TV'Scifi Failure

[Caliburn24]

I have to vote for the original Battlestar Galactica. The pilot episode had a budget of 7(some reports claim 14) million dollars, the most of any show up until that time. That would be over 44 million dollars today, adjusted for inflation. It garnered the #1 Nielson rating of any show in the USA at that point in history. It won its sunday night time slot everytime. It stayed in the top 10 Nielson rated shows during its 78'-79' season. It cost over a million dollars an episode(big money at the time). It had some amazing guest stars, including Fred Astaire. Isaac Asimov was going to take over as headwriter if it got a second season.

And it was cancelled.

C'mon, that is one glorious failure. I don't see how any other show can compete with the scale and scope of that.

 

[Out Of My Vulcan Mind]

There's a show that I vaguely remember from childhood. Something about a family on vacation in Egypt that goes into a pyramid and somehow gets pulled into an alternate universe. The show then followed their escapades trying to get back home. I don't think it lasted one season, and whenever I describe it no one has any idea what I'm talking about. So either I'm imagining it or it was a pretty big failure.

Otherworld.

 

[Nerdius Maximus]

Space Rangers! There was no excuse for the existance of that show.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11jtDzbZvUk

 

[Jono]

Don't think Earth 2 has been mentioned yet. I was really into that show back in the day. It has Tim Curry as a bad guy and he's one of my favourite actors. Think I might have had a crush on the main female character, the leader of the group.

 

[Marc]

The original Battlestar Galactica, for being expensive and overly-bashed as a Star Wars rip-off (even 30 years later). Its toy line killed a kid who choked on a plastic missile, which is Mattel's fault, but that didn't help.

Why is BSG seen as Star Wars rip off? I've seen both and can't see anything to either indicating that one is a rip off the other.

Have seen some-one try and argue the radio sounds in NuBSG were copied from Star Wars but if you've ever heard HF radio comms (e.g amatuer radio) that's pretty much how it sounds.

 

[RobertScorpio]

Don't think Earth 2 has been mentioned yet. I was really into that show back in the day. It has Tim Curry as a bad guy and he's one of my favourite actors. Think I might have had a crush on the main female character, the leader of the group.

Good pick...I thought it started off too slow, and got to soap-operish. But that chick you are talking about was hot...

Rob

 

[Islander]

It depends what you define as failure. Firefly was a big deception but I don't consider it a failure. The Knight Rider remake, however, it definetly a major fail.

 

[RobertScorpio]

It depends what you define as failure. Firefly was a big deception but I don't consider it a failure. The Knight Rider remake, however, it definetly a major fail.

I consider Firefly an absolute failure. It failed, for whatever reason, on TV..and bombed at the movies. The only reason its isn't considered a failure, by most, is because it was the darling show of the so called 'hip' scifi fans.

I liked it but thought it was very over-rated, and so trendy, it oozed of 'in crowd' dynamics. But like mohawks and frienship bracelets, it was about as cutting edge as a Barry Manilow rap album would be....

Rob

 

[CaptainDonovin]

Buck Rogers in the 25th Century - liked it when it first came out but I was 8 at the time. I've watched it since & meh.

Knight Rider (the newer one). NBC hyped the hell out of it but we know how that series ended up.

 

[RobertScorpio]

Buck Rogers in the 25th Century - liked it when it first came out but I was 8 at the time. I've watched it since & meh.

LOL..my eyes played tricks on me. I though you said you 'watched it since on meth', which I totally agreed with. Thats about the only way that show could be watched....and thank GOD, no one would go so far as to do that..

but yeah, good pick. SCIFI was pretty, well, strange in those days. Remember that SUPERTRAIN show? Oye!

Rob

 

[Sephiroth]

if your talking about good sci-fi getting screwed Alien Nation (which DID get a second season in the form of 5 movies) has to be on the top of my list, Nickelodeon's Space Cases is on there, too (think Voyager with a Lexx feel, but for kids), T:TSCC and i'd have liked to see where Jake 2.0 lead, it's a pretty cool concept, and 7 days had some promise, and who could forget the good, campy fun of Superforce, SeaQuest DSV was allright until they were magically transported to an alien ocean world

but then theres the true failures like Homeboys in Outer Space (with James Doohan as a drunk, angry Scotty) Firefly, and Earth2

 

[Zachary Smith]

I think it's hard to qualify anything that had multiple seasons, like "Star Trek: Voyager" or "Enterprise" as a "failure. Disappointments, sure, but hardly "failures." Even the original "Battlestar Galactica" which appeared in a variety of incarnations and guises would be hard to qualify as a "failure". Failures are more like "Logan's Run" or "Fantastic Journey" or, as I mentioned before, "Planet of the Apes"--ALL TV shows which lasted less than a full season before being slashed.

