With Farscape cancelled, I wonder if the remaining episodes will be released to DVD? (1 Viewer)

[Daniel Kikin]

quote:
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Just talked to a Universal rep of Michael Jackson's
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Isn't he on Sony?

Maybe he's a wormhole alien?

 

[Paul McElligott]

Sci-Fi is making a huge mistake, simply because they are alienating a sizable audience that will be reluctant to embrace any future series that the channel might put on, for fear of getting burned again.

Their excuse about the ratings not growing like they wanted is just ridiculous. Farscape captured and held onto a loyal core audience with very desirable demographics. Whatever the size of that audience, Farscape was a prestige show in the same way that X-Files was for Fox in their early years. It's smart to hold onto shows like that, because they attract good press.

The fact that they are keeping John Edward and dumping Farscape proves that Bonnie Hammer wouldn't know science fiction if it fell on her.

 

[Mike_G]

With all the crap that Babylon 5 went through, and endured, and FINISHED, maybe this series can get picked up by someone for the last season. B5 ran on two stations, PTEN and Turner (and maybe a third?) simply because the fans wouldn't let it die.

It's sad when a show ends prematurely.

Mike

 

[Barry A]

Rumor mill...UPN is said to be expressing interest in picking up the series or perhaps co-financing it for rights to the reruns. Don't know how reliable this is, but I'm hoping.
Also, from Chat I attended with Kemper, season five is already written, and it is the end of the story. Not sure if that means the end of the current story line, and they would have gone into another story arc, or if they planned to kill it after next year anyway.
Current SciFi projects:
Tremor the Series - loved the first movie...but a series??
A show with dream experts (don't know name) where they will analyze viewer dreams. John Edwards part two?
.Current SciFi Acquisitions :
Star Gate SG1 - of course - I kinda like what I've seen of this show, but I've never had Showtime for a long run, so I ddn't get into it.
X-Files - that's right...they are about the 5th channel to get this on syndication. I love the show, but...doesn't seem like the best business decision.
Dead Zone - currently in it's first season on USA in first run, and syndicated on SciFi during Friday prime time. Basically, they show the new episode a few days after USA shows it in first run.
That's where all the money goes. That's probably why Farscape is gone.

 

[Kai Zas]

There's a long interview with David Kemper on the last disc of Season 3 (R2) where he comments on every episode of that season.

In it he states that Farscape was conceived as a 5-year series. He described season 3 as the middle season where eveything was going to go downhill, seasons 4 and 5 would depict the crews struggle out of the darkness.

The first ep of Season 3 was called "Season of Death", which rung true for almost the entire 3rd year.

I sure hope UPN picks it ut, but I'm afraid SciFi will want to hold on to the back catalogue. It's still the best Sci-Fi show arround.

 

[LennyP]

With all the crap that Babylon 5 went through, and endured, and FINISHED, maybe this series can get picked up by someone for the last season.

Sci-Fi owns the rights to all the previous episodes and none of the other stations are going to pick it up because of that, they won't make any money, just pour into it.
UPN's personell is just instructed to give positive responses because crazy fans are starting with personal attacks and threats if they're not satisfied with a response they're given, which is business-wise, another channel picking up Farscape, isn't going to happen. :frowning:
I got the first 3 seasons of it on DVD, S1 R1 and S2-3 R2UK and it's a great show, the only thing we can hope for is that wrap-up TV movie/miniseries.

 

[TheLongshot]

the only thing we can hope for is that wrap-up TV movie/miniseries.

Oh, we can hope for more than that. It doesn't mean that we will get it, but that doesn't mean we should give up.

While the odds are long, there are situations where shows were rescued off the scrapheap and gained a few more seasons. (Baywatch, Sliders) Also, this is probably the largest fan uprising that I've seen in a long time. Hell, it made national news in some places.

Also, Henson knows that Farscape is still a hot property, and probably will make more of an effort to try to find a new home for it than for the average show.

I'd take David Kemper's suggestion to heart and try to give the last 11 episodes the best ratings that the show has ever had. It is about the best chance to attract attention, at the very least. I'm also writing UPN as well. At the very least, I'm not going out without making my point.

Jason

 

[Brandon Gantt]

UPN has already said the series would cost more than Enterprise and they won't be picking it up. I'll try to find the article and post a link.

 

[Keith Helms]

With all the crap that Babylon 5 went through, and endured, and FINISHED, maybe this series can get picked up by someone for the last season. B5 ran on two stations, PTEN and Turner (and maybe a third?) simply because the fans wouldn't let it die.

