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Television Media

Farscape Fans Reinventing Television 261

Posted by CmdrTaco from the and-its-not-even-working dept.
JoeCotellese writes "With the recent cancellation of Farscape, this Salon story discusses the creative ways fans are trying to save the show. Specifically it talks about how grassroots organization through the internet has helped them to the point where they are discussing fan funded production of the show."
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Farscape Fans Reinventing Television More

Farscape Fans Reinventing Television

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  • am I the only person on /. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by SHEENmaster ( 581283 ) <travis@u[ ]edu ['tk.' in gap]> on Sunday March 16, 2003 @10:09AM (#5523366) Homepage Journal
    that doesn't like farscape?

    The Twiligh Zone(old), Sliders, The Outer Limits(new), and better shows fell from the waves. Why is everyone so concerned with farscape?

    In all fairness I haven't seen more than five episodes of the show, but I have never been attached to it. Why are so many people obsessed with it?

    This is a serious question, not a flame.
    • Farscape is a little like babylon 5 was, you need to watch a few shows in the correct order - preferably from the begining to get a handle on what's going on. ie they have a strong, cohesive storyline. This is unlike most of the shows you mentioned (and the Star Trek stuff, Stargate SG1 etc) which are almost always self-contained stories in each episode so you can watch them whenever you have a free moment without having had to see teh previous ones.

      I find the Farscape, B5 etc approach to be much more fulf

    • Re:am I the only person on /. (Score:4, Informative)

      by Wylfing ( 144940 ) <brian&wylfing,net> on Sunday March 16, 2003 @11:10AM (#5523516) Homepage Journal
      am I the only person on /. that doesn't like farscape?

      No.

      I know it's got a story arc and all, but I forced myself to watch through about 8 episodes when Sci-Fi was running Farscape and B5 back to back a year or so ago. Although I really loved B5, I couldn't stand the, um, "demented" aspect of Farscape with the creepy fetish-like costumes, torture scenes (in virtually every episode), etc.

    • Re:am I the only person on /. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ajs ( 35943 ) <ajsNO@SPAMajs.com> on Sunday March 16, 2003 @11:12AM (#5523520) Homepage Journal
      [side note to SHEENmaster first: you're on my foes list, and I don't know why, but one more post like this, and you're off ;)]

      I don't agree with your choice of examples (Sliders was a cool idea, but quickly devolved into bad story telling), but I agree wiht the sentiment. Let me explain Farscape for you, since you're not familliar with it, and hopefully explain why people (not me) care about it so much:

      It's something like Buck Rogers. Guy from earth gets sent "away" (space in this case, not time) to a place where there are all manner of science-fictiony things to contend with. It's a classic culture-shock setup, which is a very common tool in SF and other genres as well, as it allows you to tell the story with your protagonist being the "everyman" that people can relate to.

      Here are the things that have kept people watching Farscape: 1) really alien aliens including one who is totally non-humanoid (a ship) 2) the theme of the show seems to be exploring how much you can mess with the protagonist's brain before it turns to jello, and some people enjoy such story telling 3) the story evolves. Not in a B5 way where there's an end-point your moving to and a story arc on the way, but more in the Buffy style where things are allowed to change season-to-season.

      Woefully for me, the most important part isn't there: writing. It's ok writing, even good writing by television standards, but I find it hard to get into a show unless the writing is exceptional, and Farscape's is not. It had some very good ideas, and ideas are fun. If they had structured it as more of an anthology, I might have watched. As it is, I watched a couple of seasons when they repeated, got the pattern (alien messes with John's mind, John acts crazy, crew acts suspicious, John quotes movie/TV line and gets better/kicks alien's ass). That was enough for me.

      I'm not saying it's a bad show, just that I'm not on board with the idea that it's worth saving.
      • It's something like Buck Rogers

        Neat, a different view. I had not thought of it like Buck Rogers, but I guess it is a bit.

        The reason I liked it was because it reminded me of the BBC's Blake's 7, a bunch of space criminals with one person with high morals. Of course I never did like the high morals. Avon was my favorite in Blake's 7 which probably explains why I like Rygel and Scorpius so much.
        • Interesting. Yeah, TV SF (heck, a lot of print SF) as this fascination with the "captain/king" figure that gets a little sappy after a while (I mean how many King Arthurs do we really need in our story telling?)

          Still, I liked the basic model that Farscape was following at first. I liked a lot of the little angles (like the species that looked like humans but had totally different biochemistry, the peaceful plant-as-druid, even sparkey amused me to an extent), but after a while it got way too campy for my t
    • Slashdot readers like this show for one simple reason...

