Why outer space dramas fail on the small screen

By Patricia Treble - Tuesday, September 8, 2009 at 8:56 PM - 2 Comments

Aside from Fox’s quick-to-die Firefly, no mainstream U.S. network had put a full-on outer-space science-fiction drama in its lineup since the original Battlestar Galactica in the mid ’70s. That was until ABC took a gamble this summer, buying 13 episodes of CTV’s Defying Gravity, which focuses on eight astronauts sent on a six-year mission to visit all the planets in the solar system. The show had all the makings of a hit: good actors, an intriguing storyline and glossy production values. And coming off the success of Flashpoint—the Toronto-based cop drama that had proven a hit with U.S. audiences—CTV had become the go-to network for innovative programming.

But hopes plummeted when the ratings came out. The two-hour premiere barely eked out 3.6 million viewers in the U.S.—reruns of Cold Case and Without a Trace earned nearly double that. And while Defying Gravity, which airs on Friday at 10 p.m., has done markedly better in Canada, averaging 660,000 viewers, no one is talking about a fast renewal à la Flashpoint.

It’s a pity, because the show has improved with each episode. Set in 2052, Defying Gravity intertwines romance and drama with an as-yet-to-be-explained mystery involving why those eight astronauts were chosen for the mission. Producers streamlined the complicated and convoluted flashbacks that were a distraction in the pilot, giving the show a crisp yet beautifully-shot appearance. And the special effects are top-notch. But costly. In an era of cuts, it is hard to justify spending big bucks on a show, when low-budget reality shows like Big Brother 11 pull in much higher ratings.

The biggest problem, however, is setting the drama in futuristic outer space, says Rick Norwood, who writes extensively on science fiction when he isn’t teaching mathematics at East Tennessee State University. The Star Trek philosophy in Defying Gravity that “America would move forward towards a world government, peaceful exploration of space and prosperity” doesn’t resonate with many Americans, he says. They feel that the world is changing too fast and society needs to slow down. As a result, shows like the recently re-imagined Battlestar Galactica perform poorly in the ratings, despite garning acclaim from critics. The most successful genre of sci-fi on TV are based in present day earth (Fox’s Fringe and ABC’s Lost) Norwood says. They have an otherworldly ethos to them while remaining comfortingly grounded in today’s reality.

The Rico Act(or)

By Jaime Weinman - Wednesday, July 22, 2009 at 12:55 PM - 2 Comments

Via TV, Eh?, a German publication recently had an interview with Enrico Colantoni to promote Flashpoint‘s German TV premiere. He also says he hasn’t heard anything about the long-rumoured, ever-elusive possibility of a Veronica Mars movie.

As the introduction to the interview makes clear, Colantoni will always be best known (or should be, anyway) as Keith Mars, but I think I appreciated him even more on Just Shoot Me, for one reason: he managed to do well in that part despite being totally miscast. He was the right age, but I remember watching the pilot and wondering why this bald, intense guy was cast as the show’s resident ladies’ man. The part was written like the character was handsome, cocky (cue hilarious double-entendre) extremely successful with women, and displaying hints of romantic tension with the heroine. And Enrico Colantoni was a good actor who looked about 10 years older than he was, and seemed unlikely to be more of a hit with women than even David Spade.

But he was cast because he was a good actor, and available (his last show, Hope and Gloria, had just failed), and the writers worked around his appearance and, if they couldn’t make him a sex symbol, at least didn’t try too hard to convince us that he was one. Which kind of taught me, as a viewer, that casting the right actor is often better than casting the right physical type: the writers can deal with womanizing photographer who looks like a more personable George Costanza, as long as he can act the part. (Veronica Mars is one of many other shows where this lesson played out, because Kristen Bell is a completely different physical type than the one Rob Thomas specified in his original script.)

CBS Giveth & CBS Taketh, And Maybe Later Giveth Back

By Jaime Weinman - Tuesday, July 7, 2009 at 2:08 PM - 0 Comments

Via Diane,  CBS has rendered inoperative some of my jokes about how American shows can’t compete with Canadian shows in the marketplace. Or at least they’re inoperative until 2010.

CBS has rescinded its decision to bring back “Flashpoint” this summer.

The first of nine new episodes had been set for Fridays at 9:00/8:00c starting July 17.

Network sources have confirmed the change as the Canadian import will now return at midseason. Repeats however will continue in said hour for the rest of the summer.

