No "Legend Of The Rangers" TV series (1 Viewer)

[TheLongshot]

It was just reported on Dark Horizons that JMS said on usenet that Sci-Fi is not picking up LotR. It says that Sci-Fi is "moving away from space-oriented shows".

Ummm... Ok...

Jason

 

[Frank Anderson]

Great... what are they looking for then? Hack and slash? Monster of the week?

 

[Mike Broadman]

In another thread, I read about how they're butchering 24, and now this?!
There are, like, only three shows I actually watch or would want to watch, and now they're taking even those away from me.
That Rangers show had so much potential: excellent staff, good characters, intriguing story possibilities and, oh yeah, the guy who did Bayblon-freakin'-5!
That's it, I give up- I'm selling my TV.

 

[Jason Seaver]

It says that Sci-Fi is "moving away from space-oriented shows".

Ummm... Ok...

Well, they're already in for another year or two of both "Farscape" and "Lexx", and possibly "Battlestar Galactica". How many spaceship-based shows do they need? Since they're likely only to be producing enough original programming for a couple nights per week, does it really behoove them to fill up those slots with so many variations on the same theme? Especially a relatively expensive-to-produce series where they have no back-end participation?

Of course, I haven't watched my tape of the "Rangers" pilot, so I may wind up POed about this when I finally do.

 

[John Berggren]

I've never seen the rangers telefilm, but this response seems to be a cop out. I don't know if JMS got told bad ratings - no go, and he's specifying an untold reason... or if Scifi just doesn't know their target audience.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Bab5 heads I know were all dissapointed with it, so I'm guessing that was the real reason why it was no go

 

[David Williams]

Boy, I judged that one wrong! Here I am thinking to myself that it was a 'lock' for production... It's true that there were a couple of big problems with the show (a haunted starship! VR tactical!) and that the ratings were decent, but not spectacular. Character interaction was excellent.... very well cast (The Narn engineer was an excellent touch). The story suffers from pilot disease, although not as much as most shows (If JMS knows how to do one thing really well, its how to handle huge amounts of exposition).
I smell a change in leadership at SciFi as the cause for this... they've also been treating Farscape quite shabbily for some time now. The gap between episodes 3.18 and 3.19 was about 8 months *AND* they even ceased showing reruns, which was enough for me to lose total interest in the show (I won't place all the blame on SciFi, though, the stories in Season 3 have been schizophrenic at best and 3.19 was a very very shaky return) I wouldn't be surprised if SciFi sees a huge decline in ratings. I could go further into detail about my dissatisfaction with Season 3, but that's for another thread.
Also JMS is involved in a new show, Jeremiah, over at Showtime, which could have been a contributing factor.

 

[Dana Fillhart]

Man, did I love that VR weapons control room, that was ORIGINAL! I had strong hopes this would be made into a series, but ... *sigh* ...

I guess JMS got his lucky lottery ticket with the original B5, and lightning won't strike twice...