Dark Matter Season 3

[JD]

When the delivered audience falls below the expected audience, the channel loses money through givebacks.

But they said the audience didn't drop off that drastically. I had a typo in my other post, it was supposed to be isn't.

Television is commerce, not art. Their job is to put as many eyeballs as possible in front of ads. If they can put a show on the air that brings in similar ratings to Dark Matter, but they get a greater percentage of the ad revenue because they own the show instead of licensing it from another production entity it would be fiscally irresponsible not to do so.

If it's that much of an issue, then they shouldn't have bothered to put it on in a first place. If they can put on a show that they own entirely that brings in the same numbers, then shouldn't they have just put that on in the first place.

 

[Marc]

If it's that much of an issue, then they shouldn't have bothered to put it on in a first place. If they can put on a show that they own entirely that brings in the same numbers, then shouldn't they have just put that on in the first place.

The danger is syfy now have to find a show to fill a programming gap - so they've gotta rebuild an audience and decide whether it's going to be commissioned in house or a buy in. Buy in and they're in the same situation - not getting the extra revenue but commissioning and they could be on the hook financially if flops out a chunk of change.

 

[Christopher]

If it's that much of an issue, then they shouldn't have bothered to put it on in a first place. If they can put on a show that they own entirely that brings in the same numbers, then shouldn't they have just put that on in the first place.

The business is not as simplistic as that, not something you can reduce to a single yes-or-no parameter. There are many different factors to be weighed when assessing whether a show is worth buying. As I already said, not owning the show can make it comparatively harder for a network to profit from it, but it still can profit from it if it gets good enough ratings. Just because something is less of a sure thing, that doesn't mean it isn't worth trying at all. If networks thought that way, they wouldn't have enough shows to fill the schedule. Every show is a risk. There's never an absolute certainty that a show will be profitable. This was somewhat more of a risk for Syfy than Killjoys was, but it wasn't that huge a difference. After all, they were able to keep both shows on the air for three whole years, which, as I've shown, is longer than the average run of a Syfy/SciFi original show. Both shows were relatively successful, so obviously it was worthwhile for Syfy to buy them both. It's just that DM was marginally less successful, so they couldn't sustain it for quite as long.

 

[EnderAKH]

If it's that much of an issue, then they shouldn't have bothered to put it on in a first place. If they can put on a show that they own entirely that brings in the same numbers, then shouldn't they have just put that on in the first place.

They were re-branding at the time, creating a new slate and moving away from softer fare like Warehouse 13 and Eureka to bigger science fiction shows. There is only so much money they can slot towards development for their in-house productions, and maybe they needed another show but needed to spend less up front. They looked at the pilot and liked it, they had a prior relationship with Joseph Mallozzi and Paul Mullie and rolled the dice. It's like Tetris. When you are a TV exec, you have so many original programming hours, and so much budget to work with, and you roll the dice where you can to fill that slate.

 

[Christopher]

They were re-branding at the time, creating a new slate and moving away from softer fare like Warehouse 13 and Eureka to bigger science fiction shows.

I've always felt it's unfair that those shows are seen as less worthwhile than the shows that came before or after them. Yes, they were generally lighter in tone, and they could be uneven in quality from season to season, but for most of their runs they were both pretty smart, and they both got really dramatic and intense at times. And I'd definitely call Eureka a very solid science fiction show -- more so than most, really, because it was fiction specifically about science as a profession. It may have been fanciful science, but the process of doing science was the focus and nearly all the characters were scientists, and overall it had a generally positive view of the value of doing science, more so than you'd expect from a show where experiments are constantly going wrong and the non-scientist everyman is the one who usually saves the day.

 

[Morpheus 02]

Can we go back to mourning the loss of Dark Matter, and it ending on a cliffhanger with NO resolution (as opposed to Defiance)?

 

[Marc]

Can we go back to mourning the loss of Dark Matter, and it ending on a cliffhanger with NO resolution (as opposed to Defiance)?

I don't know if it was only planned to 3 seasons or they knew in advance there wouldn't be a fourth but yeah Defiance was pretty much wrapped in that final ep.

 

[Christopher]

I don't know if it was only planned to 3 seasons or they knew in advance there wouldn't be a fourth but yeah Defiance was pretty much wrapped in that final ep.

I think I read there were plans for more seasons, and the material that would've gone into the fourth season was done in the MMORPG instead, or something like that.