      He is the only human, so he's the only person the audience can identify with (at least, the male 13-21 age group), and he gets laid by a hot chick.

      Wrap that up in sci-fi, action, what have you, and its a no-brainer for this audience.

      Subtract that, and you have a soap opera. "If John Criton the father of her baby? Yes! No! Yes! No! Even if it IS him, it MIGHT actually be his clone's kid!"

      I watch the show because my wife watches it, but I have
      • I watch the show because my wife watches it
        This is one of the things about Farscape, with two fairly strong female parts, Aeryn and Chiana, this seems to be SciFi for the female viewer, and seems to have a better demographic in that sense than trek or sg-1.
    • Farscape is the new star trek, imoho. The problem with Star trek... well, aside from Enterprise, is that it just kinda got old. I think what the future of it is gonna be fan made productions for trek. And... well, look at Farscape! Who knows, pretty soon all the really good sci fi's will be fan made! (Which might make them really bad)
    • Why is it that any time a story comes on slashdot about anime/tv/etc we always get a chorus of posts: "Am I the only one who doesn't like it? Why is this on slashdot? What do you see in this stuff, it is horrible."

      Cool. You don't like it. Other people do. Why do you feel this need to rain on other peoples parade? A high percentage of "nerds" find it usesful and informative when it comes to their interests. Your interests may vary. It's not a bad thing.

      If you don't like something on slashdot, don't run arr
    • I quite liked it at first, but it really started going downhill after the first couple of series. After seeing what series 4 has turned into, I'm now really quite glad there's not going to be any more.

      On the other hand, one of the (well, really the *only*) series I was really looking forward to seeing develop was Firefly -- it had an interestingly offbeat universe, great characters and plenty of potential, and it was canned before it even finished it's first series, which was show horrendously out of orde
    • that doesn't like farscape?

      Nope you are not :)

      And I've seen the frist two seasons! (Or was more or less forced too by someone who bought the dvd's) To me it seems to be from the school of "lets do something weird because its werid and the kids will like it" - I don't see it as creative Science Fiction more like the muppet show on acid.
    • IT NEVER ENDS!!!!
      Crichton will never
      ever
      *EVER*
      get back home.
      Oh sure, he'll have all kinds of hallucinations about getting home, but when this series ends, he will never have made it back.
      There will never be closure in Farscape.

      In Babylon 5, there was closure. The Shadow War was put to an end, and the old races left, and then NEW things came up (the Earth civil war, the Drakh annoyance and the fall of Centauri Prime, etc.), and they, too, achieved closure. Babylon 5 evolved from one quest to another.

      Cricht

  • Fan Funded..... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by troc ( 3606 ) <trocNO@SPAMmac.com> on Sunday March 16, 2003 @10:14AM (#5523376) Homepage Journal
    Could be an interesting way of doing things however I can't see it really working as shows need a guaranteed, regular income stream.

    I would personally love Farscape to be continued, especially having seen the cliff-hanger of a final episode last Monday on BBC 2..........

    I wonder if you could do things like give people who donate over $xxx amount a walk-on part or something? Guided tours of the sets (yeah I know they need to be rebuilt)? Signed anythings. I guess you could try a fund raising event like the US PBS shows do - or the lartge charity fundraisers we have in the UK. Would work if we found some big starts who would support the thing for free......

    Hmm

    Troc

  • I feel it's all for nothing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Mossfoot ( 310128 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @10:15AM (#5523379) Homepage
    Campaigning may have worked for a while... but now EVERY show that gets canceled gets a campaign to save it. It's losing its potency, even if they do reinvent how its done.

    When the folks at TNT told J Michael Strasinski to make Babylon Crusade "WWF wresting mixed with Baywatch" I pretty much lost any hope in being able to communicate with TV execs in English. Grunts and fist loads of money seem to be the only way.

    • Re:I feel it's all for nothing (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ajs ( 35943 ) <ajsNO@SPAMajs.com> on Sunday March 16, 2003 @10:50AM (#5523476) Homepage Journal
      TV is an odd bird, and more so in the last 15 years as cable networks have exploded onto the scene.

      Listening to people like JMS (who you mentioned, but did you know he's written an excellent screenwriter's guide for TV and movies that goes into a lot of the politics and how to deal with them?), Joss Whedon, Aaron Sorkin and others who have managed to sneak quality television in, I'm convinced that there's a formula for getting good television on the air.

      Woefully for us, you're right: it has nothing to do with the fans per se, and once it stops going our way, we have little hope of changing it. It has to do with good writers (writers in TV are like directors in movies, they have a lot of power if they use it right) who have the organization skills and drive to produce (in name or function) their own shows, and a massive focus on good timing. You really have to pick a network thats brand new or established but on the ropes (even if just in one particular time-slot) or re-inventing themselves (e.g. Showtime and Sci-Fi in recent years).

