sf/f TV development news - 2013

[RAMA]

I just have to shake my head at all the people claiming there is no scifi on tv and that it's dying...to which I am endlessly pointing out examples. In fact, webseries, TV and movies have a tremendous amount of genuine scifi coming out in the next 2 years.

 

[Christopher]

^A lot of people assume that science fiction needs to involve space. Maybe that's what they really mean, that there aren't many space-based shows anymore.

 

[JD]

Defiance is on the top of my list for most anticipated new shows. Some of the newer trailers have started to put a little more emphasis on the story over the action. If you watch some of the longer trailers they do show more of the story and characters.

 

[stj]

• ARE THE CHARACTERS LIKABLE OR RELATABLE?
There is exactly one TV-viewing demographic that still cares about this: development executives laboring under the delusion that they’ll eventually find the next Cheers or Friends (both of which, by the way, were full of characters who often behaved terribly). You know who doesn’t care about likability? People who watch Game of Thrones, or Breaking Bad, or Mad Men, or Archer. This is usually the point at which networks assert that cable shows don’t have to reach as large an audience. But that doesn’t wash anymore, not when any number of network series are pulling lower ratings than Duck Dynasty and Sons of Anarchy.

...

• WILL THE AUDIENCE GET IT?
Most cable series proceed from the assumption that their viewers are looking for a good show. Most network series proceed from the assumption that their viewers are stupid and inattentive. That’s why the second episodes of network dramas are usually so boring that viewers flee — they’re essentially designed to reiterate and re-explain everything that unfolded in episode 1.

...

• IS THE SHOW LIKE SOMETHING ELSE THAT’S ON THE AIR?
This is actually not a bad question; the problem is the answer, which the networks want to be “Yes” when they, and we, should always be rooting for “No.” Only in network TV is past failure considered a sure sign of future success.

...

I get the counterargument: Safety sells. Familiarity works. Formula rules. Otherwise, the No. 1 show on TV wouldn’t be the 95th season of NCIS, and the reality shows we were enthusiastically watching in 2000 wouldn’t be the same ones that half of us are halfheartedly half-watching now. Still, something is amiss: In the recently concluded February sweeps, NBC finished fifth. And there are only four big English-language networks. Which means that maybe the most relevant question programmers should be asking when they consider this season’s pilots is “What do we have to lose?”

Mark Harris is (was?) a senior editor at Entertainment Weekly, which makes him an industry flack, even if his boy friend is Tony Kushner. His first question is completely misconceived, because the vast majority of supposedly good shows are every bit as committed to likable and relatable characters. It's just that cable's version of likable is sexy, which is a tougher to broadcast. Cable's version of relatable is bad ass, which many relate to because they can't imagine anything else they would want to be.

The second question is disingenuous. Broadcast really asks "Will the advertisers get it?" Or the FCC. This country's commitment to free speech depends largely upon the widespread tacit agreement not to exercise it in any major venue.

The last questioni is also disingenuous. Marris is a professional, so he knows very well that the broadcast networks have always offered some innovative programming, particularly when they were desperate enough that even smaller audiences would have been acceptable. There's a good case they have been more open to genuinely different formats than most cable offerings. I offer Cop Rock as the prima facie example.

Harris' examples (NBC's My Own Worst Enemy, Awake and Do No Harm) are complete BS. First, there are in fact very significant differences which shouldn't have been overlooked. Second, and more importantly, Do No Harm may not have been any good artistically. But it doesn't matter, because no one bothered to find out. Not getting an audience at all simply is not the same thing as being rejected as bad entertainment. The assumption is that popularity is a sign of artistic merit, and obscurity is the devil's mark of failure. This is mental bankruptcky.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

^A lot of people assume that science fiction needs to involve space. Maybe that's what they really mean, that there aren't many space-based shows anymore.

I use "sci fi" pretty broadly to mean stuff that is near future semi-sci fi like Person of Interest and even fantasy tinged stuff but when something has a space element, I pay more attention because of the rarity.

Defined broadly, sci fi is doing great because shows like Revolution, Once Upon a Time and Grimm manage to latch onto loyal audiences, which is nothing to sneeze at in the broadcast world now. We'll get a crop of new sci fi/fantasy shows on broadcast next season but nothing too earthshaking. I could go for a couple shows that break more from the pack.

