A slow - but steady - decline of SGU
Seriously, as little as I post here, I don't want my LJ to become an outlet for my Stargate related rants. However, as it is a sort of therapy and I am still quite disappointed (within reason) about Stargate Atlantis cancellation, here I am again.
Since I've signed up on Twitter about a month and a half ago, I've come across many interesting tweets by celebrities - their tweets give us a rare glimpse into their world and sometimes into their heads. Joe Flanigan has been witty and entertaining at start, but as his time away from home (and on a tv shoot in my hometown) stretched, he has become moody, impulsive, and on a couple of occasions, a bit irksome. However, 140 characters can be very easily misinterpreted, so I've decided to cut him some slack ;) But I digress.
As Stargate Universe's second season premiere approached - in the U.S. on a Tuesday instead of the usual Friday, but still on Friday in Canada - both Jewel Staite and Ryan Robbins (and Carl Binder, who is one of the SGU writers/producers) have urged their followers to watch the show:
cpbinder: naddycat Another reminder for my fellow Canadians: #SGU season 2 premieres tonight on #SPACE! 5:37 PM Oct 1st via Echofon Retweeted by cpbinder and 4 others
RyRobbins: S...G...U... Check it out. Seriously. All the cool kids are doing it. 7:06 PM Oct 1st via Echofon
Jewel Staite: Guys, pls watch #SGU 2nite @ 9 on Syfy. Even tho they STILL haven't had me on (hint), they're an amazing cast/crew who deserve your support! about 21 hours ago via OpenBeak
She even said "pls". Which got me thinking. Hm... Is there something rotten in the state of Denmark? I mean I can understand actors who are directly involved in the show (which I don't follow, btw) to send out a little "reminder" to the fans (really, do dedicated fans NEED a reminder? I knew exactly when and where the new season of Castle was airing.), but actors who are only loosely connected via a franchise bond..? Curious indeed. So, I've decided it was time to make my monthly stop at Joe Mallozzi's blog. I wanted to see if lately he made any firm confirmations on how brilliantly great SGU is doing. And again, he didn't disappoint. And I didn't have to look far:
September 20, 2010:
Holy crap! I was just in post, approving the BIG Stargate: Universe season 2 trailer. In short - it rocks! I was a huge fan of the MGM-produced trailer for SGU 1.5, but this one, I dare say, beats it. We’re just awaiting delivery on two more finished visual effects sequence and then we’ll be good to go. You can expect to see it tomorrow. A huge thanks and congrats to Steve M. for his hard/spectacular work. A little over a week to go before our season two premiere, so make sure to get the word out.
Why does SGU all of the sudden need to be advertised by the fans? Was there any need to do that with SG-1 or SGA? Nope, because these shows had a touch of magic which SGU is obviously lacking.
September 23, 2010:
I was lying in bed a couple of weeks ago, wondering whether the studio or network would be releasing one more trailer in advance of our season 2 premiere, thinking about all the elements I would include in said trailer where I ever given the opportunity (...) I wanted to go Zemeckis! For those of you who don’t know, Robert Zemeckis is a wildly successful motion picture writer/director/producer whose movie trailers are notorious for giving almost everything away. (...) So, yes, I wanted to go “all in” with this trailer - but only insofar as visuals were concerned. I didn’t want to give away any major plot twists or spoilers so, in that respect, I was only going half-Zemeckis. But I felt I needed to go half-Zemeckis because I wanted this trailer to achieve multiple goals:
1) It was to be a trailer to reward fans of Stargate: Universe and give them a sneak peek at what was to come in the show’s second season.
2) It was to be a trailer to entice fair-weather fans, give them a glimpse of what they’d missed (available on DVD and in download format!) and what they could look forward to in SGU’s second year.
3) And, perhaps most importantly, it was to be a trailer that would grab the attention of potential viewers who weren’t familiar with the show.
Now, that sounds fairly desperate.