Actually, this doesn’t seem at first glance like bad news for the show: the summer return to CBS was likely to consist only of episodes that had been produced but not yet aired on that network (they didn’t finish showing all of the first season). By holding it until midseason, they could hold those episodes over and “premiere” them with the actual season two episodes produced by CTV. But further announcements will clarify what this means exactly.

U.S. Shows Can't Compete With Canada

By Jaime Weinman - Wednesday, May 20, 2009 at 11:58 AM - 1 Comment

CBS’s fall schedule has been announced; aside from the network picking up Medium after NBC dropped it (it should be an excellent fit on CBS, which produces it) and the unfortunate decision to move The Big Bang Theory to 9:30 — from a ratings perspective, it may be sound; it’s unfortunate for those of us who liked having the convenient TBBT/HIMYM hour — the big news is that Flashpoint has been renewed. It won’t be on the fall schedule, since Medium and Ghost Whisperer will be paired for what I’m hoping they’ll call “Psychic Pfridays,” but it will be returning as a mid-season replacement in 2010. CBS makes this announcement after canceling other procedurals on its schedule, like Shawn Ryan’s The Unit. Clearly this is proof that American shows cannot compete in the free market.

There Is Nothing Wrong With Canadian Chauvinism…

By Jaime Weinman - Friday, August 1, 2008 at 4:42 PM - 0 Comments

So I think I speak for all of us when I say that Flashpoint‘s good Thursday ratings on CBS are a major foreign-policy triumph for the entire nation.

Canadian… Sorry, "Metropolitan" Cops

By Jaime Weinman - Thursday, July 24, 2008 at 12:40 PM - 0 Comments

Well, Flashpoint is doing pretty well down there, isn’t it? Or at least, it has a chance. CBS is moving it from Friday to Thursday — a promotion if there ever was one — and Advertising Age, which after all speaks to the people who actually run television, recently pegged this show as one for advertising folk to keep an eye on:

WHAT TO WATCH FOR:
Ratings for “Flashpoint,” CBS’s latest cop caper. After a surprising, if not stellar, start, it moves from Friday to Thursday night. It’s unlikely to be a breakout hit, a Rosetta stone for the network, but if it performs well, it could become one of the cornerstones of the fall schedule.

I was asked, based on some of the U.S. reviews that complain about Flashpoint‘s slowish pace, whether I thought that would be a problem for U.S. audiences in the long term. I don’t know, but I think that a CBS show doesn’t need to have the kind of rapid-fire pace that other shows do; some CBS shows are fast, but with the oldest audience on TV, they also have some of the most leisurely-paced shows. (This is a network whose flagship hit was Everybody Loves Raymond, which practically prided itself on having the longest scenes in network TV.) Besides, compared to some shows on cable, like the traditionally-shot, deliberate Mad Men, a Canadian show seems lightning-fast. I don’t think U.S. audiences necessarily require a nonstop pace, and indeed I think that some recent drama flops, like Bionic Woman, suffered from the mistaken impression that audiences want everything to be faster and choppier.

I don’t know if Flashpoint will continue to make it in the U.S.; based on what I’ve seen of it, it looks like a decent procedural Continue…

Biz fix: Will NRDC inject the Bay with some style?

By Duncan Hood - Thursday, July 17, 2008 at 7:06 PM - 0 Comments

In the money: NRDC Equity Partners, owner of the upscale American Lord & Taylor department store chain, finally achieved its goal of buying HBC. As a consumer I’m thrilled (in a guilty kind of way), mainly at the prospect of seeing my dowdy local Bay store get a facelift and start offering clothing brands I want to buy. I even like their pick for CEO. Today it was announced that Jeffrey Sherman, former president and COO of the Polo Retail Group, is the Bay’s new top gun. With experience overseeing the Polo stores internationally and looking after Club Monaco for a while, he might be able to inject the Bay with a little style.

Trading down: Yet another automotive plant is laying off workers. This time it’s Sterling Trucks, in St. Thomas, Ont., which just axed 720 people. I have a nasty feeling we’re going to be reading news stories like that for a while…

Number cruncher: Royal LePage Real Estate Services predicts that the price of a Canadian house will “rise only modestly” this year, meaning by 3.5 per cent. Meanwhile, the Bank of Canada is predicting an inflation rate of 4 per cent by year end. That means after inflation, housing prices may actually be going down. Continue…