      Crusade was a great counter-example to this. Straczynski ran into an established network (TNT) that didn't have any major problems to solve. That meant that internally, there were too many little drones running around trying to find ways to be useful and justify their jobs. The way he describes it, the folks in Hollywood were practically fans of his (some actually were) and they let him do his thing, but he was constantly assaulted by the folks back at the home office in Atlanta who wanted to expand the demographic of the show, and make it match their existing audience (WWF fans as you point out).

      No fan can tell those execs in Atlanta to piss off, because they're convinced that there's more gold inside the goose than the few paltry eggs it lays each season. They want to cut it open, re-structure it and sell it out for condos! That's the mentality you're dealing with, and it's only broken when there's change... you have to seek out that change. To many, JMS seemed pig-headed around Crusade, and I felt that way at first, but I realized after a while that I'd rather have the show go away than have 7 seasons of B5 meets VIP :-/
      • expand the demographic of the show, and make it match their existing audience (WWF fans as you point out).

        Not to split hairs, but TNT's audience would have been WCW fans, not WWF. WCW-Monday Nitro was on TNT, currently Monday Night WWE-Raw is on TNN.

        • I'm really torn here. On the one hand I'm thrilled that I didn't know all of that. On the other, I dispise being "ok" with ignorance of any kind.

          Sigh.
          • I'm just appalled that with no effort in that direction on my part whatsoever (other than to try to avoid anything to do with it), I still know that there are two different "franchises" squabbling over professional "wrestling" (speaking of soap operas disguised as something else).
  • Never. Going. To. Happen.

  • New Salon format? (Score:3, Funny)

    by inkydoo ( 202651 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @10:16AM (#5523383)
    When did Salon start this "you have two options to read the rest of this article" crap. I don't really mind sitting through an ad (especially for powell's books, a fantastic bookstore), but then it didn't even take me to the rest of the article. Instead it dropped me back at their main page with no clue where to go next.

    Oh, there it is all the way at the bottom. Grrr.
    • It worked fine for me. Do you have cookies enabled and so forth?
      • That's where I said "Whaddya mean I gotta register and log in?" and left. I wouldn't have minded if they'd plopped a TEXT AD in the same spot as the "your choices now are..." thingee and let me continue without interruption -- in fact, I'd probably have actually READ such an ad, because text ads are easy to just read as you come to them, especially if they're halfway relevant.

        Whereas I'm NOT going to watch an animated ad (which was what the notice implied), convenient or not.

    • When did Salon start this "you have two options to read the rest of this article" crap.
      When they started dying.. like Altavista.

  • How cute. Article mirrors television show. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by handsomepete ( 561396 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @10:17AM (#5523387) Journal
    They end the 'free' portion of the article with this line:
    "Effectively, the show had just been canceled, leaving the audience with a series finale that ends in a cliffhanger."
    ------
    Want to read the rest of this article? You have two options: Subscribe now, or watch a brief ad and get a free day pass. If you're already a subscriber log in here."

    So, anyways, let me ask some questions. Is the big deal that Sci-Fi bitched out on the final season that it promised or that the fans just want the show to go on forever? Or just the fact that the series ended with a cliffhanger and you need resolution? Moreover, what makes the Farscape fans so persistent and loud about what they want? And will scraping together enough money for an episode (which I thought was a plan at one time) really do anything?

    • Re:How cute. Article mirrors television show. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Darren Winsper ( 136155 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @10:25AM (#5523409)
      The Farscape producers were under the assumption they were going into a fifth season. After all, SciFi bought it for a fourth and fifth season. Thus, they left season four on a huge cliff-hanger and were going to wrap it all up in season five, much like Babylon 5. However, the end result is a cliff-hanger that may never be resolved.

      So, to answer your question, the fans want a fifth season, they want resolution of the series and they want more Farscape.
      • They are talking about doing season 5 as an anime series. Which, if done correctly, could be really great.

        I loved farscape because it tried to stay away from the star trek cliche, and pretty much succeeded. Also because it was actually very well written, acted, and full of really great one liners that really threw you for a loop.

        Watch the last episodes of season 4, and you'll probably see the best sci-fi tv in a lonnnng time.

        I do understand how some don't like it, as it is very serial. But o
        • They are talking about doing season 5 as an anime series.

          Actually, no they aren't. From what I've heard, the anime series is going to be a tie-in, but apparently unrelated plot-wise to the TV series itself. (Even if that's not true, David Kemper has stated that he has no involvement with the anime, so whatever they come up with, it won't be what he intended.)