September 28, 2010:
Two weeks into the new television season and we’re bearing witness to a developing trend: a drop-off in ratings for returning shows. Surprising? Not really. Much the same story as last season. And the season before that. This, of course, begs the question: “Where did all the viewers go?” The obvious answer is: “They’re still there, you idiot! They’re simply choosing to dump the soon-to-be-antiquated habit of watching live television in favor of PVR, downloads, and internet streaming!”. Some of the figures I’ve been hearing about with regard to Stargate downloads are downright staggering. If we were able to incorporate those numbers into our overall count, we’d safely double our (live + same day) ratings. Alas, at present we do not possess the technology that will allow us to include them. No, finding a way to incorporate these online viewers into the big ratings picture is something that has eluded our puny human minds.
Oh, right, people didn't have lives or VCR in the good old SG-1 & SGA times and everyone watched the shows as they aired. Now, because of PVRs and downloads, no one is watching SGU live! But somehow shows like Castle, Chuck, House M.D., even brand new Hawaii Five-0, are doing just fine in the ratings, without having to compensate for the new technologies.
September 29, 2010:
Yes, the ratings are in for the premiere. And, yes, they’re lower than I expected. Hopefully we’ll bounce back next week as more viewers become aware of our move to Tuesday night and Caprica returns for its back half run.
Enough said. Whatever is going on with SGU, it's NOT WORKING. The new formula is NOT WORKING. Fans like me, who have been loyal to the franchise for years, who gave SGU a fair chance, had given up. There's a reason for that. And it's not because we are spiteful. As Mr. Mallozzi said in the past, end of SGU (or lack of success of SGU) will translate into NO MORE Stargate franchise movies, for both SG-1 and SGA:
Some fans are under the delusion that an end to SGU will mean a return of Atlantis as a series or, at the very least, a fast-tracking of the Atlantis movie. In fact, the opposite is true. First of all, there are no circumstances by which Atlantis would return for a sixth season. As nice as it would be to see all those story ideas we’d filed away go to script and, ultimately, into production, it can’t happen - and anyone who claims otherwise is either clueless or lying. Given recent developments, the outlook for both the SG-1 and Atlantis movies has improved, and will continue to improve so long as Stargate: Universe continues strong.
In my opinion, if the franchise was getting stale and running out of ideas, TPTB should have made the movies and finished at that. Just end it with dignity. Instead, we got SGU.
Since I've signed up on Twitter about a month and a half ago, I've come across many interesting tweets by celebrities - their tweets give us a rare glimpse into their world and sometimes into their heads. Joe Flanigan has been witty and entertaining at start, but as his time away from home (and on a tv shoot in my hometown) stretched, he has become moody, impulsive, and on a couple of occasions, a bit irksome. However, 140 characters can be very easily misinterpreted, so I've decided to cut him some slack ;) But I digress.
As Stargate Universe's second season premiere approached - in the U.S. on a Tuesday instead of the usual Friday, but still on Friday in Canada - both Jewel Staite and Ryan Robbins (and Carl Binder, who is one of the SGU writers/producers) have urged their followers to watch the show:
cpbinder: naddycat Another reminder for my fellow Canadians: #SGU season 2 premieres tonight on #SPACE! 5:37 PM Oct 1st via Echofon Retweeted by cpbinder and 4 others
RyRobbins: S...G...U... Check it out. Seriously. All the cool kids are doing it. 7:06 PM Oct 1st via Echofon
Jewel Staite: Guys, pls watch #SGU 2nite @ 9 on Syfy. Even tho they STILL haven't had me on (hint), they're an amazing cast/crew who deserve your support! about 21 hours ago via OpenBeak
She even said "pls". Which got me thinking. Hm... Is there something rotten in the state of Denmark? I mean I can understand actors who are directly involved in the show (which I don't follow, btw) to send out a little "reminder" to the fans (really, do dedicated fans NEED a reminder? I knew exactly when and where the new season of Castle was airing.), but actors who are only loosely connected via a franchise bond..? Curious indeed. So, I've decided it was time to make my monthly stop at Joe Mallozzi's blog. I wanted to see if lately he made any firm confirmations on how brilliantly great SGU is doing. And again, he didn't disappoint. And I didn't have to look far:
September 20, 2010:
Holy crap! I was just in post, approving the BIG Stargate: Universe season 2 trailer. In short - it rocks! I was a huge fan of the MGM-produced trailer for SGU 1.5, but this one, I dare say, beats it. We’re just awaiting delivery on two more finished visual effects sequence and then we’ll be good to go. You can expect to see it tomorrow. A huge thanks and congrats to Steve M. for his hard/spectacular work. A little over a week to go before our season two premiere, so make sure to get the word out.
