sf/f TV development news - 2013

[Kegg]

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

(I miss TV movies. You never seem to see them anymore, at least not on the networks. I guess direct-to-DVD movies replaced them.

Well that and - as you seem to imply there - cable TV movies. I remember HBO's Game Change, a movie about Sarah Palin no doubt designed to counter the dearth of Sarah Palin on television, was aired on Sky Atlantic a couple of months back.

On the other hand, cable TV movies could arguably be competing with non-blockbuster feature films (Ed Harris, Julianne Moore, Woody Harrelson... it sounds like the kind of cast you'd have for a movie in respectable limited release).

 

[Greg Cox]

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

Yeah, for all we know, Fuller caught an old rerun of "The Munsters" on cable one night and inspiration struck. "You know, you could do a really interesting modern variation on this . . . . "

 

[Christopher]

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

Well that and - as you seem to imply there - cable TV movies. I remember HBO's Game Change, a movie about Sarah Palin no doubt designed to counter the dearth of Sarah Palin on television, was aired on Sky Atlantic a couple of months back.

Except that the "TV movies" that appear on non-premium cable channels are usually just repackaged direct-to-DVD movies. At least Syfy still does the occasional 4-hour miniseries. But it would be nice if commercial television, either network or cable (and is that even a meaningful distinction anymore?), still made original TV movies, particularly series like the Columbo or Perry Mason or Alien Nation movie series we used to have, or even original series like the Universal Action Pack had in its first year. (That was a syndicated "movie wheel" block that included the original, movie-length version of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Vanishing Son, and TekWar, along with various other movie series based on Universal properties like Midnight Run and Smokey and the Bandit -- although its Knight Rider 2010 "series" was exactly one movie long. After the first year, it dropped the movie format and filled the 2-hour syndication block with hourlong series of Hercules and Vanishing Son -- the latter of which was unceremoniously dropped after one season to make room for Xena: Warrior Princess. Meanwhile, TekWar got spun off into a weekly series on the USA network.)

 

[Greg Cox]

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

Well, Lifetime is still in the TV-movie biz . . . .

 

[stj]

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

Huh? Herman is a reanimated corpse, and his wife Lily and Father in Law Grandpa are Vampires, what could possibly be a suitable setting for Fuller's preferred themes of Life and Death if this doesn't qualify as suitable? Marilyn can't get a second date, because her family scares the men off, sounds like a very suitable setting for unrequited love to me

In Fuller's previous work, "death" is finally growing up and understanding that life is the mundane stuff you do every day and "life" is what meaning that mundane stuff creates for you, in opposition to the meaningless of death. B'Elanna Torres in Barge of the Dead has an epiphany about the heroism of engineering (amongst other things,) and George in Dead Like Me actually gets a job to support herself (and keeps having weekly maturing experiences) and Chuck in Pushing Daisies is compelled to get back in some way to her mundane life with her aunts.

Symbols of illicit sexuality like vampires are not a natural fit for this kind of oeuvre. "Herman" might be if he remembered his past life/lives (?) and didn't love Lily but I'm pretty sure the formula won't be tampered with so much. As for Marilyn's unrequited loves, she only has to move out of the house. There's no drama there, and the humor is the laugh at the idiot kind.

Oh Fuller is talented and he has more than his preferred themes so he might make this fly. But maybe not. Humor is conflict. The conflict between being monsters and being a loving family was the essential tension in The Munsters. The essential tension in Mockingbird Lane seems to be the conflict between being monsters and....being unpopular because you're monsters? This is the motor that's going to propel a show?

Obviously final judgment must be reserved.

 

[Christopher]

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

Well, Lifetime is still in the TV-movie biz . . . .

I've seen those in the listings, but since I don't watch that channel, I didn't know whether they were really original movies or just DTV films repackaged for TV like "Syfy Original Movies" are.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

^^ You're just punkin' me now, right?

strange

[streynj]   Example Sentences Origin
strange

   [streynj] Show IPA adjective, strang·er, strang·est, adverb
adjective 1. unusual, extraordinary, or curious; odd; queer: a strange remark to make.

You're the one who loves playing semantics with words and enjoy saying "Words have meanings". In this case I'm pointing out that you're playing semantics doesn't work with the words you're using.

Yes, words do have meanings and you'll notice, perhaps not surprisingly, that among the meanings of strange are "curious and "odd." The meaning of unusual is "happens infrequently." So if I say something is "not unusual but weird," it means "happens frequently but is curious." See? But I suppose now you'll tell me that the meaning of curious is "wants to know about stuff."

Dude, stop overreacting and listen to yourself. New versions of the characters are new characters. Not the same. Different. New.

No, they're really, really not, but you're not willing to think enough to understand why not. You're just stubbornly defending your narrow-minded preconceptions rather than opening your mind to a learning opportunity, and that's very sad. As long as you assume you're always right, you will never stop being so completely wrong.

And yet, after all that, different is still different.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

^^ You're just punkin' me now, right?

You're the one who loves playing semantics with words and enjoy saying "Words have meanings". In this case I'm pointing out that you're playing semantics doesn't work with the words you're using.

Yes, words do have meanings and you'll notice, perhaps not surprisingly, that among the meanings of strange are "curious and "odd." The meaning of unusual is "happens infrequently." So if I say something is "not unusual but weird," it means "happens frequently but is curious." See? But I suppose now you'll tell me that the meaning of curious is "wants to know about stuff."

