Yes, the TV meme

[lizbee]

I'm off sick from work because I hate some bad ham yesterday. INDULGE ME.

Day 01 - A show that never should have been canceled

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

It was a toss-up between this and The Middleman, but The Middleman is sort of perfect in its tiny, self-contained run, whereas SCC ended on a game-changing cliffhanger.

In my cynical moments, I think that Sarah Connor was cancelled because it was a sci-fi/action series that was not sufficiently exploitative of its women. Which is not to say it did not make full use of the massive combined sexiness of Lena Headey, Summer Glau, Stephanie Jacobson, Shirley Manson etc, but it lacked that crucial element of underlying misogyny that makes a show successful.

Also, you know, it was quite expensive, did not break the plot down into tiny, bite-sized chunks for the hard of thinking, and dedicated three episodes in the middle of the season to exploring its main character's psyche. On Fox. Clearly it was doomed to failure.

I'm glad we got what we did, which was (among other things) a branch of the Terminator franchise that deliberately cut itself off from the post-Cameron movies and embraced the potential for alternate universes inherent in the series concept. But I do wish that cliffhanger had some resolution. And that someone would write fic where Amy Pond meets Catherine Weaver. For they are both strange Scottish gingers, aside from the bit where one is actually a liquid metal robot from the future.

Comments

[bats-eye.livejournal.com]

Not that I would argue with the brilliance of the Sarah Connor Chronicles for a minute but I actually think pretty much the exact opposite.

In that, I'm happy (happyish anyway) to leave John and Sarah on at the finale without seeing what happens next because it does seem, to me anyway, that its a good place to leave it. I can imagine what comes next and I would love to see it but at least what I'm missing out are new storylines because the old ones have all been finished. It wrapped up the first two seasons plots and then gave us a glimpse of what comes next. And I'm okay with that as an ending.

Whereas Middleman, did end up half way through doing stuff with Tyler etc. So I would much rather see extra episodes of that, even if its just the original 13th episode that ended up being a comic, so that I don't feel like there's loose ends undealt with.

Of course, in a perfect world we'd get more of both,

[chaila]

In my cynical moments, I think that Sarah Connor was cancelled because it was a sci-fi/action series that was not sufficiently exploitative of its women.

Surfing over from LJ, and I just feel the need to lament that I often think this is true. Also perhaps because it often tried to market itself as a sci-fi show that DID exploit its women, at least Cameron, rather than as the smart, complex, female-character-centered show it actually was. I just. . . love that it exists, and hate that the network couldn't own what it was enough to sell it, and instead tried to sell it as the same old thing to exactly the wrong audience for it. Even when a smart show manages to get made, its marketer thinks it has to dumb itself down and sex itself up to attract the masses. It's Fox, I know, so not particularly surprising, but sad nonetheless.

a branch of the Terminator franchise that deliberately cut itself off from the post-Cameron movies and embraced the potential for alternate universes inherent in the series concept.

Also, the basic concept of a branch of the franchise based on the idea that a dead Sarah Connor was a stupid idea and should be rectified, like professional AU fix-it fanfic, makes me really happy.

[myniamh]

dedicated three episodes in the middle of the season to exploring its main character's psyche

Oh, SCC. I still love you best. :(

[syzygy_dw]

I would have loved to have seen a resolution to the Terminator story, and I am really bummed that there was no reference in the last movie to the show. Even just a throw-away line or the inclusion of Reese's brother (uh, what was his name again?). Not that the movie was there to make any sort of sense or anything.

But it's a crime that the Middleman got canceled. ABC Family apparently loved it, and were actually marketing it well. They could have at least let them finish the story.


I haven't bothered doing this meme, but if I were to do it, my answer to this question would actually be Dead Like Me. That was a great show, and again it was canceled before the storyline was completely resolved. There was a TV movie made a few years ago, but by then a couple of the principal actors had moved on. They recast one part, and had another character written out. It was an OK movie, but it didn't have the same magic as the show did.

[jesuswasbatman]

You aren't usually supposed to do that sort of thing, but Josh Friedman's response to the fanboys who moaned that there was too much character exploration in mid-S2 was marvellous.

[ide_cyan]

Do you have a link to Friedman's response? I've been trying to find it but having no luck.

[jesuswasbatman]

It was on his blog but he seems to have deleted all the posts made while the show was on, I'm not sure why.

[ide_cyan]

I hate it when they do that. Fox also seems to have disappeared the show's official blog.

[lizbee]

It's when things start disappearing from IMDB that we panic. Did you know that entries can be taken off IMDB? So suddenly actors have a gap in their filmographies, instead of mere links to indie movies that will taunt me by never, ever coming out.

[ide_cyan]

I know that everyday users can submit IMDB edits, which are screened before they're approved. I've made several minor corrections and additions, and submitted a couple of new entries (blame me if the page for Blood Ties says 2006 -- I entered the basic data to create it in May, while it was still in production, thinking it'd air by the end of the year, but it only started airing in 2007, and I didn't have the power to edit that afterwards).

There are guidelines for making changes here:
http://www.imdb.com/updates/guide/

I don't know how much input the Powers That Be (or their marketing departments, or indie filmmakers, or any IMDbPro users) have over IMDb edits vs. random, non-industry, regular site users (such as I) chipping in with their favourite quotes, fixing spelling errors or linking to reviews, who might sometimes find out about some project and cite good enough sources to get major updates through.

I've never tried to get anything deleted, though I noticed some things vanishing, like a Claudia Black project (The One?) she'd done a trailer for but which never materialised. It takes a lot of info to get a new title added, and the FAQ says they "do not take deletion requests lightly", but the IMDb not, as far as I know, or unless somebody's editing their resume or something (I haven't been on IMDbPro), an official resource for the movies and people it repertories, so I take it with a grain of salt.

But yeah, mysteriously vanishing information's still annoying when it's on the IMDb, and you can't know what the explanations for the deletion are.