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Drive - ongoing thread (1 Viewer)

Nick

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Poor Nathan Fillion. This is the second serie that he's in has been canceled before the seson's over. Firefly got to aired more than 10 episodes though but this one only aired for two episodes. I think he should go with ABC, NBC or CBS. Next time.
Better luck next time Nathan.
 

Jason Seaver

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Fox's strategy has always been "high risk, high reward". They will give a shot to almost anything - or at least, much more than any other network - but if it doesn't show good results immediately, they'll move on to giving the next crazy idea a chance. Eventually, one of them will explode like The Simpsons, 24, American Idol, or The X-Files.

As to whether it's worth watching under those conditions, well, that's up to you. It's not going to change, though, and I maintain that the only reason people get upset at Fox is that the shows they cancel after a few episodes are better than the ones the other networks kill nearly as quickly. I figure it's better to watch them, enjoy what makes it on the air, and maybe give them enough positive word of mouth that sampled viewers are influenced or the network sees growth potential.
 

LarryDavenport

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Someone needs to explain to me how airing House reruns is better financially for Fox than airing the last two episodes of Drive.
 

Jason Seaver

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Especially during sweeps, when an affiliate's ability to set ad prices for the next year depends on what the network shows.
 

Kevin Grey

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That's silly- never mind the widely perceived lack of quality 24 has enjoyed this season, Dancing With the Stars is a taking a toll too and so did the return of Heroes (itself hurt enough by Dancing to almost record lows for that series).
 

Joe_H

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Its been said many times in many threads, but if Fox was as trigger happy then as they are now, season 1 of 24 would have probably been cancelled.
 

MikeAlletto

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I think I'm just going to stop watching some of these new shows all together. Why bother to schedule time in my schedule and waste DVR recording space on stuff that, odds are, is just going to be canceled. Might as well just wait and see if it makes it through season one and then netflix the dvd's or catch it in reruns or just download it.

But a show like this that relies on a story to develop over time should be allowed to grow and fester a bit before flat out killing it. Fox I want my 4 hours back.
 

TravisR

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With the amount of publicity that Fox put into the show, Drive's ratings were terrible and Monday's episode was only slightly ahead of what The CW normally does. It sucks that the show has been cancelled but I can't blame Fox for people not watching the show.
 

JohnS

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Episode #5 "The Extra Mile" is still scheduled for 4/30 or did that get 86'd?

Fox says there is nine extra episodes to still see. Is that also correct?

I liked this show, but didn't LOVE it. It was just something different. Oh well...
 

NeilO

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I can blame FOX. I think they did a lousy job with the show. Seriously, how many people are going to watch "live" a new serial show on FOX starting with 2 hours on a Sunday followed by one hour on Monday? On Sunday the premiere was up against The Amazing Race at 8 PM, which based on some of the FOX advertisements, attracts some of the same audience they thought would watch the show. Then at 9 PM it was against the top rated Desperate Housewives. Then after those two battles it was up against Dancing with the Stars and Deal or No Deal which are shows that more people would want to watch live than delayed. If they are complaining about this week's 24 ratings - that was up against the return of Heroes. I think most people who watch both of those shows are watching Heroes live, and 24 delayed.

In addition to all this, they didn't multi-purpose Drive. They could have put repeats later in the week or on FX.

I think it would have had a much better chance for success if they had just started it off with one hour on Monday (or some other time slot), had a repeat later in the week or on FX (and on the web) and then continued with that for a weeks to give the audience a chance to build. They had too high expectations for it, expecting it to do much higher ratings off the top. How many serial shows this season have we seen get poor ratings right from the beginning?

The FOX Drive website does say that they will air the final two episodes later this summer. Of course, that means we still won't get the full story as it was planned for 13. With any luck, Tim Minear will post all the remaining scripts.

Neil
 

KevinGress

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I agree with this, along with the suggestion that it would have done better during the summer. People really like time-shifting and the more airings would allow more eyeballs a chance to catch a show.

I won't miss it too much, but if the scripts become available, I'll definitely read them, just to find out what happens with Alex.
 

Jason Seaver

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Ah, timeslot bitching. Where would you have Fox put this? Where is the hole in Fox's schedule where Drive would have been safe from established shows on other networks? Also, airing the premiere Sunday night probably allowed them to promote it almost continuously during their NASCAR coverage that afternoon, and it's tough to blame Fox for thinking that maybe some of the people who like to see cars going fast would have shown up for Drive that evening.

As to the multi-purposing, I notice that not many networks are multi-purposing their shows any more - I think USA runs the odd eight-days-later Criminal Intent or Special Victims Unit, but you can't count on it like you used to be able to. I wonder if their affiliates got them to curtail the practice. I know if I was running a Fox station, I wouldn't appreciate the shows I was paying to air being run a day later on cable, especially if the research said that the people who caught those second runs didn't tend to start watching the original airing.
 

LarryDavenport

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Considering there is absolutely nothing on TV (for me) on Saturdays or Sundays, that would have been a good place to put it.

It's just sad that 5 million viewers isn't enough to keep a show on the air. If those 5 million people bought the episodes on I-Tunes it would be more than enough to turn a profit.

I looked at the shows I would absolutely want to watch and would buy on I-Tunes vs. how much I spend on cable, and I would save a lot of money just getting season passes on I-Tunes. I hope this will be the wave of the future.
 

Joe_H

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USA also shows House reruns 10 days later, on Friday nights, but yeah, I remember when 24 would be on a bunch of times during the week on FX in case you missed the first airing of an episode, that was definitely always nice. Maybe they assume more people timeshifting now makes up for this?
 

Greg_S_H

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Friday Night Lights always ran on Bravo. I didn't watch a whole lot of network TV before last season, so it seemed like a novel thing to me.
 

TravisR

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Too high expectations? I don't think expecting a show to come in higher than fourth place for the night of its premiere is too much especially since ratings always drop after a premiere. With the amount of promotion that they put into Drive (I saw ads for it on every show I watched on Fox for a month and a half before the premiere and it was covered well by entertainment magazines and shows), they only got one million more viewers than the two Simpsons reruns that ran before it. That's not 'too high expectations', that's a show that did terrible.
 

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