Slashdot Log In
Lone Gunmen Get the Axe From Fox
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Thu May 17, 2001 03:18 PM
from the that-sucks-man dept.
from the that-sucks-man dept.
squee23 noted that Fox is axing the lone gunman. Almost everyone I know watched the seriers premiere and bolted, which was unfortunate: the premiere sucked but almost every episode there after was pretty damn good: the first episode simply wasn't funny, and airing it was suicide. The X-Files is returning, sans Mulder. Fortunately, The Family Guy will come back, as well as the premiere of the live action version of The Tick.
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
Re:I really like TLG (Score:2)
It was a decent enough show to come home to on a friday night anyway. Now what is there? Will I have to go out and discover a "real life" or something?
Re:Yeah, The Tick! (Score:2)
Nobody is prepared for the return of the Ottoman Empire!
Down that path lies madness. On the other hand, the road to hell is paved with melting snowballs.
Re:It's all about the Family Guy (Score:2)
Agreed. Even though I can't stand Family Guy, it's still better than the 76th rerun of Police Videos Episode 41. But neither of them holds a candle to Lone Gunmen. There are only three things I even watch on Fox any more: Futurama, Lone Gunmen, and Malcolm. Nothing else looks even vaguely worthwhile. I'll miss Lone Gunmen; Friday night between Police Videos and the news is about the worst slot I can imagine, so it sounds like they never really gave it a chance. Now the question is what to do during the hour after Futurama and before Malcolm. The Simpsons has decayed badly, and there's no way Family Guy will keep me watching...
Re:who watches TV anymore? (Score:2)
Re:Just goes to show... (Score:2)
Re:The Tick? (Score:2)
Re:Live action Tick? (Score:2)
Re:Why would anyone like X-Files? (Score:2)
Re:Geek TV (Score:3)
To say NOTHING of how they abound on Slashdot:
Stereotypes of what Geeks are like (not good writers), and what they like (boring details about the evolution of life on planets 1.4 times the gravity of Earth with a Methane atmosphere).
Sterotypes of what Hollywood Screenwriters are like (cocaine-snorting yes-men cranking out mindless drivel).
I know we have to explain these phenomena as best we can, but let's avoid calling Mr. Kettle black now, shall we?
Re:Mindless Ramblings (Score:3)
I agree about doing XFiles without Duchovny.
It also won't be the same with Scully tied down with a screaming brat - unless "they" kidnap the brat too (we'll see Sunday night).
The Satan Worshipper specialist partner could work out, especially since there was past involvement. That implies more soap opera side plots (which wasn't at all a bad thing about the original xfiles, you knew Mulder was a perv, and you knew Scully wanted him, and you knew they would eventually do it. - that was fun to watch - until it became tiresome after 5 years).
They really *could* pull off a decent transition of the XFiles, but I doubt they are capable. Someone else made the conclusion that the XFiles has been about formula, and rehashed to death plotlines, and a big soap opera for the past two years.
I think that the story line IS salvagable with the T1000 guy (I just can't call him anything else!) - but the writers are going to have to work damn hard, and churn out some damn good stuff, and CONNECT with the old material, without recycling it.
A lot of the fun of the old XFiles was the portrayal of little-known urban myths, (chubacabra, etc), monster-of-the-week, and frankly, they've run through them all. That angle is getting pretty weak - the only thing they have left is covering the fallout from past things (like the shape-changer guy whose in prison,etc). Then the Government conspiracy arc thing was great, but you can only drag that out so far, the bad guys need to get their comeuppance in the end, with drama, so once you destroy a 50 year old conspiracy, where do you go from there? You can't create a new one out of thin air. There's only one Government. Once cancer man was gone, that was it.
They've got some heavy challenges ahead. I think that the challenges are not insurmountable, but I also do not believe (based on past performance) that they will rise to the occasion. Sadly.
Re:Fox has exactly two good shows: (Score:5)
What do The Simpsons have this season? I lot of completely inane, very loosely organized episodes without any constant thread that made the earlier episodes such a joy to watch. Now, it's like watch 4 five-minute skits. I'm glad the writers are living on in Futurama with fresh faces and fresh adventures (that's much easier to do in a completely fresh setting, of course), but it kind of hurts to see The Simpsons sort of degrade like an old NFL pro who won't retire.
Bite My Shiny Metal
Re:Yeah, The Tick! (Score:3)
Actually, if you'd read the article, you would have seen that The Tick will be on on Thursday following The Family Guy. It isn't a fan-boy article, it's from a Fox press release. The reason it was bumped to next Fall instead of already being on is due to the writers and actors strike. They didn't want to show what they had and then be unable to produce for for an indefinite amount of time.
