and the cast weren't that impressed with changes (double so for those that stayed on the production moved location).
Syndicated SFF TV Series From The Late 1980s through Early 2000s
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and the cast weren't that impressed with changes (double so for those that stayed on the production moved location).
I totally get what you mean about TV series changing direction and sometimes not living up to the initial excitement. It's a bummer when a show takes a turn that doesn't resonate with you.
seaQuest is ripe for a reboot.. modern cgi.. Yeah,
Same for Space Above and Beyond.. Criminal that isn't rebooted.
Ever see the actors/actresses in other roles? The bad guy in Earth Final conflict Von Flores, .. appears alot in Mayday airline disaster series on Smithsonian. actually quite a few people have been on that series.
Same for Space Above and Beyond.. Criminal that isn't rebooted.
Ever see the actors/actresses in other roles? The bad guy in Earth Final conflict Von Flores, .. appears alot in Mayday airline disaster series on Smithsonian. actually quite a few people have been on that series.
I really liked SAAB ("You stupid tank!") the only issue I had with it was the fact that having the cast operate sometimes as fighter pilots and sometimes as soldiers didn't always work (as I recall I haven't seen it since it aired in the UK!)
I remember liking War of the Worlds, but mainly that was down to Col Ironhorse, liked Hercules but once Xena came along there was only one show I was interested in. Loved Forever Knight and also things like Earth 2, Alien Nation, American Gothic (a crime that was cancelled) I watched some of Tek War and some of Earth Final Conflict. It was always weird when shows radically changed cast/tone. Happened to so many of these shows, I'm thinking of Andromeda and Sliders in particular.
I remember liking War of the Worlds, but mainly that was down to Col Ironhorse, liked Hercules but once Xena came along there was only one show I was interested in. Loved Forever Knight and also things like Earth 2, Alien Nation, American Gothic (a crime that was cancelled) I watched some of Tek War and some of Earth Final Conflict. It was always weird when shows radically changed cast/tone. Happened to so many of these shows, I'm thinking of Andromeda and Sliders in particular.
Does "Baywatch Nights" count here? It was an attempted spin-off of Baywatch with David Hasselhoff's character revealing he moonlights as a Private Investigator when he's not a lifeguard and it being a mystery show...
...But then in Season 2 when ratings were failing they retooled it to be more like the X-Files so now it was his PI Team investigating supernatural/science fiction stuff like frozen Vikings being revived in the modern era
...But then in Season 2 when ratings were failing they retooled it to be more like the X-Files so now it was his PI Team investigating supernatural/science fiction stuff like frozen Vikings being revived in the modern era
I might have to check out Forever Knight, it's on Amazon Prime and it sounds pretty interesting.
I'm still mad Hulu pulled Earth 2 years ago, I was watching and enjoying it, but they pulled it before I got a chance to finish it.
I wish I could find Alien Nation streaming somewhere, I've seen parts of either the movie or the series, but never all of the movie or a complete episode of the series.
Alien Nation used to be on Tubi, but it's been pulled now. A shame. The movie was mediocre, but the series (which was a reboot despite nominally appearing to be a sequel) was one of the greatest SF shows of its era, using SF for allegory and thoughtful storytelling in a way that virtually nothing except The Twilight Zone and Star Trek had achieved before. Although it had one major imperfection, trying to be an allegory about racism while having a virtually all-white cast and creative staff. It also played fast and loose with its own continuity in a way that was typical of the era but hard to imagine today.
Coming out of the early 2000's, The Secret Adventures of Jules Vernes was a lot of fun. I kind of miss the simplicity of some of these shows.
I had mixed feelings about it. It was a nice idea, but the execution was weak. I mean, the premise was supposedly that these were the "real" adventures that inspired Verne's later fiction, but the writers never actually seemed to draw on any specifics of Verne's novels for inspiration, aside from making a reimagined version of Phileas Fogg a main character. It hardly seemed like they were familiar with Verne's body of work, let alone paying it adequate tribute. Also, Chris Demetral was pretty bland in the title role, though I loved Francesca Hunt as the female lead.
