Flash Forward (Braga's new show)
- Thread starter The Habs Fan
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And the longest running show with the highest number of eps. is Meet The Press, which isn't even a scripted drama nor serialized and the Olympics have regularly gotten record viewing figures world wide. It's a different way of telling a story not better and if the hook for the audience isn't a good one they're not going to watch in the first place.
Or you could just look at how DS9's ratings fell over the years.
http://www.geocities.com/hblur/cyrus/trekratings.html
Well, I suppose if you want to include news programming, then sure. I think that's a bit disingenuous in the context of this discussion though... sort of like the "Bible is the best selling book in history" example that people like to use.
As for the declining ratings, note that all three post TNG shows follow the same trend. If it was just serialized television being "bad", then it would follow that VOY would have more stable ratings since it followed the original TNG formula. An alternative hypothesis would be that after TNG and the first movie, the peak of Trek fandom among the general population dropped and people moved on to other things.
Indeed, Both Braga and Moore have conceded that Generations was the peak of the franchise anyway.
As for the declining ratings, note that all three post TNG shows follow the same trend. If it was just serialized television being "bad", then it would follow that VOY would have more stable ratings since it followed the original TNG formula. An alternative hypothesis would be that after TNG and the first movie, the peak of Trek fandom among the general population dropped and people moved on to other things.
Indeed, Both Braga and Moore have conceded that Generations was the peak of the franchise anyway.
Then how can you compare daytime soap operas to night time serialized shows? And yes even Enterprise had story arcs, but no story arcs didn't make DS9 a better show nor IMO was it was it a better way of telling a story.
Still to arc or not to arc isn't really the point of the thread, it's possible that this could be a good show if they can easily explain the show's premise to the audience.
Yes, he did. As I said, if you actually watch the episodes -- especially the episodes that CBS never aired but that eventually showed up on SciFi and the DVD set -- it's crystal clear that the story arc was kicking into high gear. They were a little slow getting started, and got nipped in the bud, but they absolutely were implementing the plan even in the half-season that we got before the show was cancelled.
You know what I find paradoxical? The fact that the people who criticize Braga the most do so by giving him 100 percent of the credit and totally ignoring the contributions of all of his collaborators. Braga was not the only person working on this show. He didn't even create the show. So why is it always Braga this and Braga that? What about the other people who were on Threshold's staff? It was as much Goyer's show as Braga's, and it was created by Bragi F. Schut, so why are you attributing its choices exclusively to Braga?
Well, there's your problem. As I said, the arc began to really kick into high gear in the episodes that CBS didn't air. The producers took too long to make that clear, true, but that is what they were doing.
It's bizarre that you'd acknowledge him as part of a team on that show and yet assume he was the only person who contributed anything at all to Threshold.
That's a more accurate and fair assessment. There was an arc in evidence, assuming one was approaching the show objectively rather than prejudging it based on one's assumptions about Brannon Braga. But the early episodes didn't do a very good job of making that clear, or of holding the audience for other reasons. And then it got pulled just before it really began to show what it could become. There was the seed of a compelling show in there, but it was slow to germinate and got plowed under.
And it's sad that audiences are so impatient in that way, because there's value in telling a story with a twist like that, in hiding your true intentions. I mean, look at Psycho. Hitchcock got audiences believing that this was a crime thriller about Janet Leigh's character trying to get away with embezzlement. Then wham, bang, this supporting character of a motel owner kills her in the shower and dumps her and the money in a lake, and you suddenly discover the movie's something totally different than you thought. At the time, it was totally shocking to audiences that this big-name star-billed actress would actually be murdered less than halfway through the film. It wouldn't have been the same at all if the film had opened with the shower scene.
Good things come to those who wait, and people have forgotten that in this age of instant gratification.
Power Rangers is serialized, but does that make it better than The Twilight Zone? Was the semi-serialized The Beverly Hillbillies a smarter show than the episodic The Fugitive? Is Death of a Salesman an inferior creation because it isn't The Continuing Adventures of a Salesman? Serialization isn't a bad thing, to be sure, but it's narrow-minded to say it's the only worthwhile way to tell a story.
You're also engaging in a false dichotomy -- assuming that only the opposite extremes exist and there is no middle ground. But the middle ground is where most of reality lies. It's a myth that the only alternatives are total serialization or zero-continuity episodic storytelling. Look at House. On a plot level, it's a completely episodic show and a highly formulaic one; each week focuses on an unrelated medical case involving guest characters we'll never see again, and the story unfolds in largely the same way every week. But on a character level, it's a highly serialized show, with the interplay and relationships of the regular cast continuously evolving and past events having ongoing consequences.