JMS was never sure from season to season whether Babylon 5 would continue. He wrapped up a lot of the plot threads in season 4 because they were so slow deciding whether there would be a season 5 and then he had to come up with some "filler" plots for season 5 when it finally materialized.

I think it's particularly heinous of the scifi channel to not even hint they weren't going to renew Farscape until a couple of days before shooting completed on season 4. That left the creators with no chance whatsoever to hurriedly put together a wrapup episode or episodes. If the fan support doesn't cause a change of heart somewhere, the show will just end abruptly with no satisfactory conclusion.

 

[Daniel Kikin]

In this chat transcript with David Kemper on Friday, he says the series was originally envisioned as a six-year series but they cut it to five after the two-year deal was signed.

DK: We have to do something big and grand or we have to come back and finish it off right because when we're asking how many years of stories that we have, we certainly have the fifth year, and templated, I always had the dream--I was telling people in the beginning that it was a six-year show. And then the network was telling me it was a five year show:
Joey: Hmm.
DK: And so I had come around to having an ending at the end of five, but we all knew that when we were pushing toward the end of five, if we were given a sixth year we would simply open it up. Think of it this way, you're on your way home at the end of the fifth year we're getting close to home. You're driving home, you're driving home and you're on your block and you see your house and that's--that was going to be the end of year five. And if they'd said to me "we'd really love you to go to year six" I was gonna make a left turn in the alley before the house, and you'd have another year's worth of adventure before you made it to your driveway. It was easy to do storytelling-wise

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Quote:



B5 ran on two stations, PTEN and Turner (and maybe a third?) simply because the fans wouldn't let it die.






Not quite. B5 was syndicated via PTEN for four years, along with a number of other shows. By the start of the fourth season, B5 was the last PTEN show still in production, and the PTEN "network" was ready to fold. (And besides, major partner Warner Bros. was already starting up its "The WB" network.)

TNT had already bought the exclusive rerun rights to the first four seasons at that point. They then decided to sponsor two original TV movies to go along with the reruns, and to pay for a re-edit of the series pilot film. The TV movies started shooting immediately after the fourth season wrapped, before the sets were struck. It was TNT's experience producing these two movies - not fan pressure - that led to the network picking up the series for the fifth and final series. (Well, there was some fan pressure involved - in the form of people who happened to work in TNT's Los Angeles production office and in their marketing department in Atlanta who were B5 fans. But outside fan pressure, letters, etc. had pretty much zip to do with their decision to take the series.)

TNT was looking to get into the original drama business. They thought that science fiction, a genre that skews heavily towards a male demographic, would be a good match for their exiting "sports, westerns and wrestling" program mix. B5 was a known quantity, and a bit of a "prestige" show in certain quarters. They already owned the rights to the first four seasons, and would only have to commit to a single season for certain. Compared to a show like E.R., B5 was a bargain, clocking in at a tick under a million dollars per episode to produced. And if it went well, they were pretty sure they could coax the producers into a sixth season (which they couldn't) or a spin-off (which they - sorta - could.)

In short, B5 got its fifth season because it made business sense to TNT, not because fans agitated for it. It is also wrong to say that the fifth season was "filler". Faced with the prospect of the fourth season being the last, JMS looked at the 44 planned episodes and started moving things around. He dumped about four "stand alone" episodes from the beginning of each season. He changed the planned 3-parter "Atonement" into a single episode, because he could cover the rest of the Earth-Minbari War in the TV movie In the Beginning. That cut S4 from 22 to 16 episodes. He moved the beginning of the telepath arc out of S4 into S5. Then he pulled the conclusion of the Earth Civil War out of S5 and made it the last four episodes of S4 instead. The rest of the S5 story - the developing telepath crisis, the first year of the Interstellar Alliance, the mysterious attacks, the Centauri Crisis, were all planned from the beginning and played out pretty much as they would have in any event. (Except that the loss of Claudia Christian, as the latent telepath and station commander Susan Ivanova, hurt the telepath arc badly.)

Since the final episode of the series took place 20 years after season three, it could be aired at the end of S4 if that's all there was, or S5 if they got a last minute reprieve. All-in-all a very elegant solution. Pity the Farscape folks didn't have as much warning or as many options.

Regards,

Joe

 

[TheLongshot]

Thank you Joe, you are absolutely correct. JMS knew that his show might not last beyond a fourth season, and wrapped up things just in case. TNT picked it up because it made business sense at the time.

If Farscape is going to be saved, it is because it makes business sense to someone to continue it. It doesn't hurt that we show a solidarity for the show, but that alone will not save it. They also need to be convinced that they will make money off of it as well.

Jason