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Television Media

Lone Gunmen Get the Axe From Fox 323

Posted by CmdrTaco 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.
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Lone Gunmen Get the Axe From Fox More

Lone Gunmen Get the Axe From Fox

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  • I gotta agree with you. It wasn't "real", but what on TV is? I hope that those complaining that TLG wasn't researched enough aren't the same type who compare "Boot Camp" with anything resembling reality.

    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?
  • At one point in the series the Tick decided he needed a "battle cry." Well he was a super hero and all, and of course all super heros have battle cries. Unfortunatly he eating soup when this idea accidentally collided with his tick-sized brain. Arthur (his sidekick with the moth outfit) stayed perfectly in character and choose "Not in the face!" as his battle cry. It was a classic moment in the series.

    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.
  • Fox has tonnes of shitty shows they can pull instead.

    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...

  • Clearly this kind of wholesale signal piracy will not be tolerated for much longer. When will the TV stations cut off this copyright abuse and start broadcasting encrypted digital signals where you are required to have a special box that you have to pay a subscription for to unlock? I can't believe Hollywood puts up with letting people have this stuff for free. Hell, we already know many people will PAY for cable TV or DSS and still watch the commercial too. Why should they give it away at all anymore?
  • don't forget the toilet humor.
  • would you like your Steroid Crunchies, or Steroid Crunchies with Marshmallows?
  • yeah, Ninja world, and the mascot, "Lil' Nip!"
  • Evil Dead 2 was FAR superior.

  • Re:Geek TV (Score:3)

    by jafac ( 1449 ) on Thursday May 17, 2001 @02:09PM (#214999) Homepage
    "This also explains why stereotypes ABOUND on network TV."

    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)

    by jafac ( 1449 ) on Thursday May 17, 2001 @02:32PM (#215000) Homepage

    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)

    by Hrunting ( 2191 ) on Thursday May 17, 2001 @01:59PM (#215001) Homepage
    Actually, AFAIC, Futurama is already better than The Simpsons (note, not The Simpsons in their prime, just the show as it stands now). It makes sense, though. Groening, et al, took the good writers off of The Simpsons and put them on Futurama so that it would have the benefit of well-written episodes from the beginning to bring in a large supportive audience. Futurama is just plain funnier. The gags are faster, the humor is darker, the comraderie is more bitter, and the episodes all around are more cohesive. The use of special guests is consistently flaunted exceptionally well through the "heads in a jar" theme, which means you don't have to fight to believe Drew Barrymore as Krusty's suddenly received daughter or some such nonsense. Believing that Lucy Liu's head survived because of futuristic technology is much easier to digest. The recent episode with the Harlem Globetrotters and the time shifts was downright the fastest, most hilarious, continuously played-out gag I've ever seen.

    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)

    by Joe Rumsey ( 2194 ) on Thursday May 17, 2001 @03:19PM (#215003)
    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.


    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)

    by evilandi ( 2800 ) <andrew@aoakley.com> on Thursday May 17, 2001 @08:46PM (#215006) Homepage
    BluedemonX: especially not jiggling bits of female anatomy

    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.

    --

  • Are you sure you didn't mean suffix instead of prefix there?
  • MAXIMUM BOB!

    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.

  • "Sadly, ever area I develop any competency in, it ruins tv and movies that ever reference that subject matter."

    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.

  • "It seems to be a phenomenon with my wife and me: the more we both enjoy a show, the more likely it is to get cancelled. (Fair Warning: CSI is looking interesting.)"

    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.

  • Just be glad there wasn't a TLG episode where *they* were in heat.
  • A show where a CIA agent seeking to thwart a presidential assasination plot figures that he's ahead of the curve enough to catch a good night's sleep. Yeah, that'll be gripping drama.

    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)

    by unitron ( 5733 ) on Thursday May 17, 2001 @08:09PM (#215014) Homepage Journal
    Who said anything about teeth?
  • I can't beleive all the people who are dissing the Lone Gunmen! This show is NOT a geek show, it's a Scooby doo gone high tech. It's about 3(4) bumbling guys that try to solve mysteries and do it comedically.

