I didn’t catch the Battlestar Galactica reboot on the Syfy Channel when it was first shown a number of years ago but I’m catching it now streaming via Netflix. My general impression is that they had about a mini-series’s worth of ideas that they expanded into four seasons. I’m now in the middle of the second season and I’m beginning to lose interest. The show, a sort of mash-up of science fiction, political intrigue, and primetime soap, seems to have lost focus. I’d like to hear an explanation from an advocate of why I should keep watching.
The best idea the creators (broadly construed) of the show had was, pretty clearly, the slinky red spagetti strap halter number that Tricia Helfer wore through much of the first season. It has apparently become sort of the emblem of the program. Something only a supermodel could wear.
“the slinky red spagetti strap halter number that Tricia Helfer wore …”
This amused me because I was 13 or 14 when BG first aired and I’m pretty sure my interest was mainly due to dreamy (to my adolescent eyes, anyway) Richard Hatch. I haven’t revisited the series…I know it has a strong following and probably had other things to recommend it.
Not watched it; heard good things about it, but too late to want to do anything about it. Currently watching three series: Walking Dead, American Horror, and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Walking Dead’s bleakness and occasional tepid pace tends to wear on me, but I’m probably a lifer at this point. American Horror has some great and poor acting, with a lurid, outrageous script. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is a show my son likes.
Give it to the end of the season. If it hasn’t recaptured your attention, go ahead and abort.
The second season was a bit dull at points at least because they were unexpectedly told to increase the season from 13 episodes to 20. By Season Three they had a clearer idea of where things were headed and there’s more of a direction towards getting there.
All that said, the show could have easily been done in two seasons and it did seem that there were areas where they were interested in killing time. I liked it in the overall, but there were a lot of things I wish they had done differently.
Of those three I don’t watch AH, wish Agents were better (since I don’t think it will be renewed as it is), and think The Walking Dead is probably the best drama series on TV at this point. It doesn’t quite have the punch of its first half season but it’s still, remarkably, dealing with issues that go well beyond the basic formulaic subject material.
Despite the acting, writing, and direction Arrow is as good a rendition of a comic book superhero as TV has to offer. I wish someone would tell the young cast to cut out the mugging which is what passes for acting with them on the show. There are a few solid character actors on it but mugging is about the state of the art there. It’s a malady that young actresses are particularly subject to but on Arrow it’s everybody under the age of 30 (and some over the age of 30 who should know better).
Watching S.H.I.E.L.D. with my 9 yr old son, makes me think the show could do better _either_ by targeting his age group better or by targeting the high school demo. Superheroes are pretty big at his age, close to what Star Wars was for us, which is when BG TOS was first aired. I have no nostalgia for BG, remembering it simply as something not as good as Star Wars.
But if S.H.I.E.L.D. wants the high school demo, they can just ramp up the dramatic tensions based on who is sleeping with whom that week.
Dave,
Listen to Trumwill. Season 3 was a marked improvement over the rather thinly stretched 2nd season. Season 4 was uneven but had some strong points, Bob Dylan’s All Along the Watchtower as a message from God among them.
I was a big fan of the series when it was showing. I don’t really remember the different seasons now, but I do remember periods with bad episodes. It reminds me a lot, actually, of the unevenness of the Walking Dead.
We watch Agents of Shield too and it’s just OK. It could be really good, but the stories are, for the most part, underwhelming.
I subscribed (Amazon) to the Walking dead, but I haven’t watch any episodes this season yet. Not much time for TV, particularly a show the kids can’t watch.
Most of our TV watching is Mythbusters (kids), Poirot/Marple (wife), and anything about dinosaurs and space (oldest son, future astrophysicist if trends continue).
It’s a constant problem in all series. It’s tough to estimate how much story you have, and largely irrelevant given the TV market reality which amounts to, “ride that horse into the ground.”
If you want a long-running series you need a plot machine, a reality inherent to the concept that keeps generating story. That’s why procedurals can last so long, they have a built-in plot machine. Star Trek had a plot machine. Longevity and story arc are often at odds. Too much arc and you undercut the machine. It’s all trade-offs.
I wonder if some of the problem is movie folk trespassing into TV. Movies are all about arc, a very different animal than TV. The movie people bring skills – pretty pictures, for example – but they sometimes don’t get the structural differences.
Loved BSG, but like most dramas (especially those expected to do 22 per season) it had some bad episodes. That said, “Black Market” in the middle of season 2 was the nadir for me – if you’re near or past that, try to stick with it. Lots of great moments in the last two seasons, and Moore definitely has more tricks left in his bag.
Michael – actually I think it’s more novelists getting into TV. The medium has become more artistically ambitious, which in many ways is a good thing. But it clashes with the established TV business model, which has always been built on everlasting serials & procedurals. I think that’s why even the best shows (The Sopranos, the Wire, even Breaking Bad somewhat) tend to peter out towards the end.