There are plenty of other ways to have a balance between episodic and serial storytelling. ST:TNG was episodic, but it often had continuing storylines and character arcs that were developed over the course of multiple non-consecutive episodes. DS9 was more toward the serial direction, but it too was mostly episodic, with only two blocks of true serialization. There were continuously developing threads, but each individual episode usually contained a full story from beginning to end.
Even Babylon 5, often held up as the archetype of serialized SF television, was actually an episodic serial rather than a true serial. In a true serial, each installment contains only a part of multiple ongoing threads. In B5, each episode told a whole story with a beginning, middle, and end, but those individual pieces added up to a larger, continuously evolving whole. Threshold was actually structured in this same basic way, as an episodic serial. Although in some ways it was closer to the House model, weekly procedural installments within a larger serial arc.
That's a model that J.J. Abrams's Fringe also seems to be employing, and that's because of one of the main drawbacks of serialization: it can be confusing and make it hard for new viewers to catch up. Serialization isn't intrinsically bad, but the serialization fad has been taken to such an extreme that it's too often become a detriment, with shows losing viewers because they're too confusing to get into, or frustrating viewers because they got cancelled before their arcs could be resolved. So increasingly, networks are trying to pull back from that kind of ultra-serialization and strike a balance between the virtues of episodic and serial storytelling.
Well, not quite, because the term "hard SF" refers to SF that's driven by plausible scientific concepts, and Braga's material was more in the direction of science fantasy. I mean, we're talking about a guy who didn't even know Rigel is a real star. I agree, however, that Braga's Trek work tended to be more high-concept and idea-driven than character-driven.
And aren't you giving Moore too much credit for DS9? Ira Steven Behr ran that show. Moore was one of the people who worked under him, along with Rene Echevarria, Robert Hewitt Wolfe, Hans Beimler, and others. It's true that he fit in better with DS9's more character-driven storytelling, but he wasn't singlehandedly responsible for setting the show's tone. And ultimately the late, great Michael Piller was the one most responsible for bringing strongly character-driven storytelling to the Trek universe, with the rest of Trek's character-oriented writers being his proteges.
Are you really Brannon Braga?? 
In the first few episodes of Threshold, leader Cafferty would announce what they had learned in the episode---that there were in fact aliens, that they were transforming people, that the infectees were intent on transforming people, etc. And of course, by The Burning (second regular episode!---my mistake) they had already started plot twists. When the meaning of the episode is announced, there is no excuse for claiming that Threshold initially seemed to be episodic.
The first regular episode, Blood of the Children, was a character development episode for Cavanaugh, the strong and silent guy. Character arcs about Ramsay's disintegration, Fenway's disapproval, Cafferty's increasing isolation, Cavanaugh's self-effacement were a major part of the series from the beginning as well. By the episode where the infected guard asks to be euthanased, the character interactions are the bulk of the story! The bbs standard libel that Braga is not a character guy is as unfounded as the claim that Threshold was episodic.
Threshold did not have a big drop in audience until preemption and time slot change. It did drop slowly as the intensity of the alien threat picked up. The thing is, for whatever reason, the show never had many people tuning in at all. It is hard to repeat bbs standard libels against Braga on that ground.
As to the supposed superiority of serialized shows, there is not one shred of evidence to support this. The prima facie case, Babylon 5, was one of the most preplotted "serials" around, even if you think Straczynski exaggerated. The most popularly successful serialized shows are soaps of course. But serialized dramas like St. Elsewhere, Homicide: Life on the Streets, Wiseguy, ER, even a serialized comedy like Roseanne, have uniformly ended up damaging themselves with ridiculous plot twists. And it is absurd to label Lost a dramatic success before it's even finished! It is almost certain that serials like Dexter and Breaking Bad will screw up, because the serial format will distort the integrity of the story. I never saw Soapranos but I read that they couldn't even come up with an ending for that one!
Lastly, as to the creative contributions of directors---An example would suffice. How does American Beauty fit into the Sam Mendes oeuvre? I don't there's any meaningful sense in which it does. On the other hand, I think it fits into Alan Ball's oeuvre. As to the claim that a good director can save a bad script, again, an example would suffice.
This thread pretty much proves that Flash Forward will be deemed a failure by this bbs.
PS "Soapranos" was a typo. Maybe I've seen the pun somewhere else? But it seems too apt to leave out. I saw Anxiety, with William H. Macy as a second generation hit man seeing a shrink. The shrink was terrified, and desperate to quit. After seeing that I don't think I could suspend disbelief long enough to watch Gandolfini and Bracco.
The first regular episode, Blood of the Children, was a character development episode for Cavanaugh, the strong and silent guy. Character arcs about Ramsay's disintegration, Fenway's disapproval, Cafferty's increasing isolation, Cavanaugh's self-effacement were a major part of the series from the beginning as well. By the episode where the infected guard asks to be euthanased, the character interactions are the bulk of the story! The bbs standard libel that Braga is not a character guy is as unfounded as the claim that Threshold was episodic.