I actually saw the entire pilot in an early form late last year. It was missing most sound effects, no music, a few other rough edges, but it was one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time. I am really looking forward to that show. The version I saw had no laugh track - I am really hoping it's going to stay that way, adding stupid canned laughter would just kill it. Luckily I think Fox actually understands that some of the time (Simpsons, Malcom in the Middle, all their other animated shows - none of them have laugh tracks).
Re:Geek TV (Score:3)
So basically you're saying that the inclusion of any female in any action show is sensationalist and that all female action stars are there merely as sex objects?
What a load of chauvanist bollocks!
Breasts do jiggle, even small ones. Get over it. Having breasts doesn't make a woman a bimbo, it makes her a woman.
--
Re:INCITEFUL IS NOT A WORD, DUMBASS (Score:2)
Re:MAXIMUM BOB (Score:2)
Another instance of leave it on the air just long enough to get you interested in it and then, abracadabra, it disappears without a trace.
Re:Just goes to show... (Score:2)
I was working in radio broadcasting when WKRP came out and it was the hilarious exception to that rule. Both I and a lot of other announcers I've talked to over the years were sure that the writers and producers must have worked at some of the same stations that we had. The only thing they missed was a dramatization of a "dead air" dream.
Okay, nothing like the Thanksgiving promotion episode ever really happened, but it could have.
Re:I really like TLG (Score:2)
After the way CBS jerked us around with Big Apple, feel free to kill CSI (which the eyeball network seems to want to keep).
You and the missus aren't by any means the only ones to suffer from "*don't* ignore it and it'll go away" syndrome. I'm surprised that one of the networks hasn't hired me to sabatoge their competition by watching it.
Re:Lone Gunmen is Fantastic! (Score:2)
Re:The sleeping months (Score:2)
Unless they have him take several naps/meditation sessions where he battles the bad guys in some psychic realm or something. That could be be really wretched TV.
Re:Oh Gawd no! (Score:3)
Lone Gunmen Rocks!!! (Score:2)
The Lone Gunmen were all that gave X-Files levity in an otherwise lockjawed-acting-style show.
Some other network HAS to pick up this show, it's so funny to watch them bungle something so badly, then see them turn it around for the good in the end. It's only getting better!
I have nearly every ep on my replay, it's the only show I watch on Fridays, it's gotta go somewhere!
Re:Picking apart "Lone Gunmen" (Score:2)
However, none of them had characters that were well-thought out or more than one-dimensional. (What was the real difference between Frohickey & Langley -- besides the fact one was older than the other? And we saw little of Byer's geek quotent in the series -- he was just the guy who wore a suit & stood around.)
Oh well, another source for geek trivia, & we know some script kiddies will be mining the show for K-rad k3wl handles.
Geoff
Re:Just goes to show... (Score:2)
My biggest gripe is that there was nothing supernatural, spooky, or government-conspiratorial about the new series. For inhabiting the same world as Mulder & Scully, the Gunmen spend an awful lot of time chasing the world's lamest criminals. Jimmy Bond is just annoying and stupid, but at least Yves is hot.
The CONSTANT technical inaccuracies drove me nuts. I understand that you have to sacrifice some reality to make the plots work, but some of the errors in the show could be corrected with very little work at all.
In the pilot, they talk about the new fancy CPU having a built in modem to it that causes some security concerns. Never mind that you'd have to open up your PC and plug a cable into the CPU for this "modem" to work. All of their technology references fell short. I can forgive one or two, but after you're bombarded with 15 in a row, it just becomes apparent that the show is insulting your intelligence and attempting to appeal to the lowest common denominator. I know that a show needs a large audience to be successful, but TLG was too geeky for the non-geeks and too inaccurate for the true geeks.
Check out Freaks & Geeks on Fox Family if you want a really enjoyable show. There were only something like 18 episodes made before NBC axed it, but they're absolutely hilarious. I never saw the show when it was on NBC, but after discovering it on Fox Family, every single person I've introduced it to has loved it and watched every episode. It all plays out very true-to-life, and you can actually believe that most of these situations could or would happen to these kids...
---
The Tick? (Score:2)
--Jim
Re:You need TiVo (Score:2)
That said, almost all my favorite shows have been cancelled in the last couple of years:
Total Recall 2070
La Femme Nikita
The Lone Gunman
Star Trek: Voyager
Cleopatra 2525
Stargate SG-1
Xena
As my husband says: <cue feminist rant> - most were series with strong female characters. Afaik, Cleo was the first hourly drama with a black female lead -- for example.
At least there's still Buffy, Angel and Andromeda. And Farscape.
_Deirdre
Re:The sleeping months (Score:2)
Picking apart "Lone Gunmen" (Score:5)
Eve is an all around loss. They really didn't need a guardian angel to come in and save the day every single episode. She's just too competent to believe. Plus, the woman who plays that character is a terrible actress.
