Stargate ...Announcement at Comicon SD?

[madmikeee]

This.

I think it's a tough balancing act, really. You want to get as large and audience as fast as possible to bring in the ratings. Towards that end, there's the temptation to do standalone episodes with no real connection between them. This means that someone can miss a week and tune in later to get caught up without feeling baffled and lost. On the other hand, if all you are is some boring "monster of the week" show....well, who really cares?

I think you need to have a balance of the two. Grimm, I think, did a good job at this in its first season, mixing long-running threads and one-off monster-of-the-week stuff. The second season will likely go more heavily towards stronger arcs, but I guess we'll see.


Part of what I think changes the dynamic, though, is the particular network's online presence. I know that I got caught up on Grimm episodes entirely online. Not even on-demand, but on my PC. A lot of studios probably don't take that into account -- if you put up your whole season, you don't need to worry about "casual viewers." Just let folks catch up online and make sure your show runs ads online when you do. This, I suppose, is one of those "the industry's really changing fast" issues.

Another issue is with the current Nielsen ratings. The Technology is 60 years old for chris'sakes. They blame DVR's and On Demand for faulty ratings data when in fact it is because they refuse to get with the program. It would be almost NO effort to employ small data gathering programs within the satellite/cable providers to gather anonymous usage statistics from the customer base. Basically data would be sent back from your box saying "Box #AF4356 currently has the following 10 shows DVR'd and has watched these 3 shows On Demand." Then report those ratings.

Maybe if they actually figured out that the 30,000 viewers they saw were actually 75,000 because of DVR and On Demand they wouldn't cancel great shows and replace them with Wrestling or yet another moronic reality show.

 

[Wolvster1]

What always kills me about this Nielson crap is they
" report " that Sci-Fi shows like Stargate and BSG
have sucky ratings..

If they judge STRICTLY by Nieisons ratings crap then why
is it when you hit up a Torrent Site they have an INSANE
number of downloads for shows like ?

Oh, I guess all those people are downloading and just NOT
watching that they downloaded..

Yeah, that must be it.. :unsure

 

[madmikeee]

When the nielson ratings started only 1/2 the people in the country had TV's and each of them had a total of 4-5 channels they could watch. NOW everyone has a minimum of TWO TV's (not to mention the other digital devices) with a 1000 channel selection.

It's really NOT surprising GREAT shows get cancelled because of the faulty data collection.

 

[AdamNightmare]

I wonder if there's any study that relates the typical SciFi channel viewer's proficiency in technology with their interest in that station's subject matter. It seems odd to me that the nerdy/geeky type who are interested in things like Stargate would be incapable of finding a more reasonable way to view the show than sitting through 20 minutes of commercials per hour, at a specific time of day during a specific day of the week. While that's probably fine for the generic American family watching Survivor, we the technologically savvy consumer population prefer our media on our own terms.

 

[astroboy]

I basically watched the entire stargate franchise in the last two years. I had never even seen an episode before. Universe was incredible. I actually think that in many ways, it was stronger than galactica.

Atlantis was good. Great adventure.
But SG1 was the best. The gou'uld were okay villains but the series went into high gear with the Ori. They had to be the scariest villains of all time. The finale of season 9 was mind blowing

 

[Solo4114]

I wonder if there's any study that relates the typical SciFi channel viewer's proficiency in technology with their interest in that station's subject matter. It seems odd to me that the nerdy/geeky type who are interested in things like Stargate would be incapable of finding a more reasonable way to view the show than sitting through 20 minutes of commercials per hour, at a specific time of day during a specific day of the week. While that's probably fine for the generic American family watching Survivor, we the technologically savvy consumer population prefer our media on our own terms.

We have the technology. We can rewatch it. Better. Later. Whenever.

 

[Randavian]

Gonna have to disagree with you on the alien technology part... if you mean, did the Earth Atlantis actually USE the technology? Not really... they used Wraith Stunners and a few pieces of Ancient Tech. SG-1 used Gou'uld Tech, Ancient Tech, Replicator Tech, Asgard Tech, Ori Tech (though agreeably the Ori arc started the downfall of SG-1) and had some interaction with Tollan Tech.