 

[RJDiogenes]

• ARE THE CHARACTERS LIKABLE OR RELATABLE?
There is exactly one TV-viewing demographic that still cares about this: development executives laboring under the delusion that they’ll eventually find the next Cheers or Friends (both of which, by the way, were full of characters who often behaved terribly). You know who doesn’t care about likability? People who watch Game of Thrones, or Breaking Bad, or Mad Men, or Archer. This is usually the point at which networks assert that cable shows don’t have to reach as large an audience. But that doesn’t wash anymore, not when any number of network series are pulling lower ratings than Duck Dynasty and Sons of Anarchy.

...

• WILL THE AUDIENCE GET IT?
Most cable series proceed from the assumption that their viewers are looking for a good show. Most network series proceed from the assumption that their viewers are stupid and inattentive. That’s why the second episodes of network dramas are usually so boring that viewers flee — they’re essentially designed to reiterate and re-explain everything that unfolded in episode 1.

...

• IS THE SHOW LIKE SOMETHING ELSE THAT’S ON THE AIR?
This is actually not a bad question; the problem is the answer, which the networks want to be “Yes” when they, and we, should always be rooting for “No.” Only in network TV is past failure considered a sure sign of future success.

...

I get the counterargument: Safety sells. Familiarity works. Formula rules. Otherwise, the No. 1 show on TV wouldn’t be the 95th season of NCIS, and the reality shows we were enthusiastically watching in 2000 wouldn’t be the same ones that half of us are halfheartedly half-watching now. Still, something is amiss: In the recently concluded February sweeps, NBC finished fifth. And there are only four big English-language networks. Which means that maybe the most relevant question programmers should be asking when they consider this season’s pilots is “What do we have to lose?”

Mark Harris is (was?) a senior editor at Entertainment Weekly, which makes him an industry flack, even if his boy friend is Tony Kushner. His first question is completely misconceived, because the vast majority of supposedly good shows are every bit as committed to likable and relatable characters. It's just that cable's version of likable is sexy, which is a tougher to broadcast. Cable's version of relatable is bad ass, which many relate to because they can't imagine anything else they would want to be.

The second question is disingenuous. Broadcast really asks "Will the advertisers get it?" Or the FCC. This country's commitment to free speech depends largely upon the widespread tacit agreement not to exercise it in any major venue.

The last questioni is also disingenuous. Marris is a professional, so he knows very well that the broadcast networks have always offered some innovative programming, particularly when they were desperate enough that even smaller audiences would have been acceptable. There's a good case they have been more open to genuinely different formats than most cable offerings. I offer Cop Rock as the prima facie example.

Harris' examples (NBC's My Own Worst Enemy, Awake and Do No Harm) are complete BS. First, there are in fact very significant differences which shouldn't have been overlooked. Second, and more importantly, Do No Harm may not have been any good artistically. But it doesn't matter, because no one bothered to find out. Not getting an audience at all simply is not the same thing as being rejected as bad entertainment. The assumption is that popularity is a sign of artistic merit, and obscurity is the devil's mark of failure. This is mental bankruptcky.

Agreed completely.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Who said anything about artistic merit? The article is about broadcast TV as a business, which is failing because the audience is abandoning it, not because it's un-artistic but because it's boring. Broadcast is pretty weak tea when everyone can switch over to The Walking Dead and compare for themselves.

Don't take my word for it, wait next season and watch a whole new crop of ratings catastrophes occur. The pilot premises this season sound just like the crop from last year (more boring, even), which are failing all over the place, and those were the ones that survived the process to go to series.

I keep wondering how long it will take the industry to realize that they can't keep doing the same shit over and over, and expecting different results.

Do you see anything interesting here?

I can pick out a few that pique my interest: S.H.I.E.L.D., The Sixth Gun, Abrams' robot cop series...Hatfields & McCoys for the cast, maybe...that's about it. Even fewer than last year, and most of the ones I liked never went to series.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Who said anything about artistic merit?

That about sums it all up right there.

 

[stj]

Actually, Harris was steadily confusing popularity with artistic merit. His example of the Jekyll-imitation, Do No Harm, shows this. He talked about NBC's disaster as his prime example of failure of imagination (i.e., a key aspect of artistic merit.) But the thing about Do No Harm is that nobody bothered to watch at all. They have no valid opinion about whether Do No Harm is good entertainment, or whether it was too disemboweld for US television. Do No Harm is a failure of marketing. (I suppose the business and marketing acolytes would define it as a dual failure in marketing for the show and branding for NBC.) Harris attributed it to unoriginality, as if anyone really knows whether the show was original for US networks or not.