Also, major points off for whitewashing the biracial Alexandre Dumas père by casting John Rhys-Davies in the role.
Sure.
Yeah, I've seen it for purchase, I meant to watch without paying extra.
The thread is nominally about syndicated shows, but since the thread revival last week, people have been discussing both network and syndicated shows. If Space: Above and Beyond, Alien Nation, American Gothic, Sliders, and TekWar count, so can Lois & Clark. (The TekWar TV movies were syndie, but the weekly series was on USA, I think.)
Being in the UK, and certainly in the 90s/2000s I probably didn't understand the difference between network and syndicated shows back then, these shows just (usually) turned up on Channel 4 or 5, usually late at night, and often they just disappeared one day (for example I def never watched S3 of Forever Knight that no longer featured Schanke.) I did used to buy pirate videos from comic cons of some of these shows, but again don't think I ever saw all of all of them (aside from things that were very finite like Earth 2, American Gothic, Alien Nations etc) Alien Nation got some follow up TV movies didn't it?
Annoyingly FK isn't on Amazon Prime in the UK. Might dig around into finding it as I'm sure it'll be available somewhere, I do remember really liking it (this might be nostalgic rose tinted glasses however) and ironically while I own no episodes I do have a soundtrack album!
Annoyingly FK isn't on Amazon Prime in the UK. Might dig around into finding it as I'm sure it'll be available somewhere, I do remember really liking it (this might be nostalgic rose tinted glasses however) and ironically while I own no episodes I do have a soundtrack album!
Yes, five of them from 1994-7. The show had a turbulent history. It struggled to maintain enough ratings to justify its high budget, but critics, affiliates, and most of FOX's executives loved it and wanted to renew it. But FOX president Barry Diller didn't like it for some reason, and in the wake of the breakout success of The Simpsons, the decision was made to reorient FOX to make more sitcoms. They could make 3-4 sitcoms for the cost of Alien Nation, and that would let them expand the nascent network to more nights.
But the execs tried to find a way to keep the show, first trying to cut the budget, then settling on the TV-movie route, commissioning two movie scripts, which Barry Diller rejected sight unseen. So the project seemed dead, and Pocket Books actually went ahead and novelized the unmade movie scripts, since it was assumed they'd never see the light of day. (There was also a comic-book version of the unfilmed season 2 premiere script that was later expanded into the first movie, under the title The Lost Episode.) But then Diller left FOX, and the new people in charge loved Alien Nation, so they put the movie scripts back into production after all (rewriting them to make them bigger sci-fi spectacles). They were successful enough that they made three more, but the ratings on the last two fell off, so a planned sixth movie was never made.
Because of the 4-year gap between series and movie, they actually rewrote the first movie to set up the cliffhanger in a new way, essentially decanonizing the series finale, an overdone cliffhanger that was forced on the producers by network pressure and that they weren't happy with. The movies also retcon the timing of the series, bumping the timeline forward a couple of years. Otherwise, though, they're a faithful continuation that reunited most of the cast and crew of the series and kept what was good about it. And they did a better job developing some story and character threads that fell by the wayside in the series. I thought the movies were mostly very good, with the exception of the fourth movie, which was a mix of good and bad elements.
Keep an eye on my Patreon -- I've got a full revisit of Alien Nation coming up, recapping and reviewing every episode, movie, novel, and comic.
4 or 5 of them.
The first was a remake of what was planned as the season 1 final and season 2 opener (which was also novelised before the telemovie was made)
Unfortunately they go stuck in a bit of rut and kept trotting out the dark secret from the past trope.
There was tie in novel called Day Of Descent about the newcomers arrival on earth and the preceding events tying in elements raised during the series (such as George being involved in the game just before landing) that I would have seen adapted.
I thought Babylon 5 was considered a low-budget series.
Compared to say the budget for a Star Trek episode yes (one figure put is at $800K for B5 vs $1.6mil for trek)
But it still wasn't cheap show.
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