  • Slashdot Reinventing Advertising (Score:5, Insightful)

    by chocolateboy ( 21431 ) <chocolateboy&chocolatey,com> on Sunday March 16, 2003 @10:18AM (#5523391)
    How come the NYT gets an obligatory 'free registration required' warning while Salon doesn't merit an 'expensive and probably futile registration required' fatal error?
    • How come the NYT gets an obligatory 'free registration required' warning while Salon doesn't merit an 'expensive and probably futile registration required' fatal error?

      Huh... I never thought about it, but I've been a Salon (paid) subscriber for a long time, yet I still haven't gotten a free NYT account. For whatever reason, I remain resentful that the Times wants all this info. Strange.
      • All the NYTimes wanted from me was a login ID and password. Everything else was optional. Note: I've had my account for over 6 years, but recently had to renew it cuz the server mangled my password.

        The really braindead one is mp3.com, which loses my login all the time. It didn't stick until I got tired of filling in all the crap and plugged in bogus stuff that was faster to type. Now it thinks I'm none@no.com or something like that. Oh well..

  • Astroturfing? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by gizmo_mathboy ( 43426 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @10:19AM (#5523395)
    Kind of sucks that one can't read the whole article.

    Can we moderate a user down if they give a really crappy link?
    • Dude.

      All you have to do is click on the little "view ad" link at the bottom of the page, watch a 15-second ad for Powell's (and heck, you can even just do something in some other window while it's showing; it doesn't care), and then you can read the whole thing.

      It's hardly rocket science.

  • Fan funding new? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by JordanH ( 75307 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @10:20AM (#5523398) Homepage Journal
    Much of the funding for PBS programs come from "Fan" funding. How is this essentially different?

    • Re:Fan funding new? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by barspin ( 585641 )
      Here [bgsu.edu] is a breakdown of what typical PBS funding is like. 34% private vs. 35% State and Federal. And let's not forget that much of the "private" portion comes from foundations and large lump-sum donations from wealthy folks. The pan-handling that goes on yearly (seasonly now?) on PBS accounts for very little of their income stream (although it's certainly necessary to make ends meet).

      As for this fan-funded Farscape dream, it's complete bullshit. $100 or even $1000 here and there won't cover production

      • Re:Fan funding new? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Reziac ( 43301 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @01:17PM (#5523988) Homepage Journal
        Figure $1-2M per episode for typical TV. Yes, that's Million.

        But a LOT of that is waste.

        Realworld Example: back when an ordinary one-hour drama (average cast, not big names; no SFX, no remote locations) cost around $500,000 to make, Robert Blake managed to produce Hell Town on $80,000 per episode, without shaving the crew/extras budget either (in fact, it was a great show to work, so long as you stayed out of Blake's way).

        How'd it manage this? Because the money came out of Blake's own pocket and every penny was accounted for; it wasn't paid for out of some nebulous studio slush fund that doesn't demand strict accounting. (The deal was if Blake would finally stop pestering NBC 50 times a day, they'd let him do a trial run for his dream show -- provided HE paid for making it.)

        And Hell Town wasn't any worse (from a production quality standpoint) than similar dramas with more-typical budgets. The scripts weren't bad as such stuff goes. It died mainly because the premise wasn't very interesting (to anyone but Blake) and even with a good timeslot, didn't draw much audience.

        But notice it was *one* guy's vision, budget, and drive that made it possible. I just can't see the fractionalism of fandom accomplishing this. Maybe with a crew like the makers of "Troops" (theforce.net) ... but not fandom at large.

        • If you make a film, TV program or whatever through a studio, you can soon find yourself nicked and dimed with facilities costs.

          You decide to use that bit of stock footage of LA, *then* you find that it is a recurring requiring royalties per showing. Maybe it isn't much but it all adds up. This also why nobody wnats to be in on percentage points of the profit, just of the gross.

          If you own/produce the show, you can manage the costs a lot better with tight control on the recurring costs. Then even if you d

          • I worked all sorts of productions (did bits and extras for 5 years), from weird private ideas to major studios, film and TV. Very consistently, the bigger-name studios were much more likely to have odd accounting ideas, and the bigger the production, the more flagrant waste and the more shaving from unaccounted funds, such as the extras budget (which is typically "cash" and not accounted per se). Universal was such a shit about ripping off extras that I got to where I would not knowingly work a Universal sh
    • Well the solution is obvious, move Farscape to PBS.

      I'm not entirely unserious, even though I have no interest in Farscape myself.

