So, they're not really hurting the ratings then are they?
This is all too familiar, those extremely vocal, dissatisified fans will habitually watch the series to complain about it!
Mr Awe
Brad Wright comments on sagging ratings
- Thread starter Samurai8472
- Start date
So, they're not really hurting the ratings then are they?
This is all too familiar, those extremely vocal, dissatisified fans will habitually watch the series to complain about it!
Mr Awe
For once, I agree with Dennis word for word. Whodda thunk?!
I say that as someone who really enjoyed SG1, because of it's light touch. To be sure, the writers haven't upped their game.I want to like SGU. The premise is interesting. Again, the characters aren't there and forcing the show ride on the characters isn't going to work.
I don't think they have to go back to such a light touch as SG1, but they should focus more on action/adventure. The mystery behind the ship, its destiny, and the ancients. They can do that with a more serious tone and yet not have to rely so strongly on the characters.
Mr Awe
Give the people what they want?
The customer's always right?
Probably not
http://positivesharing.com/2006/07/why-the-customer-is-always-right-results-in-bad-customer-service/
As near as I can make out, the producers actually bought into the conventional stupidity that humor isn't ambitious, but shit like BattleStar Galactica was. The premise that von Daeniken was right pretty much makes it imposible to find any science fictional relevance in the Stargate universe as a whole. Any drama has to be more or less sneaked in, on a stand alone basis, as in SG1.
The premise of SGU, being stranded and suffering hardships, sealed its fate. This is not a dramatically interesting premise, especially in a scientifically illiterate show. A years long retelling of Lord of the Flies would not only be anticlimactic but magnify all the flaws of the original story. But not telling Lord of the Flies would offend everyone committed to the ideology, who would swear the show failed to write the characters, stay true to the premise, blah, blah, blah.
The rest is just pointless recriminations.
The premise of SGU, being stranded and suffering hardships, sealed its fate. This is not a dramatically interesting premise, especially in a scientifically illiterate show. A years long retelling of Lord of the Flies would not only be anticlimactic but magnify all the flaws of the original story. But not telling Lord of the Flies would offend everyone committed to the ideology, who would swear the show failed to write the characters, stay true to the premise, blah, blah, blah.
The rest is just pointless recriminations.
Nah, the premise is just fine. They could've taken that and run. Look at what Lost did with a similar premise (stranded, suffering hardships, and the mysterious nature of the island/ship).
SGU's problem lies with the execution of that premise, specifically with the characters. If they're given time, they can still rescue the show. Play up the action/adventure and don't make the stories character driven. Lost's characters were excellent overall so they weren't hamstrung by that.
Mr Awe
Saquist
Commodore
Those are individual bad customers.
SGU' SUCK is a boycotting exercise and that's not something be ignored.
QUOTE=Mr Awe;4521786]
Nah, the premise is just fine. They could've taken that and run. Look at what Lost did with a similar premise (stranded, suffering hardships, and the mysterious nature of the island/ship).
SGU's problem lies with the execution of that premise, specifically with the characters. If they're given time, they can still rescue the show. Play up the action/adventure and don't make the stories character driven. Lost's characters were excellent overall so they weren't hamstrung by that.
Mr Awe[/QUOTE]
No he's right the premise was faulty for a year long exposure. The only thing that made Gilligan's Island good was the hokey comedy (subjectionally of course) Which leaves me one question....is Rush Gilligan because he's foiling every attempt to get back home.
Saquist
Commodore
DS9 wasn't offensive in seasons 1 and 2. It was boring but nothing like SGU. Imagine taking Emissary and spreading it over 3 episodes rather than 2 with no addition to the story but flash backs of Jake and Ben's life with mom....That's not what the story was about and even though some people would like to see that, it has nothing to do with Sisko being the Emissary.
I agree with Ivy as well. Atlantis had gotten far too predictable and I'd about had it with evergreen forests as well.
