Films that should have been series / series that should...

[Ellie]

There are many films which seem so spectacular that you wonder why they didn't make a series out of them. Similarly, some series are so drawn out and have so little content but kinda good and you wonder why they didn't just make it a film.

My contenders:

Star Trek should have been a series
The new trek. They're making a sequel, but they really should have done a series instead. Not a stupid drawn out 24 episode American soap, but doctor who sized, red dwarf sized, etc. A lot of the main actors in it (Spock, Sulu, Scotty, etc) were previously/subsequently in series (Heroes, Flash Forward, Spaced) so it could easily have been done.

Flash Forward should have been a film

I stopped watching because it was going on so long with no real content. A shame because apparently the book is quite good.

 

[Jason]

Yeah but the only type of series I can sit through are comedies or cartoons to be honest, if something is serious it needs to be great, and personally I've never liked the Star Trek series', then again I never liked the older films too... but the new film was pretty fucking amazing to be honest, don't think I'd have seen it if it were a series.

 

[Ellie]

Almost all of the star trek films would have been better as single episodes of their respective series' to be honest.

 

[Anski]

Firefly should have had a second season.

 

[united washcloth express]

Star Trek: Nemesis is still amazing.

 

[Misery]

Firefly should have had a second season.

I agree

 

[Petros]

Firefly should have had a second season.

I agree

As does anyone with a brain. So apparently not the FOX execs.

 

[Ellie]

I've never seen firefly ;[ or serenity.

 

[moog]

Fox didnt axe FF because it sucked, it just got poor ratings; same thing happened to family guy and futurama. Any network would do the same.

 

[Venetia]

i believe that station execs occasionally get personal problems with show producers/directors. imo it happened with firefly and it happened with arrested development.

if you remember, the shows were critically acclaimed right when they came out. but after 1-2 episodes, the shows were bumped to different time slots/days, and the changes were not advertised. this happened multiple times--so much that it eventually killed the show.


i will readily admit that i did not watch either when they originally broadcast. i didn't know when the hell they were on. i'd sit down at 7pm on tuesday or w/e to watch a.d., and it'd be some shitty ass reality show/sitcom instead, so i'd turn the channel and not look back.

a.d. was good enough that it made it through almost three seasons of bumping & shuffling before the ratings were low enough to pull it entirely. one of the last ones I happened to catch was in the mid-afternoon on a saturday or sunday. wtf kind of time slot is that? you can't expect any kind of ratings at all in that time slot.


and whenever a network moves a show to a timeslot shared with an EXTREMELY popular show on a diff network, it's basically condemning the show to die. like with the first run of Family Guy, they plugged the show into the same timeslot as Survivor or Who Wants to Be a Millionaire--which, at the time, were fucking powerhouses in ratings. They won't air their own cashcow shows during other cashcow network show timeslots, due to advertising and obvious market share loss. So they toss in a show that is doing mediocre/decent, or one that they do not terribly want to renew--so that they can compete on a small level, but not risk their biggest money makers.

meanwhile, all shows/reruns that will obviously garner low ratings returns are aired mid-day or on the weekends. a shitty, awful show can survive for a really long time so long as it is always a mid-day show and never starts out primetime. the bar is set wayyy lower. soap operas run for decades and decades because their only real demographic (stay-at-home moms) watches that timeslot. but they would never hold up to primetime hours, because they'd have to appeal to every single demographic.

its a rather shitty system when it comes to artistic/well-written/raunchy/more niche shows



anyway the internet & recording shows is going to piss all over original air time slot ratings so just have to wait i guess

 

[Prexus]

Also, TV show ratings are calculated based on who is watching the commercials, not who is watching the show.

This is why reality shows often do well, because they purposely put things like who is getting voted off, or allude to some sort of crazy happenings right after the commercials, to tie you in to leaving it on the channel (even if you aren't watching the commercials) so that you don't miss the restart of the show.

Obv. with a show like Family Guy, nobody is going to care if they miss one or two jokes so they will browse other channels for a quick scene of Simpsons or a music video.

its a rather shitty system when it comes to artistic/well-written/raunchy/more niche shows

god bless the internet

 

[Ellie]

That's why I prefer BBC programs to the shit they throw out on commercial channels. Every 15 minutes there's a big buildup to a mini cliffhanger, and if you don't watch the ads like me, it just doesn't flow properly, especially if you buy the DVD or watch it on anytime. The BBC programs tend to flow better (although recently they've been making their programs to put on their commercial channels, like Dave and Gold, and that really sucks >)