    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!
  • Jimmy & Yves both had potential as characters: Yves as the mysterious agent-for-hire who actually knew the stuff that the Gunmen only wildly speculated about, & Jimmy as the average guy who was not as smart as the 3 title characters, but had more common sense.

    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
  • I turned off the season pass for Gunmen on my TiVo a couple of weeks ago. I gave the show a chance, I'm a devoted X-Files fan, but it was too brainless for me.

    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...
    ---
  • Is this the same superhero-wannabe dude who is always ragging Superman... and once arrested a Buick? At least in the few issues I read years and years ago.

    --Jim
  • Are you saying that you like Black Scorpion? Compared to that, Dark Angel is pure art.

    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

  • Maybe they all use a lot of meth. That would make for a hell of a series. A bunch of Gen-Xer's locked in a room with a buncha' 8-balls of Teamster-grade crank. I'd watch that.

  • Picking apart "Lone Gunmen" (Score:5)

    by Mike Buddha ( 10734 ) on Thursday May 17, 2001 @12:05PM (#215026)
    The big problem I had with the show was twofold: Jimmy Bond and Eve. They were so poorly written and so miserably acted that it was painful. In later episodes Jimmy became almost a good thing, because the character became less plain stupid and more idiot savant.

    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.
  • ``Tough choice, but I'll take the muppets.''

    I'd prefer reruns of `The Muppet Show'.
    --

  • ``The reason there's nothing good to watch Friday night is young men 18-49 are off doing stuff''

    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)

    by rnturn ( 11092 ) on Thursday May 17, 2001 @11:47AM (#215029)

    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.)
    --

  • 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

  • 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

  • X files has sucked from season 5 and after. I'm sorry but you can only re-hash the same over and over and over and over. The first 3 years were the best, it's time to bury it.

    I used to love X files, now it's just some stupid soap.
  • It was handed down from above, from men who know more than they let on! Men who hold the secrets of this country in the palm of their hands!

    And it'll all lead to a race of oil-slick aliens that can only be killed with a needle in the back of the neck before they seal their eyes and mouths with skin and...
    --

  • I can honestly say I can live without another Lone Gunmen series. It really wasn't THAT good, although funny at times. I had absolutely no respect for the guys after Lara Croft^W^W^WYves Adele Whatever kept screwing them over and bailing them out all the time - I mean, come on, the show's about THEM. If you're going to portray them as incompetent fools a-la Inspector Gadget (the original), do it. Don't give me half way we-can-hack-into-the-pengaton-but-a-chick-in-a-tig ht-outfit-can-totally-pull-a-sheep-over-our-eyes crap.

    It looked like that was going to change toward the end. Maybe it'd have got better.

    The thing that really bothers me is it ended with a cliffhanger. I hate not knowing what happened next!


    --
  • The problem is the the Lone Gunmen show isn't at all like the scenes from the X Files with the Lone Gunmen.

    In the X Files, the Lone Gunmen were cool geeks. Sure, they were exaggerated, but if you can believe the government/alien conspiracies, you can easily accept that.

    I the Lone Gunmen show, the Lone Gunment were a geeky three stooges. Instead of being serious characters, they became funny. Humor is fine, but they went for forced sitcom humor. I don't want to watch a geek sitcom.
  • True. But
    1) All == All
    2) the poster said all geeks who can write are boring. (He/she said most geeks can't write)
    3) Are you sure Stephenson doesn't translate? I reread Snow Crash recently, and it seemed very visual to me. (Not surprising, since it started as a graphic novel.)

  • Neil Stephenson (Score:3)

    by Webmonger ( 24302 ) on Thursday May 17, 2001 @01:52PM (#215058) Homepage
    Not all geek writers are boring.
  • I liked TLG, too. (My wife as well.)

    Sure, there was technical nonsense, but I have this sneaking suspicion that this was on purpose. With all the humour on the show -- others have posted about William Jefferson and TPOT Apes -- it's certainly plausible that a fun-poking target includes geekdom and its sometimes all-too-self-important inhabitants. I mean, seriously, is it even possible to have heard about Linux and *not* know that it's an operating system?

    Moreover, it seemed to me that the characters have been filling out in very interesting and amusing ways. (Who'd have guessed that the old guy was a champion Flamenco dancer, or that the blond guy has more than two brain cells?)

