25 August 2008

Network boss talks down to fans


This has happened one too many times. Farscape, Firefly, Invasion (dammit, I liked it), Stargate SG-1 ... sigh, the list goes on. The latest death on telly is Stargate Atlantis. It will be mourned for a long long time.

What annoyed me to spaghetti heavens was this pompous interview by the network president called Dave Howe.

Check out his comments.
“It's kind of hard to cancel one, but it's good news to announce a new one,” (Is he assuming everything with the same name is the same quality? This seems to be the thinking behind every remake Hollywood regurgitates.)

But people need to mourn for a while and come to terms with it. I don't anticipate that that will subside quickly. But once Universe is on air and they have kind of their next fix of the Stargate franchise, I think hopefully people will realize that it's in safe hands at Sci Fi, that we really value this franchise and it's in our interest and the fans' interest to let us continue the story and figure out how to retell it for a new audience every few years.

There is so much wrong with that remark ... grr!

First, is 'come to terms' a backhanded way of saying 'Fellow fans who send me mail, who cares what you think, just deal with it'?? I mean seriously!

'Next fix of Stargate Franchise' ... it is quite insulting to fans to blatantly assume that anything with the same name will be watched mindlessly like the terribly mind-numbing dribble that is reality telly. Loyal fans will scrutnize it, judge it, tear ir to pieces. They will analyze the characters, the dialogue, see if personalities have depth, the science jargon actually makes sense ... sigh. The SGA audience is an intelligent, thinking crowd. Don't insult them by candidly stating that they are zombies who have nothing better to do than watch telly.

Sadly, this is the last nail in the coffin, that part of my brain that watchs telly watching for scifi stuff is gonna be buried and gone; someone will sing a song from highlander just for this occasion.

No more subscribing through cable for SciFi channel. To be fair, we just moved to a new country and have just been waiting to include Scifi channel in our list. Well, so much for that.

I'll buy the dvd sets, the made for dvd movies. And of course, save up for special editions of each season.

But if I am going to pay for all that, all done up with special features and interviews and sans the crappy ads, why should I pay for Scfi channel or other such cable tv? Could save up the bucks on that; after all, all my favroite shows have been cancelled and if somethign good comes along, it probably will continue to be.

Ye, you know where I am headed. Count me out, I am not oggling at Stargate Universe. Find your new audience you can retell or dumb down a story for.

If you will excuse me, I will go look for a few bucks to watch Dr Horrible online. *pfft* A.k.a. quality without the spam.

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