  • honestly (Score:4, Informative)

    by Raven42rac ( 448205 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @10:27AM (#5523416)
    this all reminds me of a few years ago, when a show called "brookyln bridge", got cancelled, then everyone started bitching for it to be put back on the air, then they did put it back on the air, then no one watched it again, like before, and it got cancelled, again. the studios and stations know that this is the most likely scenario already, and as such i am sure they are ready to move on to the "next big thing", unfortunately. i watched a few episodes of the show, it is pretty cool, but I am not going to lose sleep over the fact that the show got cancelled. chalk it up to "the man trying to keep you down" or something. meanwhile, you can still watch reruns.

    • Re:honestly (Score:2, Informative)

      by Darren Winsper ( 136155 )
      But people are watching Farscape. It's second only to SG1 in SciFi's ratings.
      • maybe there are other reasons behind the cancellation we do not know about, maybe cast wants more money, creative team wants to move on to other projects, actors want to move on. who knows, i do not. i seriously doubt that a niche station that finds a hit such as sci fi has with farscape would just cancel it for no good reason, it would seem like the most retarded thing since, well ever.
        • Maybe they're trying to out-Fox Fox.

          Isn't this what they've done with every good show?
        • maybe there are other reasons behind the cancellation we do not know about, maybe cast wants more money, creative team wants to move on to other projects, actors want to move on.

          Maybe you should read the article, read the save farscape campaign site [savefarscape.com], go to the official farscape [farscape.com] website.

          Any of those sources will refute your speculations.
    • Well StarTrek offers a counter example. A show that was cancelled, and when brought back was 10x as popular as the original.

  • useful info (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Freston Youseff ( 628628 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @10:49AM (#5523473) Homepage Journal
    Save Farscape [savefarscape.com] was created for the explicit effort of saving Farscape. I sure hope it is saved, since it's probably one of the best sci-fi shows in existence. Pretty much all I watch for TV shows are Junkyard Wars, Farscape and Enterprise.

  • semi-revolutionary (Score:5, Insightful)

    by phastest ( 628905 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @11:11AM (#5523518)
    If you've watched the show from the very beginning, you have to have seen several differences between it and 'typical' American sci-fi programming.

    For one, the show focussed on several issues that were 'uncomfortable' to american audiences. Applause there for forcing us to stretch our brains a bit!

    Also, the characters were much more involved with each other, in real ways, than most other crap you see on the 'major' networks. These relationships made several viewers addicted to the show even though they watched almost no other science fiction programming. Applause for making us re-examine our own interpersonal relations a bit!

    Semi-finally, just about every major character in the show was physically different from 'human' in ways to remind us of the plurality of life. Crichton's best friend had tentacles growing off his face, and a very long tongue with an adaptive toxin in the tip. The first sexy chick you saw (at the beginning of the series) was a gorgeous sky blue in color, with no hair at all. Ear-splitting applause for showing that Different is Good!!!

    I hate to use the past tense so much in this commentary. But, the show is effectively killed by corporate politics/greed/stupidity. I'd be quite surprised to see it continued by fan support.

    Best chance for the show to return anew would be for the son/daughter of some ultra-rich individual finding the right button to push on daddy's emotions to force funding to flow.

    Sigh.
    • All good points. Furthermore:
      • Lots of interesting running story lines (Scorpi's brain invasion, Dargo's son, Crichton's wormholes).
      • Underlying theme of the danger of centralized power and the "triumph of the underdog".
      • Complexity of the characters. I've often found myself empathizing with the bad guys and finding the good guys annoying. And let's not forget how last season's uber-villain can be next season's hero.
      • Emotional depth. The production team does an excellent job of inspiring humor, fear, sadn
  • Any show that would make my non-sci-fi loving wife watch it over ER should have stayed on the air for a long time in my book.

    I'm saddened to see it go. Here's hoping that a paperback book series or something more will start up to expand the universe a la Star Wars and Star Trek. There've been three so far that I've found & read, and they were true to the heart of the Farscape story.

  • Why Farscape is great (Score:5, Insightful)

    by inkydoo ( 202651 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @11:32AM (#5523562)
    I'm already seeing several questions about why Farscape (FS from here on out) is so good, or people talking about how they can't stand (and then admit they've only watched a few episodes). So, to answer those posts, I'm going to give you X number of reasons (where X equals the point where I get tired of typing or can't think of anymore) why FS is a fantastic show (especially SciFi show, but even among other shows).

    These are in no particular order.

    1. Continuity matters - What happens in one episode usually has an impact on a later episode, even if you don't realize it at the time. This ranges from X happened last epsiode, and now it has impact Y on the next one to X happened a season ago, and helps explain Y in this episode a season later. There are a few other SF shows on TV right now that do this (Enterprise), but not many. Unfortunately, this has a downside, in that grabbing new viewers midstream becomes problematic.