    It seems to be a phenomenon with my wife and me: the more we both enjoy a show, the more likely it is to get cancelled. (Fair Warning: CSI is looking interesting.)
  • i always wondered where the other 5 fans of the family guy had gotten to.

    here's one of them. And I know at least a few others use Bearshare, if you know what I mean. Don't let stupid network execs keep you from watching raunchy comedy. I hope they decide to order some more episodes, it was good stuff.
    --
  • nah, I just have better things to do than watch commercials and wait until tuesday night at 7:00 p.m. EST to watch the programs I enjoy. Fool. Oh, and unless you read my comment as dripping with cynicism and sarcasm, you read it wrong.
    --
  • Almost forgot. Ninjas! Lots and Lots of Ninjas!
  • Lone Gunmen could have worked. They were geeks, just like us. Our lives are exciting enough for a weekly TV show.

    Counter-Strike, compile kernel, router down, All Your Base
    Action, suspense, drama, comedy

  • Re:Live action Tick? (Score:3)

    by Flounder ( 42112 ) on Thursday May 17, 2001 @11:42AM (#215074)
    What sweet honey is going to play American Maid?

    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!

  • When I first heard that there was going to be a "Lone Gunmen" spinoff - I thought "Great! It might be a fun show..." - then I saw the preview trailers, and thought "Gah! They made it a comedy!" - and I didn't bother to watch it.

    Five weeks (and episodes) later, my SO brought home a tape she borrowed from a coworker - it had those five episodes on it - and I decided, "well, I will take a look"...

    The following week I began archiving the episodes, figuring I would dump them to MPEG at some point - and get the tape from that guy again to dump and make an mpeg of that...

    I love the show! It is campy - lot's of "in" jokes (esp in the pilot episode) that ONLY geeks would get. I hated when they brought in that "dumb guy" (Steve? Jeff?), but even he has his purpose, and I am beginning to see it. One of the recent episodes showed that their "base" of operations is a lot larger than x-files ever let on - it is warehouse size, with what seem to be apartments, or at least "sleepover" type rooms for those late nights.

    Now it is all going away...figures.

    Now I definitely have to get a copy of that tape, just so I can have all the episodes (I was hoping that after the season finali, provided they show it, that there was going to be re-runs, and I could catch the others that way - not a chance, now - and no chance for store tapes or anything).

    Damn!

    Worldcom [worldcom.com] - Generation Duh!
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Re:Just goes to show... (Score:4)

    by superid ( 46543 ) on Thursday May 17, 2001 @11:27AM (#215082) Homepage
    Yeah, there were some cheesy comments, and missing/incorrect detail for the anal, but IMHO the show and the characters had great potential. Cheers, WKRP in Cinnci, Barney Miller and most of the Treks were horrible until they had time to cook (stew? fester?) for a bit.


    SuperID

    Free Database Hosting [freesql.org]

  • And US TV does *not* (with very few exceptions).

    I caught the premier of the Lone Gunmen, whenever that was- it was the last time I watched TV outside of a bar. I laughed my ass off. The plot was so incredibly WEAK that it made an episode of the Golden Girls look like intense, nail-biting drama. I lost count of technical inaccuracies, fallacies and blatant lack of cluefulness before the second commercial break kicked in. The characters are supposedly the creme de la creme of geeks.... do you really think you could hit that audience with gross misuse of buzzwords and terminology? No.

    Star Trek loses me hear as well- the show really should be billed as a fantasy, rather than science fiction. Warp Drive may be mathematically feasable, but the fact that you couldn't follow a tech-heavy episode without a manual- and the fact that they relied on some sort of jury-rigged fix to save them half the time (which was promptly forgotten the next episode or show- why hasn't Voyager simply found one of the damned Transwarp Conduits from mid-series TNG and rocketed back home? Or asked a big one of Q?) and explained it in terms that would enrage and offend a scientist totally turned me off. Or Neelix, which is many ways worse.

