape in other kinds of stories?

As to foreign television, I don't think telenovelas are open-ended serialization. By our standards they would be single season series. It does seem to me that many foreign television systems have much shorter series, and open ended serialization is really rather rare, even though closed ended serialization does seem to be quite common.

I wonder if that isn't really due simply to being too small a market to support costly long term series? US style long seasons once included 39 episodes and summer reruns included only some of the best episodes. Production schedules like this are grueling, expensive, not conducive to high quality, none of which is likely to make governments pony up the money for a noncommercial television channel.

Korea's long tradition of dictatorship probably has something to do with TV favoring soaps. Isn't the main producer of telenovelas Colombia, also for decades an extremely repressive government? TV isn't just entertainment, it's news (propaganda, whether you will or no, even if it's white propaganda,) and politics and governments make sure the TV system is working properly. By their standards, that is.

[Temis the Vorta]

Midnight Sun just went from questionable Lost wannabee to must-see!

Titus Welliver to star in Midnight Sun.

Lost and Sons Of Anarchy alum Titus Welliver is the first actor cast in NBC’s drama pilot Midnight Sun. The thriller, based on an Israeli format, follows the mysterious disappearance of Midnight Sun, a group living on a cult-like commune in Alaska, and a female FBI cult specialist leading the investigation that uncovers a larger conspiracy. Welliver will play Bennett Maxwell, the charismatic and manipulative leader of Midnight Sun.

I'm considerably less enthused about this, but I suppose I should report it:

Incredibles, the TV series, at FOX?

Fox has given a presenation order to Working Class Hero, an animated comedy starring actor-comedian Patton Oswalt and co-written and executive produced by American Dad co-creator/executive producer Mike Barker. The project, from 20th Century Fox TV, is set in a world where superheroing is just another low-paid government job and centers on a dad (Oswalt) whose powers are no match for his misfit superhero co-workers and his demanding family.

[Enterprise is Great]

Sounds like a perfect role for him.

[Temis the Vorta]

Both he and Terry O'Quinn have great roles this coming season. I figure O'Quinn must be playing Satan on 666 Park Avenue.

Now we just need to get Josh Holloway a job. Secretly-bitter android gigolo plotting rebellion on Beautiful People? Ruthless survivalist redneck on Revolution?

[Temis the Vorta]

Dichen Lachman joins The Last Resort.

Lachman will play Tani Tumrenjak, a native of the island where the crew winds up. The daughter of an elder tribesman, she's described as a mixture of intelligence and naivete and has ambitions beyond the local bar she inherited that rest outside of Sainte Marina.

[Enterprise is Great]

Chris Egan cast in ABC’s drama pilot Beauty And The Beast

Chris Egan has become the first actor cast in ABC’s drama pilot Beauty And The Beast, a fantasy re-imagining of the classic Beauty and the Beast tale, wherein an embattled princess, Grace, discovers an unlikely connection with a mysterious beast. Egan will play one of the leads, Grace’s fiance Gorrick who is her father’s most trusted soldier.

[Temis the Vorta]

Good for him! He was all wrong for Poe, but a heroic fairy-tale knight role should suit him pretty well.

[Temis the Vorta]

More Midnight Sun casting news.

Whoah! Cult on the CW just became a must-see...

Robert Knepper is set to co-star in the CW drama pilot Cult. The project, from Warner Bros. TV and Fake Empire, centers on Skye (Jessica Lucas), an inquisitive, young female production assistant on a wildly popular television show called Cult who, after a rash of disappearances and a likely murder, joins a journalist blogger in investigating the rabid fans of the series who might be re-creating crimes seen on the program in real life. Prison Break and Heroes alum Knepper will play actor Roger Reeves who portrays charismatic cult leader Billy Grimm on the show-within-a-show. Billy is a charismatic madman who commands his own cult of followers willing to do anything Billy asks of them – including kidnapping and murder.

The same story introduces our faux-Katniss...

Friday Night Lights‘ Aimee Teegarden has landed the lead in another CW drama pilot, Elizabeth Craft & Sarah Fain’s The Selection. Based on the upcoming series of books by Kiera Cass, The Selection is an epic romance set 300 years in the future which centers on America Singer (Teegarden) a poor young woman who is chosen by lottery to participate in a competition to become the next queen of a war-torn nation at a crossroads.

The guy who directed the awesome Lost pilot has been hired for SyFy's Rewind.

Lucy Punch has been cast in a series...does this mean Powers is sunk, or are they recasting her role?

Plus more 666 Park Ave casting and the lead role cast for the Jeckle/Hyde medical drama Do No Harm.

[Temis the Vorta]

Okay people, you seriously need to start paying attention to this thread! Mr. Original-Spock Himself, Martin Landau, has been cast in a pilot.

Written by Emmerich and Harold Kloser and to be directed by Emmerich, the project centers on Carter (Max Thieriot), an astrophysics grad student in NYC who learns that he is the chosen one to destroy the forces of evil. Landau, repped by TalentWorks, will play Mr. Armin, a blind former German soldier in World War II who is the executor of Carter’s father’s estate and one of Carter’s only true friends.

I hope this will be considered significant enough in and of itself that I can eschew further manufactured controversy.

[Enterprise is Great]

ABC has found the Beast for their Beauty and the Beast pilot

Scottish platinum-selling singer and stage actor Darius Campbell has landed the male lead in ABC’s drama pilot Beauty And The Beast, a fantasy re-imagining of the classic Beauty and the Beast tale wherein an embattled princess, Grace, discovers an unlikely connection with a mysterious beast, Shiro (Campbell), a mercenary bodyguard.

The CW's Beauty and the Beast casting news

Nicole Gale Anderson and newcomer Nina Lisandrello have been cast in the CW’s drama pilot Beauty And The Beast.

Lisandrello, will play Tess, Catherine’s partner and friend on the Homicide Squad. Anderson, will play Catherine’s younger sister.

Casting for NBC's Revolution from JJ Abrams and Eric Kripke

Graham Rogers, Tracy Spiradakos and Anna Lise Phillips have become the first actors cast in the JJ Abrams/Eric Kripke NBC pilot Revolution, a high-octane action drama following a group of characters struggling to survive and reunite with loved ones in a world where all forms of energy have mysteriously ceased to exist. Rogers will play Danny Matheson, a capable, cunning hunter with a good heart. Spiradakos will play Charlie, a warrior. Phillips will play a doctor.

[RJDiogenes]

Temis the Vorta wrote:

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Okay people, you seriously need to start paying attention to this thread! Mr. Original-Spock Himself, Martin Landau, has been cast in a pilot.

I hope this will be considered significant enough in and of itself that I can eschew further manufactured controversy.

I love Martin Landau and it will be worth watching the pilot to see him, but the show still sounds pretty dicey.

[Sindatur]

I Caught a couple of minutes of a S1 Stargate SG1 episode last night, and Ronny Cox was in it. Is he still acting? I'd love to see him get at least one more great role while he's still acting

Martin Landau could be fun to see again, too.

[Christopher]

Okay, one of these two Beauty and the Beast pilots has got to change its name soon.

And the people writing the publicity about Revolution really, really need to stop using the phrase "a world where all forms of energy have mysteriously ceased to exist." Mass is a form of energy. Light, motion, gravity, the chemical potential in our cells, it's all energy. If there's no energy, there's no universe. It's a stupid sentence and they need to stop using it.