Information About The New Chiller TV Channel

seeing how NBC-Universal has pretty much destroyed Sci-Fi with their marathon booking blocks instead of real programming, do they really need a new channel to air programs that could easily fit on Sci-Fi - couldn't Alfred Hitchcock Presents fit in with ECW?

As far as Sleuth goes, it stinks that even though they run Miami Vice three times during the day, it's 10 p.m. 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. Is there a law prevening Miami Vice being shown during daylight hours? And why so many runs of Turks and Conviction already - since the shows only have 13 episodes. Burning Zone has 19. But they run them as if they were on the air as long as Simon and Simon.

It also stinks that they run the shows cut to today's syndication lengths instead of uncut. But that keeps the true diehards buying the DVD boxsets rather than setting the DVRs.

It's sad that NBC-Universal killed Trio so they can focus on launching a bunch of purely junkdraw channels. I'm putting money down that the next thing is "Medical TV" with 24 hours of doctor shows.

 

The Sleuth channel has been a huge disappointment to me also. The programming is not deep, the same series are shown over and over, and too many commercials. With Universal's deep catalog of detective/crime shows you'd think we'd get Rockford, Kojak, Quincy et al. Nope. Just a gazillion showings of Miami Vice.

 

they do run Rockford. But in less than a year, they should have all the regular episodes out on DVD. So if you're hardcore Rockford fan, you'll have it on the shelf. And the same will hold true for Miami Vice - in a few weeks, there will only be one season left to come out on DVD.

And I don't like from the early schedules how the Universal Classic monsters seem to come on at 3 a.m. These ought to get play on Saturday afternoons - for the kids like the glory days of the Creature Double Feature.

 

Thanks for letting me know Rockford is now on their schedule. To be honest, I quit checking the Sleuth listings awhile back since virtually nothing of interest was on for me (I'm not a VICE fan).

Yes, Rockford looks like it is headed towards completion on DVD with four seasons either out or announced.

Joe, I absolutely agree with you about the Saturday afternoon showings. There was a time, not that many years ago, when I was a kid who got hooked on classic films thanks to Saturday "matinee" showings of Tarzan, East Side Kids, Charlie Chan, and the monsters. I know that many of these are on DVD now and that they can be a tough sell to kids, but even big kids like me like to have a relaxing Saturday afternoon once in a while going back in time. What a wonderful opportunity it would be to expose younger generations to these fun classics by airing them at accessible hours.

 

When i was a kid, I got hooked on Saturday afternoon showings of Tarzan, Charlie Chan and the monsters. And my DVD collection reflects its. I'm not ticked off that Chiller isn't showing the Classic Monsters until 3 a.m. since I have all the Legacy boxsets on the shelf. When I'm in the mood for "Son of Dracula" or even Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, it's in the DVD player. While I wonder if today's kids would care about Tarzan or Charlie Chan, I know they get hooked on Karloff's Frankenstein. But how is a kid going to get spooked if Bela doesn't appear on screen until way past bedtime.

Also what defines what shows belong on SciFi or Chiller? Who will get Nightstalker? Who would get a Godzilla flick?

In the case of Sleuth, they should resurrect the whole NBC Sunday Mystery Movie format - bring back the theme song and the promos while rotating between the shows that made up the series - and run it on Sunday nights.

 

Wow! Alfred Hitchcock Presents (old and new), Night Gallery, Twin Peaks, Universal Monsters... all on the same channel? Here's hoping Comcast gets this channel... my DVR's gonna get full fast.

 

I would love to see "Quincy" on Sleuth. I got to see it again along with "The Fall Guy" on Fox Net before my cable provider dropped it. Fox Net though might have the exclusive rights to air "Quincy" which would explain why Sleuth hasn't it aired yet. "Magnum, p.i." is currently the only series I watch on Sleuth, and that's occasionally.

 

Hmm...sounds like the ideal place for Dark Shadows!

 

What happened the launch date of this channel was suppose to be march 1st.on Direct tv.Today is the 3rd and it is still not on.hmmmm

 

I have Direct TV, and it started March 1 for me --- Channel 257, right between Turner Classic Movies and the Fox Movie Channel. Are you sure it's not there?

 

Thanks for the info Joe.I just unplugged my Direct tv reciever and plugged it back in 30 seconds later and the chiller channel was there.