    2. Complex characters - Sometimes the "good" guys act bad and some times the "bad" guys act good, and sometimes the "bad" guys turn out to be not so bad and really it can get a little hard to tell who the good and bad guys are a lot of the time. All of the time you're left guessing at most of the characters motives. Friendships and allegiances bend and break. Sometimes the "good" and "bad" guys have to cooperate to achieve shared goals.

    3. Unpredictability - Farscape has done some stuff I never saw coming (or my wife, who's better at guessing plot twists than I). They killed off a main character in the middle of a season. They "cloned" the main character and had both walking around for nearly a season. Normally, you sort of realize that the central character can't get killed off, but when there's two of him, you never know if/when one might get wacked.

    4. Somewhat more creative aliens - This is due in part to the Henson involvement. It allows them to create non-humanoid aliens that are very believable. Among those are the "ship" itself, the somewhat symbiotic pilot of the ship and Rygel. Even the humanoid aliens are fairly different from one another. One of the main characters is a humanoid meat-eating vegetable. Nearly a season's worth of episodes are focused on the pregnancy of the ship, how the crew deals with it, how it affects their run from the law, etc.

    5. A great ensemble cast - For the most part, every main character is well acted (and via some episodes we get to see them stretch their abilities) and well written. This interplays with having complex characters, but unlike some shows, there's hardly a dud in the bunch (I'm looking at you Harry Kim or, sorry Wil, Wesley Crusher).

    6. Comedy - I know a lot of SF shows are good at inserting humor, but Farscape does it as well as any other. I would rank it right up there with Firefly. If nothing else, the voices in the main character's head are handled perfectly, just skirting the edge of slapstick but not quite turning into the stooges.

    7. Fresh characters - The cast has been changing since the first season. New characters show up, others leave the show. And this isn't just "add a hot babe to boost ratings" changes. Think more along the lines of old ugly witch-doctor woman who cooks meals and occasionally drugs the crew.

    There are so many other reasons, but I can't think of them all right now. If you can get your hands on them, go rent the first few DVD's which will have the first six episodes or so. Watch them all, and I think you'll see what I mean.
    • I like the fact that there really is no good and bad from a global perspective. Everyone has some reason to be acting some way. Every character has a basic goal, and if that goal is contradictory to the main characters goal, they may be seen as evil, but it usually isn't. It's usually the means they go about to achieve these goals, like torture and murder without any second thoughts.

      Most shows these days are so stupid, that I pass out watching them. Examples: Tremors the series (no explanation required

  • Stop throwing the first stone (Score:4, Interesting)

    by joneshenry ( 9497 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @11:33AM (#5523563)
    I have little sympathy for fans of cancelled TV shows. The typical response I hear from Farscape fans is to say that everyone else's show is "written to the 13 year old level". Ironically the writer of that remark illustrates his comment by attacking of all shows CSI [aint-it-cool-news.com] as "95% star-trek style technobabble around a loose and predicable crime scene". Maybe if fans would show a little more respect for the tastes of others I would have more sympathy. But to be honest, if their attitude is that everyone else is inferior for not watching their show, then I am happy that their show is cancelled.

    Why can't Farscape or other SF fans find a way to praise their own show without questioning the intelligence of fans of other shows?

    I don't know why people have to feel that the only way to advocate their tastes is to tear down the choices of others. Do these people go around saying that everyone else's cuisine sucks because they really like one of their own particular dishes? Maybe the shows would have more fans if their advocates weren't always acting like a bunch of juveniles.
    • I might accept your argument if Farscape wasn't being replaced by Tremors, the Series.
    • Are you kidding me? You are actually going to use a comment located in the Talkback section of Ain't It Cool to prove your point? That's analogous to using a /. quote in a Master's thesis. Take a few minutes reading some of those Talkbacks. They really are that bad.

      -prator

    • Ironically the writer of that remark illustrates his comment by attacking of all shows CSI

      Whether you agree or disagree with the belief that Farscape offers something worthwhile, interesting and different to TV, I think what everyone can agree with is this one simple fact:

      Anyone citing aint-it-cool to prove a point, is either trolling, creating a straw man for an easy knock down, or is a real idiot.

      Unless of course the theory you're proving is that aint-it-cool is full drooling fools.

      In w

  • I watched most of the first series and thought it was pretty good, in a fun sci-fi early-evening watching way.