What you like best is fine, haha, but I have to disagree on that SGA had way more alien technology than SG1 ever did...

McKay was awesome. David Hewlett seems like a pretty cool guy as well.

I guess I see your point, except for the fact that the very city they lived in is basically Alien tech. That, and the fact that there were almost equally space "scenes" as well as ground "scenes" in Atlantis I suppose made it feel like they did more with their technology.

Thinking back, because of your post, I would have to say that you're right on the point that SG-1 used a lot of Alien tech. I guess there was less "Space"...until the later part of the series. It just seems like they didn't focus as much on the alien tech as they did in Atlantis.

 

[Randavian]

Earth also did a lot of reverse engineering of the alien tech to build their own. They didn't just use existing Puddle Jumpers, they built their own FLEET of carriers. (Which seemed to get destroyed on a regular basis though)

3

True. I think another reason I felt that Atlantis used more tech is that the shows usually focused more on the "discovery" side of the tech. A lot of what was done with SG-1's tech was done in the background.

 

[Sluis Van Shipyards]

What I didn't like was that they never came up with a hybrid or reverse engineered small arms weapon. They had Earth built (with alien tech)ships, but still used Zat guns, Staff weapons, or Wraith Stunners.

 

[MasterDurangus]

Randavian - you are right on the space part, Atlantis did have a lot more space-things than SG-1, though to be fair, SG-1 did have a decent amount of space scenes.

Sluis, I always understood that as just a matter of time, effort and energy. Staff weapons used liquid naquada power cells which is hard to come by for the Tauri. They'd have to come up with a new power source to re-engineer them, and when they kill as many Jaffa as they do, getting Zats and Staff Weapons isn't hard. Eventually I could see them working on some Earth versions but only when there is a demand for them. Like the Replicator Disruptors, for instance. There was only 1 version of that and they couldn't get another, so making an Earth version made sense.

 

[JMChladek]

I guess what sort of turned me off to SGU was all this brooding backstabbing character crap going on. So it didn't feel like an adventure. Instead it felt like a bunch of people stuck on a ship just wanting to get home all saying "This sucks". Great, like I REALLY want to spend an hour a week watching that? BSG got away with it because they HAD no home to go back to and the back stabbing bits were relatively minor and seemingly kept in check. Plus, that was an established bit of BSG while SGU was supposed to be the third franchise of the Stargate shows with the previous shows setting the vibe for how it should feel. Don't get me wrong as I enjoyed watching the SGU episodes when they were on. But when SyFy started jacking with the schedule to the point where I had no idea when it was on, I didn't miss it much.

To me, SG1 and Atlantis were more escapist fun and they felt like it (even Farscape was that way). So I enjoyed them more. Having the continuing story arcs thrown in also made it superior to the Trek shows of the time (Voyager and Enterprise).

 

[Randavian]

To me, SG1 and Atlantis were more escapist fun and they felt like it (even Farscape was that way). So I enjoyed them more. Having the continuing story arcs thrown in also made it superior to the Trek shows of the time (Voyager and Enterprise).

I couldn't get into Enterprise at that time either, but it was more because I kept waiting for Scott Bakula to "Leap". I finally got to watch it a couple of years after the series ended. As for as story arcs go... Wasn't there really one main arc that spun through the entire show?

 

[MasterDurangus]

SGU is very similar to BSG though... cut off from their homes, a mixture of civilians and military forces stuck on a warship that should have been retired... Rush thinks only of himself, is the lead scientist and manipulates people to his own ends (Dr. Baltar), the Commander is similar to Adama though lacking the strength and nerve. They even had a settling on a planet arc when they discovered that "other them" that jumped back in time, settled down and built a new Earth (similar to building new Caprica).

That's why it lost appeal to me... it was a lot more like BSG than SGU. I like BSG, don't get me wrong, but when watching Stargate, I want Stargate.