Canceled Shows: If they were popular from the start

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Greg Cox wrote:

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To be fair, though, I do remember arguing about Firefly with a friend who kept demanding to know what the crew's "mission" was, as though he couldn't get invested in the show and its characters unless they were defending the galaxy or fighting to overthrow an evil empire

Well there was the Alliance. I'm sure Mal and crew would have been happy to overthrow it. But the Alliance wasn't so much 'evil empire' as 'bloated bureaucracy'.

[Icemizer]

Journeyman would have been a good ride for at least one more season.

[Nerys Myk]

Greg Cox wrote:

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There's also the time-honored "X meets Y" formulation.

"It's BUFFY meets DEADWOOD."

"It's GOSSIP GIRL with elves and fairies!"

"It's THE SOPRANOS--in space!"

Firefly: It's Stagecoach meets Star Wars!

[Mr. Adventure]

The Borgified Corpse wrote:

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As for Firefly, my current theory is that most of Joss Whedon's failures stem from an inability on his part to create a succinct sales pitch for his own work. After all, people tend to love all of his stuff. The difference between his successful & unsuccessful work is that the successful stuff can usually be summed up in one sentence.
Angel-- It's about a vampire who runs his own paranomal private detective agency.
The Avengers-- It's a bunch of superheroes.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer-- It's in the frickin' title!

Firefly - Western in Space, that's what went around and why Firefly was dismissed by so many initially. I really wish the internet archive had a TrekBBS snapsot when Firefly premiered. A lot of people didn't give it a chance based on that.

[bigdaddy]

Finn wrote:

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I always wondered about if FOX left Sliders alone and let the show run normally without any meddling. Would it go on for more than five seasons with all of the original actors. It may mean Jerry O'Connell wouldn't have showed up on Jerry Maguire, and that John Rhys-Davies wouldn't have been in the Lord of the Ring movies. I don't know if a more successful run would prevent Sabrina Lloyd from being part of the cast on Numb3rs which would have been years away.

Sabrina Lloyd was on the much bigger cult hit Sports Night, which she would have never been on if she was still doing Sliders.

However Numbers was one 10 years after Sliders, and it doesn't seem she stayed with that show anyways.

Mr. Adventure wrote:

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I really wish the internet archive had a TrekBBS snapsot when Firefly premiered. A lot of people didn't give it a chance based on that.

The good old days.

And Arrested Development is getting a movie anyways, the Netflix new season is like "ACT 1" for the movie. If it's popular we will get more seasons / movies.

[lennier1]

Imagine what could've been if they had given Earth: Final Conflict a second season instead turning it into some worthless piece of crap that only kept some minor details?

As for Firefly, I actually liked it exactly because it filled the void left by childhood memories of shows like Saber Rider, Galaxy Rangers and Bravestarr.

[jayceee]

lennier1 wrote:

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Imagine what could've been if they had given Earth: Final Conflict a second season instead turning it into some worthless piece of crap that only kept some minor details?

Awhile ago I was watching season 5 of Earth: Final Conflict. It seemed like a completely different tv show, than the previous seasons. No taelons.

(Besides the first and fifth seasons, I haven't really watched the other seasons, other than some random episodes).

[lennier1]

jayceee wrote:

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Awhile ago I was watching season 5 of Earth: Final Conflict. It seemed like a completely different tv show, than the previous seasons. No taelons.

(Besides the first and fifth seasons, I haven't really watched the other seasons, other than some random episodes).

They basically made it worse with every season because they tried to "fix" what didn't need fixing.

At the end of season 4 the showrunners merged the Taelons with a competing alien race to get those space vampires (failed attempt to merge two offshoots of an ancestral race back together). That's when they flushed even the last reasons to be still watching that train wreck down the drain.
Guess after the terrible seasons 2-4 they wanted to create something so bad, it actually made the previous ones seem almost bearable.

[the G-man]

If Bosom Buddies had stayed on the air, would Tom Hanks be one of those guys like Michael J Fox or Ted danson with a few hit movies but a big TV career?

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ If that show had lasted longer, Hanks would have probably left. His film career was already starting to take off, amirite? Famous actors like him rarely do TV for long.

[Mr. Adventure]

^ He had no film career to speak of, according to IMDB before Bosom Buddies he had done one episode of the Love Boat and some role in a movie called He Knows You're Alone.

[Tom Hendricks]

Icemizer wrote:

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Journeyman would have been a good ride for at least one more season.

Of all television shows cancelled after one season or less, Journeyman was the only one that truly upset me.

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Mr. Adventure wrote:

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^ He had no film career to speak of, according to IMDB before Bosom Buddies he had done one episode of the Love Boat and some role in a movie called He Knows You're Alone.

But if the show had lasted longer, Hanks would probably not have stayed for the whole thing, because the longer the show lasted, the more likely it would conflict with his film career when it DID take off.

[the G-man]

the G-man wrote:

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If Bosom Buddies had stayed on the air, would Tom Hanks be one of those guys like Michael J Fox or Ted danson with a few hit movies but a big TV career?

Mr. Laser Beam wrote:

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^ If that show had lasted longer, Hanks would have probably left. His film career was already starting to take off, amirite? Famous actors like him rarely do TV for long.

Mr. Laser Beam wrote:

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But if the show had lasted longer, Hanks would probably not have stayed for the whole thing, because the longer the show lasted, the more likely it would conflict with his film career when it DID take off.

But you're assuming his film career would have taken off.

Think Tom Selleck. Sure he had a few movie hits but he's basically a TV actor. And, in one case, his TV show (Magnum) kept him from a role that might have made him a huge movie star.

If BB had stayed on the air its entirely possible it would have kept Hanks from making some of those movies.

Or, to use Fox and Dansen and comparisons again: Both MJF and TD had hit shows they didn't quit. Both had some successful movies. In the case of MJF, some were hugely successful. But, after a few years, Fox's movie career faded. He went back to TV and (Parkinsons aside) tended to stay there.

Hanks had a huge hit, Splash, followed by Bachelor Party, but then a series of films that weren't successful: Money Pit, Nothing in Common, Every Time we Say Goodbye, the Man with One Red Shoe...even Dragnet wasn't a big hit IIRC. And, again, after "Big," a series of flops until "A League of Their Own" in early 90s.

If, during that time, Hanks had still been on BB, would he have really quit the show? And would the show have prevented him from taking one or more of the films that were hits and made him a superstar?

[cardinal biggles]

Greg Cox wrote:

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"It's BUFFY meets DEADWOOD."

If it were co-written by Joss Whedon and David Milch, I would totally watch this.

Mr. Adventure wrote:

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Firefly - Western in Space, that's what went around and why Firefly was dismissed by so many initially. I really wish the internet archive had a TrekBBS snapsot when Firefly premiered. A lot of people didn't give it a chance based on that.

Ironic, considering Roddenberry's "Wagon Train to the stars" sales pitch from 1964.