    But, as with so many shows, the writers stopped concentrating on each episode and instead went for the long-term storyline thing. It happens to so many shows, and it generally means they've outlived their useful lives. If you've run out of ideas to write a decent storyline for each show, stretching the storyline out over n seasons isn't going to help.

    Look at Babylon 5 - it started out pretty good,

  • Might be attainable (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Jerf ( 17166 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @11:53AM (#5523632) Journal
    The fans don't have to necessarily fund a full season. It would require more writing but it's likely the cliffhangers could be resolved more quickly then was planned, perhaps in three or four episodes made with extreme attention to cost-savings. This might be an attainable goal, esp. if all the fans go out and buy three or four copies of the DVD releases; it might look profitable to make a final DVD or two just for that. ;-)

    I would never expect them to fund a full season but they might be able to get enough. It might seem a bit hurried to the fans but surely they'd understand. I don't watch Farscape so I don't know, but if the cliffhanger was intense enough, the speedy pace might even fit into the story.

    Perhaps the story mentioned this. I don't know, because I can't view Salon stories. I can't see the ad I'm supposed to watch to get the day pass, nor do I really care, so please no RTFA comments; I would if I could.

    • The article explained that the Sci-Fi Channel offered the producers a "lower fee than expected" to produce the fifth season--a fee low enough that the producers didn't think they could produce it. Although this wasn't mentioned in the article, it seems to me like a good idea would be, instead of trying to fund whole episodes or seasons using pledge funds from the viewer consortium campaign [ipetitions.com], why not use the viewer funds to cover the shortfall, which must be much less than it costs to fund a whole season.

      I

  • Full Text (Score:5, Insightful)

    by finny ( 107762 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @12:05PM (#5523665)
    Can "Farscape" fans reinvent TV?
    When the Sci Fi Channel canceled "Farscape," angry fans launched the usual protest movement. Now they're dreaming of a rebellion that could overthrow TV empires.
    - - - - - - - - - - - -
    By Adrienne Crew

    March 13, 2003 | Like so many stories, this one begins with an ending. Or, rather, the announcement of an ending.

    Early last September, thousands of fans of the science fiction television series "Farscape" logged in to a chat room maintained by the Sci Fi Channel, which distributes the series in the United States. The Jim Henson Co. actually produces the series, mainly with licensing fees paid by Sci Fi, although Henson also syndicates the show in Britain, Germany and other countries.

    "Farscape's" fans (and I'm among them) consider it one of the most innovative and best-written things on TV. The show follows the adventures of astronaut John Crichton (Ben Browder), who is marooned in space after an aeronautical accident. Buff, brainy and kinda goofy, John allies himself with a band of outlaw aliens aboard a sentient spaceship that's being pursued by the military arm of a totalitarian regime.

    When fans logged on in September, Sci Fi had just broadcast the first 11 episodes of the show's fourth season, with the balance to come in the spring after a short break. "Farscape's" staffers and actors celebrate the end of each season's production schedule by communicating online with the fans -- from Australia, where the show is produced -- to discuss upcoming episodes and drop "spoilers" about the season finale.

    The fans received more than spoilers this session. Immediately following a phone conference with Sci Fi programming executives, "Farscape" executive producer David Kemper, along with actor Ben Browder and co-executive producer Richard Manning, informed the "Farscape" faithful (known as "'Scapers") that Sci Fi Channel had just reneged on its commitment to purchase the fifth and final season of the series. Effectively, the show had just been canceled, leaving the audience with a series finale that ends in a cliffhanger.

    Predictably, within hours of the cancellation announcement fans had gathered on message boards and in chat rooms to create strategies for protesting Sci Fi's decision. What began as a collective of fans bemoaning the loss of their favorite show has become the Save "Farscape" campaign, one of the largest and most sophisticated fan campaigns in television history.

    The Save "Farscape" campaign is hardly the first grass-roots effort to save a television series. In 1968 NBC would never have realized that people were watching "Star Trek" if superfan Bjo Trimble hadn't encouraged other viewers to protest the series' imminent cancellation. Dorothy Swanson organized a successful letter-writing campaign in 1983 to save "Cagney and Lacey," and subsequently founded Viewers for Quality Television to assist other worthy but ratings-deprived shows, such as "Designing Women." Fans of the late-night cult classic "Mystery Science Theater 3000" brought fan-based campaigns into the Internet age when they launched a Web site to find a new home for the series after Sci Fi canned it in 1999. (The site continues to bring "MSTies" together, although efforts to relaunch the show were long ago abandoned.)