    This brings me to the Saviour of watchable Sci-Fi- Red Dwarf. The show gets most of its science fact correct- the ship itself is a sound concept and one could dig up details on the math behind it if they felt like it. It doesn't over-rely on tech explanations to save the day, and the characters are pretty much idiots when it comes to tech anyway... it *is* a comedy, after all... anyone who's sick of network suck and hasn't heard of Dwarf would do themselves a favor to check it out. Or Doctor Who... or the Prisoner....

  • What are all you guys complaining about? The Lone Gunmen is a great show! The characters are fantastic, breaking stereotypes and being multi dimensional as well.

    It's the best TV show since Babylon 5. And the storylines are original and interesting

    As for the tech not being perfect, who cares? TV isn't about tech, it's about character and story. Haven't you ever heard of artistic license?

    You geeks need to get a life. Not every story has to read like a Cisco technical manual.

    -Loopy

  • "X-Files" has actually gotten good again over the past few months.

    Do you mean over the last few months where Mulder returned? SInce Mulder won't be back next year, I think everyone is dreading the samething I am, another season along the lines of Fall '00 episodes wher we have Scully as the believer (aka Mulder standin) and T2-guy as the skeptic (aka early Scully standin), minus all the sexual tension between Scully and Mulder.

    They have run through all of the major thread of the X-files (actually probably more than once at this point) which basically leaves them with the monster of the week shows, which frankly, Special Unit 2 was doing better this season since they at least have the sexual tension between the leads.

  • Casting (Score:3)

    by The Queen ( 56621 ) on Thursday May 17, 2001 @11:43AM (#215088) Homepage
    El Seed? Who cares? I want to know who the hell can pull off Chairface Chippendale without the use of CG??! :-)

    "Smear'd with gumms of glutenous heat, I touch..." - Comus, John Milton
  • The Lone Gunman filed simply because the writers tried to expand characters that were originally created for a supporting role into full-blown characters. There simply wasn't enough .. ahem .. meat to them.

    ---
  • The best show you've never seen [thewb.com] has also been shitcanned due to abysmal ratings.

    Unlike The Simpsons, it was actually funny.

  • On the X Files the guys rocked because it was something new. With their own show we expected to see something as serious as the X Files in the form of the hackers which never happened. Comedy? The show flat out sucked, and it was surprising it lasted as long. Same happened with Level 9 which aired for about 4 weeks that I know of. For those who never even heard of it, it was supposed to be I guess what people think the NSA are, a bunch of hacker crime fighters which never materialzed.

    I watched that show once or twice till I heard them say "his website WHATEVERTHENAMEWAS.com is untraceable, he keeps moving IP address." or something along that line, and quickly thought "stupid ass clueless producers don't even do research."

    Family Guy is funny as hell tho' Stewie just owns.

    Sad to see the Lone Gunmen go, maybe Chris Carter will script them into X-Files a bit more since they do have that role under lock down. But by themselves... they're boring.

    Lone Gunman [antioffline.com]
  • "Freaks and Geeks" was truly one of the greatest hour-long shows of the past decade.

    If they make DVDs available (currently rumored to be coming through A&E), I hope ThinkGeek [thinkgeek.com] would step up and add them to a DVD section on their site. It seems like such a perfect fit. (I was glad to see a lament of the series cancellation in the Demotivators 2001 calendar Thinkgeek is selling...)

    "Freaks and Geeks" [freaksandgeeks.com] should be mandatory viewing for slashdot folk, since it was so bloody dead-on about the formulative years of geekdom...

    D&D episodes... Atari episodes... Model rocketry episodes... And the band STYX in constant rotation! My life flashed before my eyes, and then got cancelled by some bonehead and replaced with a who-wants-to-be-a-millionaire-knockoff...

    (sigh)
  • Funny... I called the cable folks and had mine disconnected today (the tv part... @home broadband and telephone comes thru the same coax too but I wanted to keep those).

    Unfortunately they must only train their de-installers up to OSI layer 1... snip! Internet and phone gone too.

    Maybe they thought those were channels?

    *sigh*

    Scoove
  • Yea. Like when the phone installer came out to install ISDN years back and referred to it as magic line.

    I asked him why they called it that - his response was (verbatim - how could you forget this?):

    "We call it magic line cause when you put a dial tone tester on it, you hear nothing! But somehow, the sucker works anyways!"

