Comments | eilowyn: Revisiting Seasons 4, 5 and 6

eilowyn

Revisiting Seasons 4, 5 and 6

May 28, 2014 02:26

I was going through all of the mp4 files from my ripped Buffy DVDs, titling them in my ever so anal way, and I was using the BtVS Wikipedia list of episodes for reference. I noticed the ratings for a few particular episodes. Season 4 ended with 3.2 million U.S. viewers watching it live on the WB (tangental thought: I wonder how many more viewers ( Read more... )

tv: buffy the vampire slayer

Comments 6

empresspatti May 28 2014, 10:57:50 UTC

There was big article on USA Today entertainment section about Buffy Vrs Dracula, how great the show was and the article also mentioned that they were going to introduce a major character in a unique way (Dawn). It was a big publicity effort - how the show was fresh and interesting this many seasons in etc....

There had also been some publicity about the show going from something something to UPN - I'm senile now, but the show's distribution parents changed along the way too and it was in the financial news.

infinitewhale May 28 2014, 11:04:33 UTC

I don't remember much about the S4 to S5 transition. There are so many factors like competition, etc. I think Restless got fewer numbers 'cause Primeval kinda sucked along with the rest of the Initiative/Riley stuff from S4.

But I remember UPN pimped the hell out of Buffy returning. Coming off what a thought of people thought was one of the best finales ever. Add in all the publicity of it jumping networks. Sadly, Bargaining, OMWF and I think the Killer In Me were the only eps that the UPN promos were not cringeworthy for. I still shudder at the circus music from Beneath You.

ceciliaj May 28 2014, 12:54:14 UTC

That workshop you went to sounds great. You will be so well-prepared for graduate school :). I am envious because I am dealing with my own sloppy research questions, haha.

fenchurche May 28 2014, 15:30:46 UTC

Were there ways to illegally download shit from the Internet back then?).

Oh yeah... in fact, we had the Wildfeed back then (which was the feed sent out by the network to the individual stations for broadcast later in the week). Some folks who had access to old style satellite dishes would stay up and watch it (it was sent out at around 1:00 or 2:00am Pacific Time, IIRC) and at first would just do recaps of the episode to post online. But by Season 5, people were recording it, digitizing it and putting it online for people do download. Connections weren't as speedy back then, but if you could find a copy to download, you could watch the episode a full day before it aired!

infinitewhale May 28 2014, 16:53:43 UTC

I still have some of those .rm files somewhere.

quinara May 28 2014, 16:59:00 UTC

From what I remember of trying to download things, if you weren't in the know, there was no way to get hold of anything until S7, when buffy.nu was rude and started publicising download links - but even then it was very early days so you would have to leave the download on overnight (and sometimes through the next day, though I think for the beginning of S7 we were still on a evenings-and-weekends-free-but-pay-per-minute-in-peak-time deal, so if it wasn't finished by 8am we had to turn it off). Then it was quite likely you wouldn't have the right codec or even know what a codec was... The first time I saw Lessons it was in complete silence; I think I then saw Beneath You and Same Time Same Place on a download, possibly some more, but stopped bothering when the season started airing here in the January. Although if I remember rightly I saw Chosen on a download too/a DVD a friend of my brother's had burned, but I may be confusing that with Angel S5, which infamously had some leaked glitchy downloads roaming the net where the SFX hadn ( ... )