Yes, everything Harris said was couched in terms referring to artistic merit, when he was only talking about popularity and financial success. And still doing a piss poor job of doing that.

 

[Greg Cox]

I've always thought that there was vocabulary problem at work here, in that we tend to use the same words--bomb, flop, disaster--to describe both commercial and artistic failures, which are very different concepts. With the result that we often end up talking past each other.

Granted, there are plenty of shows that fail on both levels, and there may even be a causal link sometimes, but they aren't the same thing --and it can get confusing when we throw the terms around interchangeably.

Just because something bombed doesn't mean it sucked, and vise versa.

(There's also the understandable human tendency to conflate our individual opinions with the general audiences', as when we assume that because we and our like-minded friends all disliked something, it must have bombed at the box office, right?)

 

[Enterprise is Great]

Josh Lucas & Lynn Collins To Topline A&E Pilot ‘Occult’

After a lengthy casting process, Josh Lucas and Lynn Collins have been set as the leads of A&E‘s drama pilot Occult, produced by Transformers helmer Michael Bay and written by veteran genre writer, The X-Files alum James Wong. With Lucas and Collins on board, the project, originally picked up in September as cast-contingent, is going into production. Occult, which draws parallels to X-Files and Fringe, centers on Dolan (Lucas), an FBI agent who returns from administrative leave after going off the deep end while investigating his wife’s disappearance. Eager to be back on the job, he is paired with Noa Blair (Collins), an agent with her own complicated backstory who specializes in the occult. Together, they will solve cases for the newly formed occult crimes task force.

Minka Kelly To Co-Star In Fox’s J.H. Wyman/J.J. Abrams Pilot

Friday Night Lights alumna Minka Kelly is set to co-star in Fox‘s untitled Bad Robot/J.H. Wyman drama pilot (formerly Inhuman). Kelly will play Valerie Stahl, a uniformed cop with a strong moral compass who believes the best of people.

Meghan Ory To Star In CBS’ ‘Intelligence’

Ory will play Riley O’Neil, an ex Secret Service taking on the challenge of protecting the nation’s top intelligence asset.

 

[stj]

I've always thought that there was vocabulary problem at work here, in that we tend to use the same words--bomb, flop, disaster--to describe both commercial and artistic failures, which are very different concepts. With the result that we often end up talking past each other.

Granted, there are plenty of shows that fail on both levels, and there may even be a causal link sometimes, but they aren't the same thing --and it can get confusing when we throw the terms around interchangeably.

Just because something bombed doesn't mean it sucked, and vise versa.

(There's also the understandable human tendency to conflate our individual opinions with the general audiences', as when we assume that because we and our like-minded friends all disliked something, it must have bombed at the box office, right?)

I once thought the same. But I can only believe now that the confusion is too useful for people who are primarily interested in the financials. These people control too much of mass media criticism for ordinary people to straighten up the language.

 

[Sindatur]

Meghan Ory To Star In CBS’ ‘Intelligence’

Ory will play Riley O’Neil, an ex Secret Service taking on the challenge of protecting the nation’s top intelligence asset.

Hmmm...She was made a regular on OUAT in order to prevent her from jumping ship?

 

[xortex]

• ARE THE CHARACTERS LIKABLE OR RELATABLE?
There is exactly one TV-viewing demographic that still cares about this: development executives laboring under the delusion that they’ll eventually find the next Cheers or Friends (both of which, by the way, were full of characters who often behaved terribly). You know who doesn’t care about likability? People who watch Game of Thrones, or Breaking Bad, or Mad Men, or Archer. This is usually the point at which networks assert that cable shows don’t have to reach as large an audience. But that doesn’t wash anymore, not when any number of network series are pulling lower ratings than Duck Dynasty and Sons of Anarchy.

...

• WILL THE AUDIENCE GET IT?
Most cable series proceed from the assumption that their viewers are looking for a good show. Most network series proceed from the assumption that their viewers are stupid and inattentive. That’s why the second episodes of network dramas are usually so boring that viewers flee — they’re essentially designed to reiterate and re-explain everything that unfolded in episode 1.

...

• IS THE SHOW LIKE SOMETHING ELSE THAT’S ON THE AIR?
This is actually not a bad question; the problem is the answer, which the networks want to be “Yes” when they, and we, should always be rooting for “No.” Only in network TV is past failure considered a sure sign of future success.

...