Why does SGU all of the sudden need to be advertised by the fans? Was there any need to do that with SG-1 or SGA? Nope, because these shows had a touch of magic which SGU is obviously lacking.
September 23, 2010:
I was lying in bed a couple of weeks ago, wondering whether the studio or network would be releasing one more trailer in advance of our season 2 premiere, thinking about all the elements I would include in said trailer where I ever given the opportunity (...) I wanted to go Zemeckis! For those of you who don’t know, Robert Zemeckis is a wildly successful motion picture writer/director/producer whose movie trailers are notorious for giving almost everything away. (...) So, yes, I wanted to go “all in” with this trailer - but only insofar as visuals were concerned. I didn’t want to give away any major plot twists or spoilers so, in that respect, I was only going half-Zemeckis. But I felt I needed to go half-Zemeckis because I wanted this trailer to achieve multiple goals:
1) It was to be a trailer to reward fans of Stargate: Universe and give them a sneak peek at what was to come in the show’s second season.
2) It was to be a trailer to entice fair-weather fans, give them a glimpse of what they’d missed (available on DVD and in download format!) and what they could look forward to in SGU’s second year.
3) And, perhaps most importantly, it was to be a trailer that would grab the attention of potential viewers who weren’t familiar with the show.
Now, that sounds fairly desperate.
September 28, 2010:
Two weeks into the new television season and we’re bearing witness to a developing trend: a drop-off in ratings for returning shows. Surprising? Not really. Much the same story as last season. And the season before that. This, of course, begs the question: “Where did all the viewers go?” The obvious answer is: “They’re still there, you idiot! They’re simply choosing to dump the soon-to-be-antiquated habit of watching live television in favor of PVR, downloads, and internet streaming!”. Some of the figures I’ve been hearing about with regard to Stargate downloads are downright staggering. If we were able to incorporate those numbers into our overall count, we’d safely double our (live + same day) ratings. Alas, at present we do not possess the technology that will allow us to include them. No, finding a way to incorporate these online viewers into the big ratings picture is something that has eluded our puny human minds.
Oh, right, people didn't have lives or VCR in the good old SG-1 & SGA times and everyone watched the shows as they aired. Now, because of PVRs and downloads, no one is watching SGU live! But somehow shows like Castle, Chuck, House M.D., even brand new Hawaii Five-0, are doing just fine in the ratings, without having to compensate for the new technologies.
September 29, 2010:
Yes, the ratings are in for the premiere. And, yes, they’re lower than I expected. Hopefully we’ll bounce back next week as more viewers become aware of our move to Tuesday night and Caprica returns for its back half run.
Enough said. Whatever is going on with SGU, it's NOT WORKING. The new formula is NOT WORKING. Fans like me, who have been loyal to the franchise for years, who gave SGU a fair chance, had given up. There's a reason for that. And it's not because we are spiteful. As Mr. Mallozzi said in the past, end of SGU (or lack of success of SGU) will translate into NO MORE Stargate franchise movies, for both SG-1 and SGA:
Some fans are under the delusion that an end to SGU will mean a return of Atlantis as a series or, at the very least, a fast-tracking of the Atlantis movie. In fact, the opposite is true. First of all, there are no circumstances by which Atlantis would return for a sixth season. As nice as it would be to see all those story ideas we’d filed away go to script and, ultimately, into production, it can’t happen - and anyone who claims otherwise is either clueless or lying. Given recent developments, the outlook for both the SG-1 and Atlantis movies has improved, and will continue to improve so long as Stargate: Universe continues strong.
In my opinion, if the franchise was getting stale and running out of ideas, TPTB should have made the movies and finished at that. Just end it with dignity. Instead, we got SGU.