    Totally priceless Bell behavior!!!

    *scoove*

  • Re:Just goes to show... (Score:3)

    by scoove ( 71173 ) on Thursday May 17, 2001 @12:35PM (#215106)
    Sadly, ever area I develop any competency in, it ruins tv and movies that ever reference that subject matter.

    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*
  • I agree. Family Guy is fantastic, but has been screwed by FOX with the way it was moved around, yanked from the lineup every couple of weeks and then for this entire past season. Even in renewal, it gets screwed by being placed in a timeslot where it has no chance, opposite Friends and Survivor. I'll certainly be duethanks to the fact that very few others will be watching.

  • Just goes to show... (Score:4)

    by decipher_saint ( 72686 ) on Thursday May 17, 2001 @11:23AM (#215109)
    You just can't make a T.V. series for geeks without doing your homework. The writers just applied the use of Treckbabble to modern technology and I wince every time the characters try to explain something ("My cookies are comprimised..." ugh!).

    Ah well... anyone else curious about the new Tick show?

    -----

  • Who knows. Ask the FOX people who made up that title [grin].

  • Gunmen (plural), not Gunman! (Score:5)

    by antdude ( 79039 ) on Thursday May 17, 2001 @11:36AM (#215113) Homepage Journal
    Yahoo's article has the title spelling wrong.

    Don't believe me? Try visiting the official Web site [thelonegunmen.com]. :)

  • Other TV shows list... [OT] (Score:5)

    by antdude ( 79039 ) on Thursday May 17, 2001 @01:06PM (#215114) Homepage Journal
    http://www.pazsaz.com/cancel.html [pazsaz.com]

    Here is a list of all the TV shows that will be cancelled or ending (i.e. The Lone Gunmen is included).

  • Goddammit, Family Guy is funny and all, but somebody needs to pick up Home Movies. It was genius.
  • There's some information about the show including photos of the characters here [necpress.com].

    Enjoy!

  • It might be partially due to ratings but I've heard that it was also due to a large number of advertisers pulling out (some links [google.com]) due to the pull no punches humor.

    I loved the 5 minute rant on Canada at the end of one of the episodes, freakin' hillarious.
  • Apparently I hold the minority opinion here, but my wife and I really liked The Lone Gunman (I'm a geek, she's not, but she likes geek humor). I don't remember the premier too well, but I don't recall thinking it sucked. It certainly was good enough for me to want to watch more.

    For me, the X-Files is the only show on Fox worth watching. I hate TV shows about "dumb, average people", so I can't stand Simpsons, Family Guy, etc.
    --
    Lord Nimon

  • Family Guy is one of the single best television shows in years. The gags are all on-target, although it's a little crude at times. It definitely ranks up there with "The Simpsons" and "Futurama" as one of my favorite animated shows.

    The humor is a little divergent from "The Simpsons" and "Futurama," though. The Simpsons tends to be more satirical (or used to), while Futurama is a little more sight gag/pun oriented.

    Family Guy's approach is different. It just throws crude and offensive material at you until you can't help laughing.

    If Fox dumped "King of the Hill" (funny, but not side-splittingly so) and replaced it with Family Guy, my ass would be glued to the couch from 7 to 10 pm every Sunday. (Fox lineup until 9, then the Sopranos on HBO)
  • ...and this coming from an Evil Dead fan? The only reason you like Evil Dead is because its *hip* to like it. Hell, you probably never heard of the movie until one of your friends told you about Army of Darkness. Lozer, go home!

    ÕÕ

  • What on earth are you feeding your cat that requires you to floss it's teeth?

    ...rather floss my cat. Hahaha....

  • odd. I kind of liked the premier and got turned completely off the show when they added, and almost completely focused the show on, the Doofus-Guy. It seemed to me that the 1st episode was done, then Hollywood got hold of it, couldn't understand the anti-hero slant and bolted the 4th guy on.
  • You want to watch American TV with the original soundtracks? Get yourself a fast connection and find an archive of these shows in DiVX format.

    Any show that has a rabid fan base will have somebody who puts the time and effort into capturing the episodes, encoding them, and finding sites to host the files.