Well that too, but...

curious [ˈkjʊərɪəs]
adj
1. eager to learn; inquisitive
2. over inquisitive; prying
3. interesting because of oddness or novelty; strange; unexpected
4. Rare (of workmanship, etc.) highly detailed, intricate, or subtle
5. Obsolete fastidious or hard to please

Interesting because of oddness or novelty, strange, unexpected and rare... and we're back to it either happens infrequently and thus is unusual or it happens often and isn't weird at all.

Perhaps what you mean to say is you don't like it.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

No, I meant exactly what I said: It's not unusual, but still weird. That conveys the meaning in a very understandable way.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

Well, Lifetime is still in the TV-movie biz . . . .

I've seen those in the listings, but since I don't watch that channel, I didn't know whether they were really original movies or just DTV films repackaged for TV like "Syfy Original Movies" are.

Syfy has an active hand in putting up the production for these films and dictating the direction of them. They aren't just buying DTV movies they are actually producing them.

http://www.shocktillyoudrop.com/news/interviewsnews.php?id=14224
http://moviemavericks.com/2010/06/interview-david-michael-latt/
http://gigaom.com/video/felicia-days-red-a-ratings-hit-says-syfy-exec/
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/16/arts/television/16syfy.html?pagewanted=all

I don't know that it's any different working with the Asylum to make a Mega Python movie or working with RHI to make Tin Man.

 

[Kegg]

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

Well that and - as you seem to imply there - cable TV movies. I remember HBO's Game Change, a movie about Sarah Palin no doubt designed to counter the dearth of Sarah Palin on television, was aired on Sky Atlantic a couple of months back.

Except that the "TV movies" that appear on non-premium cable channels are usually just repackaged direct-to-DVD movies. [...] But it would be nice if commercial television, either network or cable (and is that even a meaningful distinction anymore?), still made original TV movies,

Actually Game Change was an original TV movie, and that is something HBO still does.

 

[Greg Cox]

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

Well, Lifetime is still in the TV-movie biz . . . .

I've seen those in the listings, but since I don't watch that channel, I didn't know whether they were really original movies or just DTV films repackaged for TV like "Syfy Original Movies" are.

Syfy has an active hand in putting up the production for these films and dictating the direction of them. They aren't just buying DTV movies they are actually producing them.

Yeah, a friend of mine wrote Flu Bird Horror and I seem to recall him getting notes on his script from Syfy.

 

[sojourner]

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

No, I meant exactly what I said: It's not unusual, but still weird. That conveys the meaning in a very understandable way.

I'm still confused. How can you think something is weird but usual/common? "Unusual" is nearly synonymous with "weird" while "common" is nearly an antonym of it.

Is english a second language for you?

 

[Christopher]

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

No, he's just using "weird" to mean "something I choose not to understand or acknowledge as valid, no matter how common it is."

 

[sojourner]

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

So, weird to him.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

If you were to use Merriam-Webster as your dictionary source, instead of reference.com, you'd find that "weird" can also mean things such as "magical", "based on fantasy", or "unfamiliar", none of which are precisely synonymous with "infrequent", most especially "unfamiliar".

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

So, weird to him.

So we're back to it not being unusual but he doesn't like it. So he's using the words badly.

 

[Sindatur]

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

Huh? Herman is a reanimated corpse, and his wife Lily and Father in Law Grandpa are Vampires, what could possibly be a suitable setting for Fuller's preferred themes of Life and Death if this doesn't qualify as suitable? Marilyn can't get a second date, because her family scares the men off, sounds like a very suitable setting for unrequited love to me

In Fuller's previous work, "death" is finally growing up and understanding that life is the mundane stuff you do every day and "life" is what meaning that mundane stuff creates for you, in opposition to the meaningless of death. B'Elanna Torres in Barge of the Dead has an epiphany about the heroism of engineering (amongst other things,) and George in Dead Like Me actually gets a job to support herself (and keeps having weekly maturing experiences) and Chuck in Pushing Daisies is compelled to get back in some way to her mundane life with her aunts.

Symbols of illicit sexuality like vampires are not a natural fit for this kind of oeuvre. "Herman" might be if he remembered his past life/lives (?) and didn't love Lily but I'm pretty sure the formula won't be tampered with so much. As for Marilyn's unrequited loves, she only has to move out of the house. There's no drama there, and the humor is the laugh at the idiot kind.

Oh Fuller is talented and he has more than his preferred themes so he might make this fly. But maybe not. Humor is conflict. The conflict between being monsters and being a loving family was the essential tension in The Munsters. The essential tension in Mockingbird Lane seems to be the conflict between being monsters and....being unpopular because you're monsters? This is the motor that's going to propel a show?

Obviously final judgment must be reserved.

They're calling this thing a drama, so, most likely it will be a drama with a few laughs thrown in, like Stargate SG-1 was

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

I expect the tone to be similar to Pushing Daisies, not exactly a comedy but not Deadwood either.

Blake's 7 reboot being shopped around.

 

[Sindatur]

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

Blake's 7 reboot being shopped around.

This would be so exciting to see come through, Blake's 7 is great, despite it's special effects weaknesses. With a Reboot, finally making it to air, that may even encourage them to release the Classic Series on DVD here in the States, I know many folks who like to buy the Series, but, it's only available in PAL.