    In the '90s, grassroots efforts to save canceled shows have gained momentum. Fans protesting the cancellation of the ABC drama "Once and Again" persuaded the network to finance enough episodes to conclude open-ended storylines. Creative "Roswell" fans caught the attention of WB programmers and bought their show more time by sending them bottles of hot sauce as a reminder of the condiment favored by the aliens on the series.
    Each successive campaign absorbs and improves upon lessons learned during previous protests. 'Scapers have taken the best from all of them; they sent Sci Fi executives packages of crackers, in homage to the title of a favorite "Farscape" episode, "Crackers Don't Matter."

    But protests are perhaps also
  • PBS hasn't been interesting since they took DR. Who and Cosmos off the air, maybe this isn't such a bad idea after all.
  • I have a very hard time believing that the SciFi channel cancelled Farscape because of the money or the ratings. They continue running the incredibly lame series Stargate SG-1. I liked Richard Dean Anderson as "MacGyver", but he should have stuck with that. If that wasn't bad enough, SciFi has been running ads for "Tremors - the series" - okay, the movie was bad enough. This is the kind of thing that you could easily see on MST3K - poor writing and cheap effects ("special" intentionally omitted.)

    Farsc

  • This is the end of it for me (Score:5, Insightful)

    by adipocere ( 201135 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @05:01PM (#5524885)
    I could yammer on and on why I like Farscape, points you've all heard before about, hey, finally we have aliens who don't just look like people with a little makeup on their foreheads, and whatnot, but I'd like to bring up two things:

    1) You know the Sci Fi Channel is full of it. Okay, so maybe the show cost a little to produce. Heck, maybe it even cost a lot to produce. But, if there was some kind of funding shortfall, I'm pretty sure that just one of those godawful Sci Fi Original Movies would have paid for it. Take Epoch or Antibody. I'm under the impression that the Sci Fi Channel actually pays people to put out these films. If so, the budget from one of two of these forgettable disasters could easily cover a Farscape shortfall.

    2) This is the end of it for me and the Sci Fi Channel. First, the end of MST3K. Well, I'll live. I was kind of peeved about them cutting off The Invisible Man, which had been a much better series than I had intended. Farscape is now the last show they have that I'm interested in. They're replacing it with Tracker ... hey, this guy, with superpowers like ... sucks light out of the bad guys, at least one an episode. Same guy as Highlander. Same show as Highlander. Oh, and let's not forget Tremors: The Series, which was supposed to be cheap, but is months late because it ran over budget, etc. And this is going to be better than Farscape how?

    The Sci Fi Channel has totally lost its mission and has no sense of who its viewers are. How does a remake of Psycho belong on a channel about science fiction? And that Viper show ... wow. They couldn't rerun The Flash? Where's Max Headroom in this lineup? It had a short run, but no shorter than the incessantly-played (if still good) Brimstone. The most sci-fi thing they have going for them now, aside from Stargate: SG-1 is, well, their little station bits with the melting sumo wrestlers and big-eared alien tongue-touching pets.

    It's as if they have decided to stop running decent science fiction shows in exchange for ... vaguely sciency programming that cost them a dollar to buy the rights for. They no longer understand who their audience is. Once the last show I cared to watch is gone, I doubt I'll do more than flicker over the station on my cable box. Goodbye, Sci Fi. Goodbye, Advertising Dollars.

    That having been said, I'm going to run out and buy some Farscape DVDs. Here's hoping for a movie or a six-episode wrapup show released straight to DVD.

    • Here here! You are right about everything. I've been wondering myself why Sci-Fi is going down the crapper. The only thing left watching now is Stargate SG-1, and I've heard rumors that it might not be around for much longer either.

      Sci-Fi needs to stop producing shitty movies like Antibody, Riverworld, Do or Die, etc..

      I too enjoyed MST3K. I'll never forgive them for killing that.

      Sci-Fi, you're pissing off your viewers.
  • When Farscape in the UK ended on the cliff-hanger, they put up the usual "to be continued". The BBC announcer did a voice over explaining that the show had been canceled, directing viewers who wanted the show coninued to the BBC's own Farscape site and www.savefarscape.com.

    It was somewhat like being slashdotted. Even the bbc's site, which is reserved for fan-based discussion forums was taken out by the number of new visitors. Savefarscape had no prior warning and their forum database and site collapsed to

  • Thoughts on Farscape (Score:2, Interesting)

    by AutumnLeaf ( 50333 )
    I'm a fan of the show and I've been watching the "save farscape" effort through a friend and coworker for whom the show had a lot of meaning. She has participated in some "guerilla marketing" activities to help save the show, and kept me informed of general trends.

    I have a few musings that came to mind as I read the responses to this article.

    First - on cancelling shows in general. No matter what, some people will gripe. While this expression of dissatisfaction should not be taken lightly, it should als

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