    Or wait a few years and buy the episodes on DVD, such as the X-files sets just now coming out.

  • It's all about the Family Guy (Score:3)

    by Mr2001 ( 90979 ) on Thursday May 17, 2001 @11:21AM (#215133) Homepage Journal
    I loved that show.. I'm more than happy to trade some X-Files spinoff for one of the best cartoons ever.

    ]$`};L(;/proc);[I(;];<C{;};1S[;`\/while=1E1L[`\p roc{>=

  • Bringing them into the spotlight took away what made them special. They were no longer 3 social misfits with some tech know-how who'd stumbled on some secret fbi stuff. The whole reason people liked them to start off with was that they _weren't_ the center of attention. Who understands nerds as the protagonists of a show? Unless it's satire, like in Revenge of the nerds it's just not accepted.
  • News? I usually watch PBS, and we even get the BBC news for half hour, that added to the 1 hr PBS news, takes away most of the stupid local news time in my house.

    By the way, BBC news IS hilarious! ;-)
  • That's OK, it sucked. The only good thing on tv anymore is Croc Hunter. Isn't she a beeeuuuuutie!


    blessings,

  • X-files in its debut season wasn't watched by many, it was 2-3 years before the storm really picked up. X-files did have better writing to its benefit. But the premise of Lone Gunmen was good, and at least something slightly different than the rest of current television. There is unlikely something better that fox can come up with to replace it...perhaps a situation comedy with a bunch of urban 30 somethings getting into all kinds of crazy hijinx, or a new show following the highs and lows of a fake emergency ward, or maybe a staged quiz show where contenstants can vote each other out.

    This is reminiscent of Fox's pulling of "Get A Life", which was by far and away the most creative sitcom of its time, and just replacing it with crap emulating things that were on TV elsewhere. Get A Life episodes are now out on DVD, for people to see what television can be before Fox pulls the plug on innovation.

    ---
    "And the beast shall be made legion. Its numbers shall be increased a thousand thousand fold."

  • Obviously, not all of us _get_ The Lone Gunmen. Take a little Vaudeville, mix in some elitist fun-poking at a technophobic society that believes _everything_ it reads, sprinkle with some hot chicks, and there you have it. The way it "reaches the geeks" are the impossible things that transpire. We know at the same time, millions of the clueless not only believe it will happen, their spare moments are occupied thinking about how they will respond when it does happen.

    Hack the flight control system of a commercial airliner and land it. =) Not over the phone...

  • I watched 3 or 4 of the shows and I was disapointed. I think they were trying to go after the geek sector, or at least the techno savy. The problem I had was the "dumbing down" of every thing tech, We have all see the ten sec hack in about every hacker movie. I would have expected better from theses people, They liked to drop alot of buzz words but failed to make it work. But it did have potintual. It could have been very good


    ________


  • I wish they'd pull the plug on Dark Angel. I can watch nearly any sci-fi schlock but that show bites.

    Lone Gunmen, I'm sorry to see you go...

  • Yves was awful. I could see her as an occasional opponent or ally, but a regular? Blech.

    I was really dreading Jimmy Bond's role at first, but I immediately grew to like him. I thought that he made the perfect foil for the trio.

    Anyway, I hope the Lone Gunmen made enough to retire on from their short stint in the spotlight. (It was sad to see the actor who played Frohicke at GenCon a few years ago. It's a rare actor who's career can get BETTER after a game industry convention appearance...)

  • Are you saying that you like Black Scorpion? Compared to that, Dark Angel is pure art.

    OK, even *I* won't stoop that low. :)
  • The concept of telling a story and then ending the series is not new at all. The original Star Trek was only supposed to run for five years -- thus, the 'five-year' mission. The same goes for many anime series. Most of the anime series are only budgeted for so long and the creators know that they have to finish the story within 24 or 36 or whatever episodes. The animators of Cowboy Bebop, for example, knew exactly how many episodes to make. Maison Ikkoku has a definite beginning, middle, and end.

    It's not really about our short-attention spans, it's about telling a complete story. Few would say that books appeal to a limited attention span, but the authors do not try to write infinitely long running stories.