In TV, it's always good to have plans that can accommodate more than one possibility, to do things that can serve two purposes depending on how things fall out. So a lot of shows try to end their seasons in ways that can bring closure and work as series finales if they don't get renewed, but still lay the groundwork for starting a new story if they do get renewed. Joss Whedon liked to do this in his TV shows. Killjoys is sort of a hybrid -- it does have cliffhanger finales, but ones that otherwise wrap up all the threads of the season and feel like they mostly bring closure. Dark Matter is going for more of an open-ended approach where the cliffhanger leaves pretty much everything in suspense, which is a riskier option if you don't know for sure that you'll get renewed. I prefer the Whedonesque approach myself.

 

[Q2UnME]

Well, Dark Matter is currently streaming on Netflix. Netflix prefers the shows they carry to be 'complete'. Makes the binge watching experience worth it. I know I hate getting invested in a program, only to find that there's no ending or resolution. If I know there's no resolution or 'point' to a series, I stay away. I think this might be one instance where Netflix might step in and fund a very truncated 4th season, something similar to what Nikita received to finish up that series.

Q2

 

[cylkoth]

^ Well, it's a bit more complicated on the Netflix front. Netflix prefers to have global streaming rights to the shows they pick up. The international Syfy channels has those rights, so Netflix wouldn't be able to run it in those markets. It's possible some deal can be brokered, but past instances where a show's rights were tied to other outlets put the kibosh on a NF continuation.

 

[Q2UnME]

^ I don't know how it would work out either. SyFy 'bought' this show, so technically now that they've cancelled it, the actual production company owning the rights can shop it elsewhere. They could, in theory, approach another network, but I don't see a A & E, FX, AMC or the like picking it up. Netflix or Amazon are the only outlets that seem to make sense.

 

[Marc]

^ Well, it's a bit more complicated on the Netflix front. Netflix prefers to have global streaming rights to the shows they pick up. The international Syfy channels has those rights, so Netflix wouldn't be able to run it in those markets. It's possible some deal can be brokered, but past instances where a show's rights were tied to other outlets put the kibosh on a NF continuation.

:Like all rules there are exceptions though. New Anne Of Green Gables series has Netflix as the worldwide distributor but it aired on the CBC in Canada first though that could be as the CBC is the originator of the series.

 

[Cyrus]

They axed the wrong one. Although neither is ground-breaking in any way.

I gave up on Killjoys over a year ago. But DM held my interest enough to continue, though it was never great. Having 2 hot women on the show helped, killing one of them (Nyx) didn't.

So bye for now to Syfy. Looking forward to Orville and Discovery.

 

[Christopher]

Looking forward to Orville and Discovery.

The reviews I've seen for the former are pretty dire.

 

[Borgminister]

The reviews I've seen for the former are pretty dire.

Let's hope it can get an identity that attracts viewership. I like McFarlane but Discovery is what I'm most looking forward to.

Now if only they'd do for Fringe what they are doing for The X Files...

 

[Christopher]

Let's hope it can get an identity that attracts viewership. I like McFarlane but Discovery is what I'm most looking forward to.

I've never had any interest in The Orville. I think MacFarlane is talentless and imitative, and the reviews I've read have affirmed my expectations. Which is a shame, since some of the other talent involved is interesting.

Now if only they'd do for Fringe what they are doing for The X Files...

I think Fringe told a nicely complete and surprisingly cohesive tale, and I don't see a need for them to do any more. There's something to be said for a good, solid ending, and reviving a story that's already satisfyingly complete can undermine that satisfaction.

 

[Borgminister]

A valid concern, but a talented and original mind might be able to cook some new angle up...! And Anna Torv... get back in that tank, and I'll be in my bunk!

 

[Nerys Myk]

Let's hope it can get an identity that attracts viewership. I like McFarlane but Discovery is what I'm most looking forward to.

Now if only they'd do for Fringe what they are doing for The X Files...

I'd settle for Mulder and Scully walking past Dunham at FBI headquarters and Mulder giving her a nod.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Who might pick up Dark Matter if it were available? Amazon might well prefer to go with its pilot Oasis, which looks very promising, although perhaps similar to a mash-up of Outcasts, Earth 2 and Solaris (not to mention Frank Herbert's Destination: Void series). Netflix in the UK and other countries has the rights to screen The Expanse and Discovery, which have much higher production values than DM. As others have said, there might well also be issues over the rights to screen DM seasons with the SyFy offshoots in multiple countries. I can't offer an opinion to the difficulties in dealing with that. I suspect DM is likely as dead in the water as Stargate: Universe.

 

[Star Wolf]

I would think that all the streaming services would be after unique content as the one show might make the difference in someone like me buying their subscription. However with other deals in place from the time of a network run they can't get that exclusivity needed for them to sponsor the making of new episodes