Threshold did not have a big drop in audience until preemption and time slot change. It did drop slowly as the intensity of the alien threat picked up. The thing is, for whatever reason, the show never had many people tuning in at all. It is hard to repeat bbs standard libels against Braga on that ground.
As to the supposed superiority of serialized shows, there is not one shred of evidence to support this. The prima facie case, Babylon 5, was one of the most preplotted "serials" around, even if you think Straczynski exaggerated. The most popularly successful serialized shows are soaps of course. But serialized dramas like St. Elsewhere, Homicide: Life on the Streets, Wiseguy, ER, even a serialized comedy like Roseanne, have uniformly ended up damaging themselves with ridiculous plot twists. And it is absurd to label Lost a dramatic success before it's even finished! It is almost certain that serials like Dexter and Breaking Bad will screw up, because the serial format will distort the integrity of the story. I never saw Soapranos but I read that they couldn't even come up with an ending for that one!
Lastly, as to the creative contributions of directors---An example would suffice. How does American Beauty fit into the Sam Mendes oeuvre? I don't there's any meaningful sense in which it does. On the other hand, I think it fits into Alan Ball's oeuvre. As to the claim that a good director can save a bad script, again, an example would suffice.
This thread pretty much proves that Flash Forward will be deemed a failure by this bbs.
PS "Soapranos" was a typo. Maybe I've seen the pun somewhere else? But it seems too apt to leave out. I saw Anxiety, with William H. Macy as a second generation hit man seeing a shrink. The shrink was terrified, and desperate to quit. After seeing that I don't think I could suspend disbelief long enough to watch Gandolfini and Bracco.
I fully admit that I attribute Threshold mostly to Braga simply because of the fact that many of the TrekToday articles that came out were focused on him - which makes sense, since he's the Trek connection. Perhaps Goyer is as much to blame. And hey, maybe Berman was the one who loved episodic TV and forced Braga to do what he wanted during VOY and ENT. But until someone says otherwise, I still think Braga prefers episodic driven TV.
As for the merits of serialization, I don't really want to get into it much. I'll just say that the problems with American network TV production - ie, the NEED to do 20-26 episodes a year and to have 10 season shows - has as much to do with the quality as anything else. I point to The Wire, which many TV critics regard as the height of American television, as a way that it can be done RIGHT and done WELL. Not to mention the extreme success of the telenovella format in Latin America and Europe. But if people want to believe that serialized TV automatically means failure, I'm not going to try to change your mind.
That said, I also don't necessarily malign episodic TV and as Christopher mentions, there are many episodic TV shows with "light arcs" or threads that run through the season. But in that case, it's a matter of the genre of the show in combination with how well the arc is developed throughout the series. To be honest, I don't watch crime or medical dramas, so the only shows I can really think of are sitcoms and action shows. Just looking at something like The Big Bang Theory, the episodic nature worked for me because each episode reminded the audience of the larger arc - the fact that the nerdy guy wants to date the hot girl. Even if the episode itself wasn't about that plot point, all they had to do is make the guy act awkward whenever the girl showed up and you were reminded of that larger arc.
Oh, hell, how could I forget? Just look at SG-1 which, in SF terms, is the height of the episodic-serial. In the first 6 seasons or so, the writers would constantly bring back characters and episode points from the past along with trying to develop the whole Goa'uld storyline as well. To me, that was just impressive because then even the individual "pointless" episodes that may or may not have anything to do with the Goa'uld storylines were nevertheless still important. That stopped as the show went on, but during the "glory years", it was a major facet of how the show worked - the writers were constantly aware of past episodes as they wrote new episodes.
But yep, we're pretty much way off topic now.
As for the merits of serialization, I don't really want to get into it much. I'll just say that the problems with American network TV production - ie, the NEED to do 20-26 episodes a year and to have 10 season shows - has as much to do with the quality as anything else. I point to The Wire, which many TV critics regard as the height of American television, as a way that it can be done RIGHT and done WELL. Not to mention the extreme success of the telenovella format in Latin America and Europe. But if people want to believe that serialized TV automatically means failure, I'm not going to try to change your mind.
That said, I also don't necessarily malign episodic TV and as Christopher mentions, there are many episodic TV shows with "light arcs" or threads that run through the season. But in that case, it's a matter of the genre of the show in combination with how well the arc is developed throughout the series. To be honest, I don't watch crime or medical dramas, so the only shows I can really think of are sitcoms and action shows. Just looking at something like The Big Bang Theory, the episodic nature worked for me because each episode reminded the audience of the larger arc - the fact that the nerdy guy wants to date the hot girl. Even if the episode itself wasn't about that plot point, all they had to do is make the guy act awkward whenever the girl showed up and you were reminded of that larger arc.