    Drama is more powerful when people know the end, know that they have all the information and they recieve a revelation about someone's past next season which belies all they have seen so far.
  • I was asked to watch some pilots for drama shows for CBS. You know what I spent an entire saturday watching? Either spinoffs of popular shows, or copies of popular shows. It blew chunks. I wrote all over my reviews "BE ORIGINAL. Nobody wants a copy of what they like, they want something new."

    Of course, my opinion mattered little, because the new dramas coming out this fall are just copies of popular dramas on TV. And they will be replacing the copies/spinoffs of popular shows that just got cancelled (the tick may be a good exception, though).

    That's what sucks about publishers for media. They want copies of what sells. That is why the video game shelves are full of FPS that are the same-old. No one is willing to take a chance on something new, unless you are proven in the field (i.e.: Warren Spector aka God).

  • Re:Yeah, The Tick! (Score:4)

    by Golias ( 176380 ) on Thursday May 17, 2001 @11:46AM (#215189)
    The Tick thought he needed a war cry, and "SPOOOON" was the first thing that came to mind, because he was holding one at the time.

    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)

    by isomeme ( 177414 ) <cdberry@gmail.com> on Thursday May 17, 2001 @01:48PM (#215190) Journal
    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.

    Have you ever considered the possibility that you're just using the wrong IDE?

    --

  • Stewie told the execs, "you'll rue the day you canceled my show..."

    and they did... Do people outside of New England "get" the rhode island/NE centric humor BTW?

    Maybe Peter is just like the northern version of a "redneck"... *shrug*

    E.

  • While watching the last episode (the one with Mitch Pileggi guest starring as Skinner), I was thinking that The Lone Gunmen was finally finding its legs. Just like how ST:TNG found its legs in the second season, and finally became thoroughly enjoyable in the third.

    It's really too bad Fox isn't going to give TLG the chance that the monster franchise name of "Star Trek" gave to TNG. My feeling is that those two words were the only reason TNG lasted longer than a year.

    P.S. Was anyone else rolling on the floor at Pileggi's rendition of Jimmy Bond? That man is a much better actor than I ever gave him credit for.

    --

  • I would like to see a show on network television where gay characters are depicted in the same manner as straight characters; i.e., without any reference to their sexuality. Most of the time, in real life, it isn't relevant, so why should it be important in a sitcom?

    I think you're making a mistake by trying to compare sitcoms to real life. (Quick show of hands: How many of you out there have a wacky neighbor who shows up once every day or so to utter a wise-crack or two and then be on his way?) In a sitcom, sex generally is relevant. We're watching every bit of these peoples' lives. Anything that's funny is more or less fair game, and there are certainly lots of potentially funny things that take place when you throw dating, sex, and relationships into the mix.

    Besides, in virtually all forms of story telling (television, books, movies, etc.), you're generally expected to identify and understand the characters to one degree or another. Empathy helps draw the observer into the story and keep them hooked. While sexually orientation is (rightfully so) a relatively private part of what makes up a person, it's still an important part. Of course, I'm not saying that there's a "gay outlook on life", but rather that your sexual orientation, your race, your nationality, your religion, your upbringing, and where you went to school are all things that affect how you see the world -- knowing some or all of these factors are a key part to understanding a character.

  • Yes, I'll admit that the show has its painful spots. Too self-deprecating for about 5 minutes an episode. However, much like Jimmy, its heart is in the right place. Yeah, the speak is DEFINITELY off, but the stories are decent enough, and the characters can play off each other. And, oh, yeah, it has a good sense of humor.

    For those who did like the show, go to the "Lone Gunmen Second Season campaign". http://lonegunmen.furvect.com/lgmseas2.htm [furvect.com]
  • The thing about Survivor IV: Boot Camp on Temptation island is that like Cops, Cannibal Pets Attack part IV, whatever...

    They get FAT ratings, and they're cheap to make. Let's face it, the participants are HOPING to win $1,000,000. On some shows *cough FRIENDS cough* they expect that per actor per episode.
  • RE: Why, for instance, is every single gay character depicted as a clean, good-hearted, middle-class, sassy best-friend type?