All in all I think the "bit" characters dragged the show down. I think it's too bad that Chris Carter didn't feel that the Lone Gunmen could carry the show by themselves and had to come up with these two sorry anchors.
Re:Dawgone it! (Score:2)
I'd prefer reruns of `The Muppet Show'.
--
Re:Dawgone it! (Score:2)
Only if they're not married or don't have kids. Our kids are normally in bed by 8:00 so TLG was nice to unwind to. BTW, glad the high end of your definition of `young' includes guys my age -- though not by much. :-)
--
Dawgone it! (Score:3)
The only thing worth watching on Friday night and now it's cancelled? Looks like I'll get more reading done now so I guess there's an upside after all.
(Sorry but `The Family Guy' was/is not funny.)
--
Re:Just goes to show... (Score:2)
Hack the flight control system of a commercial airliner and land it. =) Not over the phone ...
Agreed. Yet everyone seems to like the X-Files and they make the same type of drive you nuts errors.
How many times does Mulder or Scully go into a dark room/cave/alley/... alone without calling for back up? Pull out the damm cellphone and let somebody know where you're going for christsakes!
Aliens, immortals, poltergists, are all fine but it was the details that made the show unwatchable for me. Just like TLG.
Steve M
Re:Just goes to show... (Score:2)
The inside jokes (ok Yves too) were the only reasons to watch. It was a trade off between the inaccuracies and the jokes.
Did you catch that Langley was wearing a Dead Kennedys T-shirt in the finale? (I caught the Boulle reference but not the Clinton one.)
But the inaccuracies just drove me nuts.
Steve M
Oh Gawd no! (Score:2)
I used to love X files, now it's just some stupid soap.
Neil Stephenson (Score:3)
Re:Live action Tick? (Score:3)
Because of some licensing issues, characters created for the cartoon series (American Maid, Die Fleidermaus, Sewer Urchin) will NOT be in the live action Tick. However, characters from the comic books can appear (even if they appeared in the cartoons also). And the pilot episode has the replacement characters, Lady Liberty and BatManuel
I haven't seen the pilot, only the brief previews and pictures. I think this show will be awesome. It looks like we'll finally see a great comic to live action show. At least, until Spiderman comes out.
All I want is a live action Chairface Chippendale! And Paul the Samurai! And Man Eating Cow! And The Chainsaw Vigilante! And Clark Oppenheimer!
Re:Just goes to show... (Score:4)
SuperID
Free Database Hosting [freesql.org]
Casting (Score:3)
"Smear'd with gumms of glutenous heat, I touch..." - Comus, John Milton
Re:Just goes to show... (Score:3)
Take any show with someone playing an instrument, or god forbid, conducting an orchestra/band. I can just hear the director instructing the actor:
"OK. Now you're going to conduct the band. Just get up there and flop your arms about madly for awhile. Isn't that what they do anyways?"
Makes me want to direct movies. "OK. Get up there and act real serious now. Camera guy, make sure you turn the camera on and shoot while this happens. Just make sure they're good pictures"
Don't even get me started on journalists... I've yet to have a quote read as it was actually spoken... (advice: record your interview - it might just save your butt someday)
*scoove*
Just goes to show... (Score:4)
Ah well... anyone else curious about the new Tick show?
-----
Gunmen (plural), not Gunman! (Score:5)
Don't believe me? Try visiting the official Web site [thelonegunmen.com].
Other TV shows list... [OT] (Score:5)
Here is a list of all the TV shows that will be cancelled or ending (i.e. The Lone Gunmen is included).
It's all about the Family Guy (Score:3)
]$`};L(;/proc);[I(;];<C{;};1S[;`\/while=1E1L[`\p roc{>=
Re:Yeah, The Tick! (Score:4)
For those wondering about the new series, here is the skinny....
The pilot was made, clips of it have been leaked, and it is damned funny.
Yes, it stars the guy who was Puddy on Seinfeld.
No, it does not star anybody else you have heard of.
Yes, the show is written by Ben Elton, creator of the original comic book as well as the animated series.
Characters from the original comic book (Arthur, Chairface, etc.) can show up in the new series, but characters developped for the Fox cartoon (American Maid, El Seed, etc.) can not, because this is a Sony production and Fox holds the rights to those characters. Therefore, if you were a fan of the cartoon, several of your favorite supporting characters will either be absent or re-named.
The show was slated to be a mid-season replacement, but was then bumped to next fall. There is still no assurance from Fox that it will be in the Fall line-up, either... so you might not actually get to see it until January of next year.
Details are scattered all over drooling-fanboy sites like Ain't It Cool, so you can read more there.