If nothing else, SGU's production values and shooting style/cinematography are a vast improvement for the franchise.
it's also more realistic...as much as such a series can be, anyway.
That's basically star trek in a nutshell.
A Utopian world where bad stuff gets reset at the end of the day and the Captain gets a tribble on his back and everyone smiles.
One episode dealing with Janeway in isolation and a year that never was was not enough.
It wasn't till shows started dealing with the issues. "Enterprise" was on the wave but was canceled. BSG rode along with it.
Saquist
Commodore
Star Trek and Stargate, even SGU is escapism...
Escapism or the positive depiction of reality is hall mark of sci fi in general to the immediate conclusion that that the future is bright and the human spirit will preserve not only it's challenges but also the challenges set before it by others.
Television endorses the reset. Episodic series are easier to follow..
Fans are the biggest complainants against strictly reseting every episode, yet shows like BSG ENT and SGU have shown that the opposite is more toxic to ratings. The only shows to walk the fine line between episodic and serial is Alias, DS9 and Babylon 5 and they were supposed to be masterplan shows that allowed for occasion familiar reset that didn't keep casual viewers in the dark. They have yet to be emulated.
Escapism or the positive depiction of reality is hall mark of sci fi in general to the immediate conclusion that that the future is bright and the human spirit will preserve not only it's challenges but also the challenges set before it by others.
Television endorses the reset. Episodic series are easier to follow..
Fans are the biggest complainants against strictly reseting every episode, yet shows like BSG ENT and SGU have shown that the opposite is more toxic to ratings. The only shows to walk the fine line between episodic and serial is Alias, DS9 and Babylon 5 and they were supposed to be masterplan shows that allowed for occasion familiar reset that didn't keep casual viewers in the dark. They have yet to be emulated.
^^ Yet, Lost was highly serial and its ratings were fine. Again, it's the execution that counts. You can have a highly rated, highly serial series if it's interesting enough to enough to the viewer. For Lost, enough viewers were motivated to follow the highly convoluted and detailed plot line. But, the series has to provide that motivation through it's high quality. You can't expect the fans to provide the motivation themselves.
So, saying that serialization is toxic to rating is incorrect. It's the execution in those specific shows that is toxic to ratings while the execution of the serialized format in Lost worked just fine.
It would be fair to say that writing a successful serialized series is more difficult than a more episodic series. It's harder, but still possible, to succeed in a serialized format and clearly the writers of SGU are struggling because of it.
Mr Awe
So, saying that serialization is toxic to rating is incorrect. It's the execution in those specific shows that is toxic to ratings while the execution of the serialized format in Lost worked just fine.
It would be fair to say that writing a successful serialized series is more difficult than a more episodic series. It's harder, but still possible, to succeed in a serialized format and clearly the writers of SGU are struggling because of it.
Mr Awe
Are you saying Enterprise was highly serialized? I don't know that I would agree with that.
Enterprise was serialized during it's final 2 seasons. But it was its first 2 episodic seasons that sunk the ship.
Saquist
Commodore
Bingo...
And if you haven't noticed...the key in succeeding with a serial saga is endearing the characters upon the audience emotionally that we can't resist the need to know what happens next time.
We cared about Sydney Bristow and her family
We cared about Benjamin Sisko and Kira and Odo
We cared about John Sheridan and Delenn.
A lot of people "say" they like Darker Sci Fi where the protagonist is imperfect but people subconsciously draw the line between imperfect and wicked-disingenuous people.
Do we really care about Young and Rush? Most don't
No one cared about Archer and T'pol, both of them were so antagonistic
Most of the Characters on BSG were the same, hostile, underhanded....
You get to the point where the show is really underhanded, depressing and slow that's when people start leaving because you're making social errors the norms, you're reducing the amount of story satisfaction. Suddenly it's not about bad people doing wrong to good people it's bad people doing bad on bad people. No one to root for and no one to care about. A large part of the Population isn't going to go for that. It would be like watching X-Files with Scully as a lush and Moulder as a child molester. (....Some call that edgy and realistic as though good people aren't realistic)
The majority of may mess up from time to time but we consider ourselves good people.