    Consider the tightrope you walk on this one (don't count Showtime's show). Make the guy in ANY way some kind of freak (leather, whips etc) and the Falwell crowd will go more psycho than normal. They're probably writing letters just for having the nice sassy clean upper-middle class neighbour with a cat.

    Make the guy evil, insulting, gross, stereotypical in a nasty way, whatever, and you get to deal with the same Politically Correct hordes that shut down Dr. Laura (rightly). And shut down they did.

    This particular community LIKES being portrayed as clean-cut, affluent, upper middle class and excitingly interesting. Why not cater to em?
  • From the perspective of a media buyer, yes, all geeks who write are boring. You might find Asimov and Stephenson riveting, but the average slopehead would rather see the relatively more to-his-cerebral tastes Mad TV, or something. Whether or not something is visual or not is immaterial. Remember, Gibson wrote Aliens III, and they rejected it. Something about not having enough money on the planet to do the special effects he envisoned, or something. He was ranting on about the Aliens being some kind of death force to counteract the life force, whereas most people just wanted to see Jigglin' Sigourney waste some bugs.
  • I was referring to the perspectives of media buyers. Not to the average public.

    "Stereotypes of what Geeks are like (not good writers),"

    Hollywood wants a 90 minute script, crisis at the 45 minutes mark, boy gets girl in the end, preferably with explosions and jiggling boobs. There's actually a template they expect you to follow. Unless you're doing "art" pictures or "independant" cinema, in which case you aren't in Hollywood.

    RE: and what they like (boring details about the evolution of life on planets 1.4 times the gravity of Earth with a Methane atmosphere).

    Most people like sci-fi when it's cowboys and indians, but zargs vs. zoombas in fast rocket ships. That's why Star Trek (white hat Federation, black hat enemy-of-the-series, we're riding on the range, oops in the Federation space on the star cruiser, long range scanner indicates injuns whoops I mean Klingons/Borg/Ferengi/whatever, lots of lasers, cap'n we've got a problem, just "remodulate the frequency..." FIRE! BLAM take us outa here.) did well. And why Babylon 5 was inaccessible to most people.

    RE: Sterotypes of what Hollywood Screenwriters are like (cocaine-snorting yes-men cranking out mindless drivel)."

    Oh, I'm sorry, you're so right. They're all English majors, attempting the next version of Citizen Kane. WRONG. They're looking for proven formula of this month, and then to patch a few relatively original ideas onto it. e.g. There's Something about Mary begat Tomcats begat Freddy Got Fingered. OR Saving Private Ryan begat Pearl Harbor will beget another bunch of WWII films...

    People don't want risk. They want to get paid.

  • Re:Geek TV (Score:3)

    by BluedemonX ( 198949 ) on Thursday May 17, 2001 @12:59PM (#215210)
    This also explains why stereotypes ABOUND on network TV.

    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)

    by BluedemonX ( 198949 ) on Thursday May 17, 2001 @02:00PM (#215211)
    1) Most != All
    2) Stephenson, Gibson, etc. write interesting stuff, but it doesn't translate well to TV.

  • Geek TV (Score:5)

    by BluedemonX ( 198949 ) on Thursday May 17, 2001 @12:32PM (#215212)
    Is nigh on impossible for several reasons

    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)

    by hillct ( 230132 ) on Thursday May 17, 2001 @02:04PM (#215236) Homepage Journal
    I dumped cable TV when a new sleezier cable operator took over in my area. I was dismayed to find that the quality of broadcast programming has really gone down hill. Particularly local news. I'm in a major technology mecca where all the local network affiliates are large and well financed. The ration of human interest stories, to, real news has increased ten fold since the last time I watched local news (rather than CNN).

    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)

    by Omerna ( 241397 ) <clbrewer@gmail.com> on Thursday May 17, 2001 @11:31AM (#215241) Homepage
    1) Simpsons. A classic, simply the funniest show on TV. To get all the visual puns takes approximately 4.6 viewings a show, which is the perfect amount.

    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)

    by tb3 ( 313150 ) on Thursday May 17, 2001 @02:42PM (#215277) Homepage
    No! Buffy stays! Aside from the babe factor, it has some of the best writing on TV. 'Hush' from last season is one of the best pieces of TV writing in years.
    -----------------

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