 

[Islander]

How about those that never made it to a season like Phase 2?

 

[CaptainDonovin]

Buck Rogers in the 25th Century - liked it when it first came out but I was 8 at the time. I've watched it since & meh.

LOL..my eyes played tricks on me. I though you said you 'watched it since on meth', which I totally agreed with. Thats about the only way that show could be watched....and thank GOD, no one would go so far as to do that..

but yeah, good pick. SCIFI was pretty, well, strange in those days. Remember that SUPERTRAIN show? Oye!

Rob

I can honestly say I've never heard of that one. Maybe I'm lucky!

 

[CaptainDonovin]

How about those that never made it to a season like Phase 2?

Well it did become TMP as well as some of what was to be became episodes for TNG so I guess it kinda/sorta/somewhat was a success.

 

[jefferiestubes8]

Bionic Woman gets my vote too. NBC could have had this as a scifi series for a while. Cancelled after 8 episodes...strong female lead character [helps with the audience demographics]. Good actress.
You can get Bionic Woman - Volume 1 on DVD though.

I'm not sure what you are saying? Are you saying that the female lead was a good actress?

Yes she was a good enough actress for the part in Bionic Woman just like the other lead actress in Terminator The Sarah Conner Chronicles.

 

[23skidoo]

Bionic Woman was small potatoes. It never generated much buzz to begin with. It was in no way Sci-Fi's biggest failure.

Neither, can it be said, was Firefly. Yes, it was cancelled quickly, but frankly it's won enough awards and fan adoration and had a movie based upon it ... I actually hate Firefly but I would in no way consider that show a failure beyond the fact it was mishandled by Fox and died prematurely.

The biggest SF failure in TV history was the original Battlestar Galactica. It was conceived as TV's answer to Star Wars. It was the most expensive series ever produced for TV up to that time. The effects may look quaint today but they were as state of the art as CG back in 1978. They even released the original pilot TV movie to theatres - that's where I first saw it, months before it aired on TV.

After some initial excitement, the show tanked badly enough that it was cancelled after one very expensive season. And when the decision was made to try a remounting, it resulted in what I consider to be the single worst SF series of all time, Galactica 1980.

30 years later, the original BSG is beloved by many. It spawned arguably the most critically lauded American-produced SF series of all time in nuBSG. It's got another spinoff coming soon, and there's talk of a movie. By today's standards it is the "honored grandfather" of SF TV shows. Back in 1978 it stunk up the room.

The only fantasy-style show that might have been as big a bomb (back in the day) might have been Supertrain, but it was so obscure out of the gate that most people never even knew it existed, unlike BSG which was heavily promoted internationally.

Alex

 

[DWF]

The biggest SF failure in TV history was the original Battlestar Galactica. It was conceived as TV's answer to Star Wars. It was the most expensive series ever produced for TV up to that time. The effects may look quaint today but they were as state of the art as CG back in 1978. They even released the original pilot TV movie to theatres - that's where I first saw it, months before it aired on TV.
Alex

No, it was conceived some ten years earlier as Adam's Ark, it was ABC and Universal who turned it into their answer to Star Wars. And I can't qite call it a failure since it's remained in the public eye ever since it came out.

 

[Icemizer]

Ah the tv show Quark really was horrid. Richard Benjamin really? Who thought that was a good idea? Lets also toss Manimal and Automan into the pile as well.

 

[bigdaddy]

There's a show that I vaguely remember from childhood. Something about a family on vacation in Egypt that goes into a pyramid and somehow gets pulled into an alternate universe. The show then followed their escapades trying to get back home. I don't think it lasted one season, and whenever I describe it no one has any idea what I'm talking about. So either I'm imagining it or it was a pretty big failure.

I'm not that old but that sounds familiar.