Well, this isn't surprising, but it's kind of a shame. It was a pleasant show, if not earth shattering, and I probably would have continued watching.
'Terra Nova' Renewal Could Depend On Mid-Season Flop
- Thread starter Snick27
- Start date
Yeah, that's what it was. But the correct figures weren't really necessary for the point.Also, a little research will easily turn up the correct number. That's not hyperbole, it's laziness.
High costs shows, and their fans, are in trouble - if your looking for (multi) season long stories as oposed to stand alone episodic based ones - and as you point out, with the increase in choice and the subsequent spreading of the advertising dollars, it's most likely going to get worse - at least as far as television is concerned.
So we'll have to look for more sf/f stuff on cable, where they can spend more money on smaller audiences.
Also, I wouldn't count broadcast out - they are desperate for any way to survive, and ignoring the competition posed by cable isn't going to work.
There are plenty of sf/f pilots in development (see this thread), but they have the kind of premises that generally don't require heavy SFX or even any SFX. I'm not certain that's budget consciousness, rather than setting a show in the identifiable real world without a lot of weird shit for audiences to deal with. Probably both.
I don't think that episodic vs serialized is really the issue here. Grimm and Once Upon a Time have ongoing storylines (the latter moreso than the former) and they're the two genre shows that have most definitely succeeded, while FOX's stuff has floundered.
Also, advertising by itself is a healthy business. What's being stretched is the audience. If you can't build the audience, the advertisers aren't going to pay.
Also, I wouldn't count broadcast out - they are desperate for any way to survive, and ignoring the competition posed by cable isn't going to work.
There are plenty of sf/f pilots in development (see this thread), but they have the kind of premises that generally don't require heavy SFX or even any SFX. I'm not certain that's budget consciousness, rather than setting a show in the identifiable real world without a lot of weird shit for audiences to deal with. Probably both.
I don't think that episodic vs serialized is really the issue here. Grimm and Once Upon a Time have ongoing storylines (the latter moreso than the former) and they're the two genre shows that have most definitely succeeded, while FOX's stuff has floundered.
Also, advertising by itself is a healthy business. What's being stretched is the audience. If you can't build the audience, the advertisers aren't going to pay.
Terra Nova was never well written. But as dumb eye candy went it started out well and ended well. Unfortunately it had a lot of garbage in the middle, and several fundamental problems throughout.
Ultimately it all boils down to the main family. Everyone complained about the teen angst angle, but neither of the kids ever bugged me half as much as their horribly boring parents. Even aside from how they came off on screen, at the most simplistic level it became apparent that the story being told wasn't about any of them.
It was about Stephen Lang. And he was by far the best part of the show (CGI dinosaurs excepted, possibly, in the eyes of this huge dinosaur nerd). Every time the show tried to shoehorn one of the Shannons into the action it felt really forced, especially the dad, who we were so often told was the main character. But other than being an ex-cop, he never seemed to do much of anything that made him special. Stephen Lang put his ass on the line and made a mortal enemy of his own son for the sake of the colony. The spotlight really should have been his and every time it wasn't, it made me hate the Shannons just a little bit more.
Even still, if the show had maintained the level of production it had in its pilot, I would be sad to see it canceled now. But I suppose that would be impossible for a TV budget. Apparently it was, since after the first couple episodes, the dinosaurs started appearing only in establishing shots and we got bogged down with amnesia virus and murder mystery plots, stories that utilized nothing special about the show's premise. I guess they were saving their money for the last episode. Unfortunately for them, the rest of the audience wasn't as patient as I was, I guess. Oh well.
Ultimately it all boils down to the main family. Everyone complained about the teen angst angle, but neither of the kids ever bugged me half as much as their horribly boring parents. Even aside from how they came off on screen, at the most simplistic level it became apparent that the story being told wasn't about any of them.
It was about Stephen Lang. And he was by far the best part of the show (CGI dinosaurs excepted, possibly, in the eyes of this huge dinosaur nerd). Every time the show tried to shoehorn one of the Shannons into the action it felt really forced, especially the dad, who we were so often told was the main character. But other than being an ex-cop, he never seemed to do much of anything that made him special. Stephen Lang put his ass on the line and made a mortal enemy of his own son for the sake of the colony. The spotlight really should have been his and every time it wasn't, it made me hate the Shannons just a little bit more.
Even still, if the show had maintained the level of production it had in its pilot, I would be sad to see it canceled now. But I suppose that would be impossible for a TV budget. Apparently it was, since after the first couple episodes, the dinosaurs started appearing only in establishing shots and we got bogged down with amnesia virus and murder mystery plots, stories that utilized nothing special about the show's premise. I guess they were saving their money for the last episode. Unfortunately for them, the rest of the audience wasn't as patient as I was, I guess. Oh well.
As cool as Commander Taylor was, all he really was was just a good guy version of the colonel from Avatar.