 

Sleuth and Chiller may not have perfectly uncut/uncompressed shows, but their presentations are about as good as you're likely to find on channels with commercials nowadays. Sleuth has run Dragnet '67 episodes that are only about a minute "short" of uncut, and I'm pretty sure their Rockfords are at least 47-48 minutes. Alfred Hitchcock Presents episodes are 24:00-plus on Chiller and even have the mid-episode Hitchcock silhouette bumpers that are missing from the S1 DVD set. I don't have every frame of all these series' episodes memorized, but I think Sleuth and Chiller are just using a slight time compression with little if any cutting.

That may still sound bad, but this puts them light-years ahead of TV Land, Always More Commercials, Nick at Nite, GSN, Axe&Edit, Chopmark, Sci Fi, and many other channels that cannot present a show or movie without cutting or time-compressing up to 20 percent of the content for commercials and squeezing/altering the end credits. Speaking of that, one of the best things about Sleuth and Chiller is that (so far, knock on wood) they do not squeeze the end credits or run CGI versions of them. For those of us who can't afford a season set of all these episodes, Sleuth and Chiller aren't bad substitutes.

I'm not as big a fan of the '80s and later series on Sleuth--is anyone detecting major cuts in Sleuth's presentation of them? Of course, some of the '90s series might once have aired on the broadcast networks with at least 15 minutes of commericals to begin with.

I second the above motions for NBC Mystery Movies and Kojak. A Quincy package with 48-minute run times appears on local stations occasionally and might turn up on Sleuth eventually.

 

my favorite new time saving stunt is how on the back to back Scrubs on Comedy Central, they run the end credits at the bottom of the screen while the opening of the second show runs.

maybe I'm being too harsh on Sleuth, but it seems like most of the time I flip over, it's an ad break.

 

I should have added TBS to my Hall of Shame above, as they do this same trick with some of their shows. Sad to see that Comedy Central is doing the same thing, as they were running original end credits not all that long ago. BBC America is now on my list too, after I saw them run CGI titles on a roll at the side of the screen for Benny Hill, replacing Benny's run-off sequence at the end. It's odd, as some of their shows' original credits remain untouched.

The old Ax channel, now Ion, floored me several years ago when I saw generic CGI end credits (same crew credits from the premiere episode used for all episodes, with no guest-cast credits) run in place of the classic Bonanza end-title cards and music.

You can tell (!) that credit-squeezing/altering galls me. I think that's when a channel truly jumps the shark, although channels usually have been cutting shows to bits anyway by the time they start fooling with the credits.

That's one reason why I rank Sleuth and Chiller above virtually everyone else. AmericanLife used to have near-perfect presentations of shows, but it's been a few years since I've had access to that channel and I don't know how they do things now.

One thing about Sleuth: I think they do speed up the original end credits of modern theatrical films.

 

Hard to blame them for wanting to not have to run six minutes of credits. They really should recut credits for TV so that they just run 30 seconds. If you really care about the Drivers and folks who typed code for the CGI, look it up on the imdb or buy the DVD. Let's get to the next show - unless the credits has some fun business happening in the background.

 

Yeah, there's no reason that they should get any recognition for what you just enjoyed.

 

Chiller looks very promising. I noticed that they had a mini Friday The 13th: The Series marathon yesterday. Too bad I wasn't home to watch it and I forget to set my DVR.

 

Will you be writing them all thank you notes?

I've worked on enough shows over the years for various networks and cable channels. I've yet to see my name on the final credits. Do I care that much? No. The recognition comes from getting a paycheck that doesn't bounce. Do you really care about the craft service truck driver? Show me the names of the speaking actors and the top tech folks. but after that - who cares besides their friends and family?

We're talking 5 to 8 minutes of "dead space" from when the movie ends until you can start the next show. Are you going to stare at the screen all that time? Or are you going to start flipping the channels. I love people who insist on sitting through the complete credits to honor all those involved in making the film. Do they people read all the credits after they listen to a CD? Do they feel cheated when they read a book and don't have a list of everyone who typeset and proofread and copyedited the book?

Back in the 60s, there was barely a one minute or less crawl at the end of the film. It wasn't an endurance race to sit in your seat until the credits stopped and the lights came up. Unless I know there's something hidden at the end of the credits or a pal was on the cutting crew, I'm gone.

Plus when it comes to film credits on TV, who can read most of that tiny type on the screen? The studio's should redo the final credit roll to reduce the number of names and make them bigger so folks can read them.