Imperfect in ancient times meant "missing the mark" which meant you were aiming to hit the bulls-eye. What kind of person doesn't even try and misses in life as a person? That's a person I don't wanna know. I'm rooting against him.
And if you haven't noticed...the key in succeeding with a serial saga is endearing the characters upon the audience emotionally that we can't resist the need to know what happens next time.
We cared about Sydney Bristow and her family
We cared about Benjamin Sisko and Kira and Odo
We cared about John Sheridan and Delenn.
A lot of people "say" they like Darker Sci Fi where the protagonist is imperfect but people subconsciously draw the line between imperfect and wicked-disingenuous people.
Do we really care about Young and Rush? Most don't
No one cared about Archer and T'pol, both of them were so antagonistic
Most of the Characters on BSG were the same, hostile, underhanded....
You get to the point where the show is really underhanded, depressing and slow that's when people start leaving because you're making social errors the norms, you're reducing the amount of story satisfaction. Suddenly it's not about bad people doing wrong to good people it's bad people doing bad on bad people. No one to root for and no one to care about. A large part of the Population isn't going to go for that. It would be like watching X-Files with Scully as a lush and Moulder as a child molester. (....Some call that edgy and realistic as though good people aren't realistic)
The majority of may mess up from time to time but we consider ourselves good people.
Imperfect in ancient times meant "missing the mark" which meant you were aiming to hit the bulls-eye. What kind of person doesn't even try and misses in life as a person? That's a person I don't wanna know. I'm rooting against him.
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Saquist, there are many people out there who want something a bit more from their entertainment than the black hat wearing bad guy getting punched on the nose by the immaculately dressed and smiling good guy. Good story telling isn't about who you love and who you hate, it's about engaging you, making you think, making you dream. If all you want to experience is my guys against those guys, watch sport. I hear there's entire channels dedicated to them.
If you watch SGU and think it's about getting them all back home, safe and sound, then really, what's the point? If you think SGU should be another clone of SG1, then please, give yourself a good slap. I love SG1, but I've watched it. I don't want to see another bunch of guys do the same things over again, I want a new story, still existing in the same fictional universe, but a different story, with different people. I don't want a rehashed formula, I want to be surprised, I want to puzzle over what could be happening next, rather than see it coming a mile off.
If you watch SGU and think it's about getting them all back home, safe and sound, then really, what's the point? If you think SGU should be another clone of SG1, then please, give yourself a good slap. I love SG1, but I've watched it. I don't want to see another bunch of guys do the same things over again, I want a new story, still existing in the same fictional universe, but a different story, with different people. I don't want a rehashed formula, I want to be surprised, I want to puzzle over what could be happening next, rather than see it coming a mile off.
The thing with SGU is that it hasn't been about anything other than getting home until the last episode and it took 27 episodes to find out what the show is about. And honestly, nothing in this show has positively surprised me aside from Scott, Chloe, and Eli being stranded at the end of Lost and do you know what happened? They returned in the first ten minutes of the next episode. Nothing on the show has been all that surprising or that puzzling in the way the writers intended; most of the time things make you wonder if the writers have any idea how to make competent choices in their writing.
As for the characters, ideally the supposed protagonists should have enough redeeming attributes to at least balance out their flaws and not be assholes, bland, or annoying all the time. Otherwise the audience isn't engaged by the characters and has no reason to keep watching aside from schadenfreude.
Saquist
Commodore
That's not what the ratings show.
You only have three options...
A Good series- Standard Formula
A Bad Series- An attempt to depart from the formula or a new formula with insufficient support.
A Smart Series - Adaptive use of all formulas supported by above average writing.
SGU isn't the later or the First.