I’d like to thank Reynolds, complete and total asshole that he is, for that comment.
I actually learned something. Doesn’t happen every day.
Tom (and Red)
We novel writing types are not much involved in TV. They generally buy our rights and invite us to get lost. Most novels are structurally unsuited for TV because TV basically wants 100 bite-sized portions of roughly equal calories. Novels want beginnings, middles and ends, and deliberately use speed shifts – faster, slower – to control the pace. That’s anathema to a business where ratings are a week-by-week obsession.
Some book series (as opposed to single-titles) are right for TV because they’re essentially procedurals. For example, BONES, which is Kathy Reichs’ book series translated. Others cannot make the jump. I sold BZRK to movie and it could never be a series, it’s not built that way. GONE has been optioned for TV because from the start I built it to work that way – slow but deep character development, highs and lows parsed out, emphasis on milieu. It’s not a procedural, it’s built like a single 3000 page novel (in six books), but because there’s just so much plot and so many characters to work with it can be turned into a TV show. (Fingers crossed.) In other words, I’ve already written 6 seasons, the thing is built, the showrunner has only to adapt it. (Not implying that’s a small job.)
But circling back to novelist’s involvement, Kathy Reichs is listed as a producer, but so will I be if GONE gets a series. That may mean she’s involved, or may just mean she’s looped in on some email chain. “Producing” generally just means, “I want more money.” You get your royalty for the underlying rights (X amount per episode aired) and you get a second bite as producer. For producing. Whatever the hell that is.
FYI my producer rate would be higher than my rights rate. And the days of cleaning up on re-runs are over. Nada for re-runs (aside from my minuscule percentage of never-to-appear net profits.) The novelist doesn’t get rich off TV (still less movies.) They get rich because TV and movies sell books. Which is why if I get a series you’ll see a stand-alone card in the credits with my name and the book series name (if different from the TV series name.)
@michael, its somewhat interesting that the Walking Dead is based upon a series of comic books that are serial in nature and quite literally already assembled as “100 bite-sized portions.” Still, as I understand it, the comics and the show diverge completely. The most obvious reason is probably that issue one of a comic book might be two hours filmed and issue two might take 25 minutes to film. The media are still too different in terms of pacing, how information is communicated and other conventions.
Also, filming fantasy introduces budgetary constraints, limitations of casting, and tv/movie writers think they can do better.
Also somewhat interesting, Doris Kearns Goodwin got a writer’s or “adapted from” credit for the Lincoln movie, which I think might relate to about twelve pages of her huge book, and not really an original or significant twelve pages at that.
PD:
The whole encounter with Hollywood has been a learning experience for me and for my wife who is now talking to producers and may well get an actual movie as opposed to just a deal.
Having given the matter some thought as I wondered whether I should make a play for more direct involvement with Those Folks Down South of here, I have a lot of sympathy with TV writers. First they have to write a pilot script and get a network to finance it. Then they have to walk the story forward keeping in mind the integrity of the story, but also budgetary issues (as you point out), and the peculiar rhythm of commercial interruptions, and the need to hit the beats within a given script as well as the seasonal issues – mid-season cliffhangers, a season finale. On top of this they’re getting calls from the actors’ agents demanding more lines, the network demanding changes, the audience responding via ratings and also Twitter. And finally there’s the politics of the writers room to consider.
For myself I had to ask why I’d give up a four hour work day that begins and ends whenever I choose, and where I write with no one looking over my shoulder, in order to jump into that nut house of 12 hour days and last minute rewrites and pressure. It’s a shame, in a way, because I could do the writing, but do it with the whole world yammering at me?
Too much like a real job.
Thanks for the insights, Michael. You keep this up and you just may have potential! (nyuk, nyuk, nyuk)
This is a foreign world to me. I have relayed for example that our daughter was in the Superman movie, and some major retailer commercials. She gets these checks, of outsized proportions, for just snippets of final production camera time. I really don’t get it.
I view it as a nice experience where she gets to hob nob with Hollywood types and learns the ropes of showing up on time and sacrificing for the job. Basic employment skills and mindsets. Otherwise, it really is just crappola. “Smile like this.” No, twist like that.” “No, you are REALLY scared, so look like this….” She has this capability to do one takes. I think the producers love that.
Grace Park is sufficient reason to keep watching.
Red:
Sure they love actors who can do that. That’s a huge part of the gig. Basically on a set you have this huge clockwork machine with lights, cameras, sound, sets, props and actors. Any time the actor blows it, the whole machine has to be re-set. And any time anything else goes wrong the actor has to function like a machine and re-do precisely what she was doing on the last take. And obviously time = money.
It’s really hard to do, so props to the daughter. I’ve watched actors work and dude, it’s work.
Just a casual observation. For reasons along the lines that Michael points out, show biz is something you do because you need to, not something you do because you want to.