I get the counterargument: Safety sells. Familiarity works. Formula rules. Otherwise, the No. 1 show on TV wouldn’t be the 95th season of NCIS, and the reality shows we were enthusiastically watching in 2000 wouldn’t be the same ones that half of us are halfheartedly half-watching now. Still, something is amiss: In the recently concluded February sweeps, NBC finished fifth. And there are only four big English-language networks. Which means that maybe the most relevant question programmers should be asking when they consider this season’s pilots is “What do we have to lose?”

Mark Harris is (was?) a senior editor at Entertainment Weekly, which makes him an industry flack, even if his boy friend is Tony Kushner. His first question is completely misconceived, because the vast majority of supposedly good shows are every bit as committed to likable and relatable characters. It's just that cable's version of likable is sexy, which is a tougher to broadcast. Cable's version of relatable is bad ass, which many relate to because they can't imagine anything else they would want to be.

The second question is disingenuous. Broadcast really asks "Will the advertisers get it?" Or the FCC. This country's commitment to free speech depends largely upon the widespread tacit agreement not to exercise it in any major venue.

The last questioni is also disingenuous. Marris is a professional, so he knows very well that the broadcast networks have always offered some innovative programming, particularly when they were desperate enough that even smaller audiences would have been acceptable. There's a good case they have been more open to genuinely different formats than most cable offerings. I offer Cop Rock as the prima facie example.

Harris' examples (NBC's My Own Worst Enemy, Awake and Do No Harm) are complete BS. First, there are in fact very significant differences which shouldn't have been overlooked. Second, and more importantly, Do No Harm may not have been any good artistically. But it doesn't matter, because no one bothered to find out. Not getting an audience at all simply is not the same thing as being rejected as bad entertainment. The assumption is that popularity is a sign of artistic merit, and obscurity is the devil's mark of failure. This is mental bankruptcky.

Very nice couple of posts, Stj.

 

[Greg Cox]

I've always thought that there was vocabulary problem at work here, in that we tend to use the same words--bomb, flop, disaster--to describe both commercial and artistic failures, which are very different concepts. With the result that we often end up talking past each other.

Granted, there are plenty of shows that fail on both levels, and there may even be a causal link sometimes, but they aren't the same thing --and it can get confusing when we throw the terms around interchangeably.

Just because something bombed doesn't mean it sucked, and vise versa.

(There's also the understandable human tendency to conflate our individual opinions with the general audiences', as when we assume that because we and our like-minded friends all disliked something, it must have bombed at the box office, right?)

I once thought the same. But I can only believe now that the confusion is too useful for people who are primarily interested in the financials. These people control too much of mass media criticism for ordinary people to straighten up the language.

The ironic part is, this sort of confusion can muddle financial decisions, too. I've run into people in the business who truly believed that such-and-such book or movie had lost money because they didn't personally know anybody who liked it or because they had perhaps seen some negative reviews.

"Wait, you're saying SPACE VIXENS was a hit? I heard the movie was a bomb?"

"No, the movie was #1 at the box office, and the novelization went through ten printings . . . "

"Wow! Who knew? Maybe we should do more SPACE VIXENS books."

"That's what I'm saying . . . ."

 

[stj]

^^I expect you're right. In the end, honesty (even, no, especially in thinking) really is the best policy, even if your in the arts and entertainment for the money. I suppose that sounds too childish to contemplate, much less try.

 

[Greg Cox]

^^I expect you're right. In the end, honesty (even, no, especially in thinking) really is the best policy, even if your in the arts and entertainment for the money. I suppose that sounds too childish to contemplate, much less try.

Well, I doubt that anybody in their right mind goes into the arts and entertainment only for the money, but that's a whole other issue.

 

[stj]

^^I expect you're right. In the end, honesty (even, no, especially in thinking) really is the best policy, even if your in the arts and entertainment for the money. I suppose that sounds too childish to contemplate, much less try.

Well, I doubt that anybody in their right mind goes into the arts and entertainment only for the money, but that's a whole other issue.

You think I don't see through you?

You just wanted to quote my typo!

 

[Greg Cox]

If I quoted every typo on the internet, I'd never get anything else done.

Just don't confuse "role" with "roll," okay? That drives me nuts!

 

[degra]

tv, not just sff, has been pretty lousy in the last ten years. Sff in particular seem to base their shows on such limited premises that rely heavily on introducing way too many mysteries that are drawn out that after one season they have no idea how to keep it going. Add to that poor writing, bland characters, lacklustre casting and complicated incoherent mythologies.

whatever happened to modest ensembles, a few linear arcs that aren't interconnected and rely on contrivances.