Oh, hell, how could I forget? Just look at SG-1 which, in SF terms, is the height of the episodic-serial. In the first 6 seasons or so, the writers would constantly bring back characters and episode points from the past along with trying to develop the whole Goa'uld storyline as well. To me, that was just impressive because then even the individual "pointless" episodes that may or may not have anything to do with the Goa'uld storylines were nevertheless still important. That stopped as the show went on, but during the "glory years", it was a major facet of how the show worked - the writers were constantly aware of past episodes as they wrote new episodes.
But yep, we're pretty much way off topic now.
Are you really Brannon Braga??
Hardly. I'm not a fan of the man's Trek work at all. But I'm not a fan of the way people twist the truth in their efforts to vilify him, or the way they ignore the contributions of Braga's collaborators, paradoxically dismissing their worth in their efforts to condemn him. I'm not defending Braga, I'm defending factual accuracy and fairness. And I'm also defending Threshold, which was not the kind of show some people claim it was.
This is a good point, and it underlines what I was saying earlier about the folly of assuming that the only options are "full serial" and "zero continuity." Plenty of shows are episodic on a plot level and serialized on a character level, House being just one example.
Again, however, I want to stress that Braga wasn't the only creative force behind Threshold. He worked alongside Goyer and ran a staff that included Mike Sussman, Anne McGrail, and Dan O'Shannon. The fact is, Braga wasn't a particularly character-oriented writer on Trek, and that's probably because Berman didn't make a priority of it either and so they reinforced each other. (All you have to do is look at the weak characters on the show they created together, Enterprise, to see that neither one of them is a strongly character-oriented storyteller.) It's possible that Braga's collaborators on Threshold were the ones who did the bulk of the character work. After all, Braga himself only got script credit on two episodes of the series, although of course as showrunner he would've done the final rewrite of every script and overseen every step of the writing process.
So I'd say that, left to his own devices, he's not naturally a "character guy," but on Threshold he managed to reorient himself more in that direction, perhaps under the influence of his collaborators. No man is an island.
Is that so?
It's almost never true - if ever.
OTOH, television - perhaps differently from film - is replete with popular and successful series where there's nothing remarkably interesting about the direction at all. If the audience doesn't like the writing or the actors, a show is dead - but direction?. Meh.
Well, West Wing is a bad example because the writing is so good, but that show is as much Schlamme's show as it is Sorkin's.
"Walk and talk" became a phrase because of his directing and it's firmly associated with the show as much as the dialog or the acting.
"Walk and talk" became a phrase because of his directing and it's firmly associated with the show as much as the dialog or the acting.
I'm not a huge Braga fan but I'm not a hater either. My feeling about him as I like him as much as his co-writer. With Moore it was good, Menosky less so and Berman was a good show runner but I don't think he should have been doing the writing so his works with Braga are not my favorite episodes to say the least. I've never seen threshold, didn't give it a fair shake because my Braga annoyance was at its fullest at the time but I've since calmed down. I've never seen 24, I liked Nikita but having a difficult time getting past Sirnow's friendship with Limbaugh and knowing his politics is infused in the show and I didn't know Braga was now involved. But I think I'm going to give the new show a shot.
Sounds like a pretty cool concept. I'll certainly check it out if it airs. I have nothing against Braga even if I didn't like all of his Star Trek decisions.
I'm surprised that no one has pointed out the fact that Braga is serving as an executive producer on 24. Not that it's a bad thing, but it seems like some kind of rite of passage to become an executive producer on 24. I guess that the show is so formulaic now that it literally writes itself anybody and everybody can do the job and probably has. In fact, I'd beter check my resume to make sure wether or not I was an executive producer on 24.
I made that joke already. Well, not that one specifically. My joke was that 24 has more EPs than actors. 
^^^^And I think we all were one at one time or another. I think I won my EP position at a church raffle and my kid traded some Pokemon cards for his.
'twas a great show.
Someone tagged me and said "You're it!" and before I knew it Kiefer started screaming at me, telling me to "DO IT NOW".
I just started reading the book (I'm about 120 pages in) and then I watched about ten of the twenty-ish minute preview up on ABC's site and I have to say I was surprised. None of the main characters in the book show up in the ten minutes or so I watched, though an IMDB search shows at least one character from the book will be on the show.
Either way, the book has managed to engage me, and the series starts out with a bang, so it's enough to draw me in for a few episodes at least.
Either way, the book has managed to engage me, and the series starts out with a bang, so it's enough to draw me in for a few episodes at least.