Oh, FWIW. The Lone Gunmen did not get more funny as it went on. I had a friend who talked me into watching a couple more episodes, and if anything it got worse. So don't feel bad if you tuned out after seeing the pilot suck so badly. You have missed nothing. (Yea, yea "IMNSHO", "YMMV"... whatever. It sucked.)
Re:Geek TV (Score:5)
Have you ever considered the possibility that you're just using the wrong IDE?
--
Re:Geek TV (Score:3)
Consider how much time you have for a show. Not long (assume 30 minutes). Now. Remove time for credits on both sides (we're left with 25 minutes, say), and commercials. You have about 16 minutes in which to construct a story, set it up, let it roll, wrap it up, and move on.
This explains why, for example, if you need a drug dealer, you don't have a clean cut white kid, and then waste three minutes explaining how he got into selling drugs. And even then, half the audience will drool into its cheetos cause you didn't put "THIS GUY IS A DRUG DEALER" in ten inch high letters on his shirt. You're supposed to have a sleazy looking, shifty eyed hispanic guy in a hairnet with a pistol going "chu wan coke, mon?" 10 seconds guaranteed, vs three minutes, maybe. You think assembly language coders strive for efficiency in clock cycles, you ain't seen network TV.
Re:Neil Stephenson (Score:3)
2) Stephenson, Gibson, etc. write interesting stuff, but it doesn't translate well to TV.
Geek TV (Score:5)
1) It is against unwritten network rules to write something above an eight year old reading level (they figure that by doing so, you risk losing a sizable chunk of the TV viewing population who don't have a high literacy and will switch off)
2) Computer programming/hacking doesn't involve smoke, explosions, fractal 3D patterns that escape the computer monitor and chase you down corridors, and especially not jiggling bits of female anatomy.
3) RE the above: a chess match is high drama for those in the know: but to a channel surfer flipping through the channels looking for some light entertainment between "Survivor" and "WWF Raw", it's terrifically boring. Ditto software development or hacking.
4) Keeping things bleeding edge is difficult with the writing/editing/shooting cycle, so either set it so far in the future you just plug your cyberBorg headset into the computer and stare steelily into the Federation flat-panel screen, or risk people laughing their ASSES off at "yeah! This state of the art 486 is k-Rad!" (especially when the show goes into reruns).
5) Biggest hurdle: most geeks can't write. Those who do are VERY BORING WRITERS. "Hey dutch! When are you going to finish the script!" "Quiet! I'm working out the physics of the alien lifeform given a planet 1.4 x Earth's gravity with a methane atmosphere!". Most writers are cocaine snorting media whores. Write to spec as fast as possible. Open up the template, stick in some stock characters, sell the script, move on.
Hence, any "geek" oriented show will have to by definition not work. Hence the inclusion of jiggling women, dumb jokes, offensive stereotypes, and unrealistic, stupid storylines.
Re:who watches TV anymore? (Score:3)
I refuse to believe that there isn't enough legitimate news to fill the half hour from 11:00pm to 11:30pm. It's pathetic. the local NBC affiliate even has a segment where they will allow you to vote on their website for the news stry you want to see that night. What they do is give viewers the option of watching one half baked news story or one purely human interest story. I guess this is how they justify it. People are constantly voting for the human interest story, so I suppose that's what they assume peopl want more of.
It seems that nowadays people can create their own view of the world through the news sources they make use of. Thanks to int Internet, the sheer number of news sources has increased to the point where you don't have a choice between the liberal newspaper and the conservative newspaper, but now have the choice to select anything inbetween as well as numerous fringe publications.
People now can become completely disconnected from reality because there is always a 'news' publisher/broadcaster who is willing to cater to the whims ofthat customer. I guess in a sense feeding the fringe lunatic in all of us. We all percieve the world different.y, and it is important to have differing perspectives, but we the news consumers of the world, now have the choice of through what colored glasses we view the world, where previously we only had the option to choose rose colored glasses, or not.
Now the population at large has the 'opportunity' to suffer from what the Romans called the Imperial Diease, the condition of becoming acustomed to having every desire fulfilled, every whim satisfied and every gross pleasure gratified. It has the characteristic of serving to promote your own opinions and world view to a level where fact and opinion become synonymous. Emperors were surrounded with yes-men who gratified every opinion and every wish. The modern news media caters in the same way to their audiences. It's really a dangerous prescident to be setting and I'm saddened that this is what the information revolution has wrought.
--CTH
--
Fox has exactly two good shows: (Score:3)
2) Futurama. Almost as good as the Simpsons, in the same style. Bender is quite possibly the funniest character on TV right now.
As long as Fox has these they're OK.
--------------------------------------
Re:The Lone Gunmen (Score:4)
-----------------