It's kind of sad when our favourite shows have their plugs abruptly pulled when fare such as Becker gets another chance AFTER being cancelled (and also went through aggressive contract disputes during its tenure).
Hey,
Becker is
Art compared to The Bachelor, Joe Millionaire, Bachelorette, Married By America, etc.
Sci-fi is gold at the box office and tin foil on TV. It just doesn't make sense.
Reality TV style stuff isn't box office gold. That's why Sci-Fi can be gold at the box office.
ps. Michael Hinman seems to be confused on a few points, and he completely left out B5.
Hinman quotes below:
'At the same time, the box office was pushing out science fiction hits like there was no tomorrow, things like "Independence Day"...'
That was fluff.
"Buffy" stumbled out of the gate, and ended up having its plug pulled midway through the season, making last May its unexpected end.
???
Buffy went for SEVEN seasons. Stumbled out of the gate??? It didn't really stumble until Season 4. That's hardly "out of the gate" but rather way down the stretch. It ran out of juice. They ran out of stories to tell. People wanted to move on.
And really none of the shows that were offered as new shows this coming season are science fiction related.
Because of the cost per ratings point of Reality TV.
Not too long ago, "Enterprise" executive producers Rick Berman and Brannon Braga mentioned that it was going to take a film like "The Matrix Reloaded" to give science fiction a rebirth.
This guy must be a unabashed Trekkie.
It appears that science fiction has run out of steam, but it doesn't have to. A long time ago, networks and studios tackled science fiction because it was a departure from mindless plots and stories found in many westerns and other genres of entertainment that was littering television and movies. While it was more expensive to make, it involved dealing with artistic means, and battling complex stories that made the original "Star Trek" famous.
Artistic got bowled over by the economics of Reality TV, and Berman & Braga are among the chief producers of mindless plots!
...especially in the Star Trek realm -- took a dive into the opposite direction, creating mindless dribble that no one really cares about.
So, the guy goes looking to Berman & Braga for quotes???
The only exceptions to those rules -- shows like "Farscape" and "Firefly" -- didn't last long for whatever reasons.
$1.4 million and $2.0 million per episode respectively. Those are the reasons. What's Reality TV cost per episode? What's the cost per ratings point?
Apparently it's not as fashionable to lose money on science fiction, when there's other drama out there that can be even deeper, but done with a lot less money.
Drama? It's Reality TV and it's cost per ratings point that's killing sci-fi on TV. Even drama has ahard time competing with Reality TV. Until the general public gets completely sick of Reality TV, sci-fi on TV, especially a new show that doesn't have a foothold, doesn't have a chance.
What happened to the days when science fiction was innovative? Why did it suffer so much under the iron foot of mediocrity?
Since Berman & Braga, and Reality TV came along and got incredible ratings for shows that cost far, far less than sci-fi to produce. It's like somebody here in the USA, making $20/hr. trying to compete with somebody in China who's making 50 cents/hr. Now, the only way sci-fi can compete is by going cheap, like "Tremors: The Series." The trouble is that then it looks bad compared to the more expensive sci-fi that we're used to seeing.
It's hard to tell. If mindless science fiction continues to be made, ...
a.k.a. if Berman & Braga are involved...
...and deep science fiction is fed to the wolves,...
...if the general public keeps giving Reality TV great ratings...
... then it will be dark days ahead indeed.
This is what I've been saying all along.
