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Thought you all might find this interesting...though the well-meaning article writer gets a few things wrong, i.e. "Farscape's ratings didn't improve even after being pared with SG-1," not "Farscape's ratings were just fine till Sci-Fi bumped it from its slot with SG-1." (And that's nothing against SG-1 fans, just the network.)
Enjoy... (EDIT: This one is so long I'm going to have to post it in 2 parts.)
Tom
--------------------------------------------------
Chicago Tribune
August 8, 2003
Science friction
A TV show is dead and buried yet its fans think they can bring it back. Are they
nuts?
Author:
Maureen Ryan, Tribune staff reporter.
Edition: Chicago Final
Section: Tempo
Page: 1
Index Terms:
TELEVISION
MEETING
LIST
ANALYSIS
Estimated printed pages:
7
Article Text:
If only Dr. Linnea Boyev's patients could see her now. The Northbrook eye
surgeon -- covered in white body makeup, wearing a platinum wig and dressed in
the skin-tight outfit of a randy alien -- was roaming the Radisson O'Hare Hotel
on Saturday as she joined hundreds of others to celebrate "Farscape," a TV show
that was canceled last year.
"This is my secret life," she said half-jokingly, after adopting the look of
the alien Chiana to perform in a musical parody of "Farscape."
Boyev, however, wasn't there just to praise the former Sci-Fi Channel show, but
to unbury it. "Farscape" fans have waged a clever, sophisticated and expensive
campaign to revive the series.
The problem is that, to an outsider, the effort seems hopeless: The cast
members have new jobs, the sets are gone and the show never got huge ratings
anyway.
So why are they doing it? And why are all these nice people at a convention
devoted to a show that has been off the air for months?
"I really feel like ['Farscape'] is art," Boyev said from her Northbrook home a
few days after the convention. "If the Art Institute of Chicago said, 'We're
just not going to show that Seurat anymore, we're not making enough money on the
painting,' people would be outraged. Just because 'Farscape' is on TV doesn't
mean it's not art."
Boyev isn't alone. Most of the "Scapers" at the Radisson over the weekend --
and many of them were women who had never been to any kind of genre-show
convention before they found "Farscape" -- remain solidly committed to saving
the program.
"We're not looking at this like, `If this comes back,' but, `When it comes
back,'" said Jackie Tanner of San Antonio, who was one of the staffers at the
table for SaveFarscape.com. And when will that happen? Within a year, she
predicts.
So, do they have a chance? Even a tiny one?
"I never discourage a fan campaign," says TV Guide critic Matt Roush, who
constantly hears from disgruntled fans of canceled shows. "It's something that
gives people a sense of engagement -- people feel so out of the loop. There's
nothing more frustrating than being passionate about a TV show and seeing it
yanked for what seems like arbitrary reasons."
Certainly the show, about a contemporary American astronaut shot through a
wormhole into a dicey part of space, had to be doing something right to engage a
fan like Jenni Neugebauer, a 23-year old from Philadelphia who says she didn't
really care that "Farscape" was science fiction -- she just loved the complex
storytelling.
"It doesn't insult your intelligence at all," said Neugebauer, a day-care
worker. "It's more in-depth -- they expect you to be smart enough to follow it,
and I appreciate that."
The romance factor
And the fact that there was an epic Romeo-and-Juliet romance between the two
lead characters, John Crichton (Ben Browder) and Aeryn Sun (Claudia Black),
didn't hurt.
"`Farscape' is a well-rounded drama and it has all these emotional
undercurrents, in a way that typical sci-fi shows don't have," says Brigitta
Vesei, co-leader of the Chicago Scapers fan club. " I think women respond to
that in any show."
But is it realistic for fans to expect a comeback, now that the sets of the
show, which was filmed in Australia, were destroyed and the actors have
dispersed?
"It's absolutely terrific that people aren't giving up," says executive
producer Brian Henson. He recently banded together with his siblings to buy back
the Jim Henson Co., which created the show, and he says this is a positive
development for "Farscape's" future. "If, early on, [fans] had given up, I might
have given up too."
Still, Anthony Simcoe doesn't think he's going to be wearing his "Farscape"
costume again anytime soon. The 6-foot-6, ebullient Australian played the
warrior D'Argo on "Farscape," and though he'd love it if the show returned, he's
not betting on it. "It didn't get the ratings," Simcoe said in a serious moment
before his convention appearance. "It's a business."
Indeed it is. "Farscape," which premiered on the SciFi Channel in 1999 and
cost more than $1 million per episode to make, never managed to get a 2 share in
the Nielsen ratings (a share equals approximately a million viewers). Its
ratings usually hovered around 1.5 or so, even after it was paired during its
final season with the more successful genre show "Stargate SG-1."
Last September, financial negotiations over a planned fifth season fell apart
and the show was canceled (the final episode aired in March).
Astrid Reinhardt (normally a workaholic genome researcher, but made up at the
convention as the villain Scorpius from the show) might have been speaking about
the show's demise when she noted that, on "Farscape," "the line between good and
bad isn't clear and sometimes the good guys make bad decisions."
Internet makes it easy
Given that sending an angry note to a television network only takes a few
mouse clicks these days, campaigns to save cult shows aren't unusual. But they
can't hurt and they often help a lot, experts say, though usually they're most
beneficial to shows that are still on the air but in danger of cancellation.
"With `Roswell,' ... I really believe [the fans] did a great deal to keep
that show from getting canceled," says Jason Katims, the former executive
producer of the show about teen aliens. The fan campaign "was a significant part
of the WB's decision to bring it back [for season two] and UPN's decision to
pick it up for a third season when the WB let it go."
"The people who run the networks, in my experience, are . . . not as the
public imagines them," says Marshall Herskovitz, executive producer of "Once and
Again" and "My So-Called Life," both shows that fans battled mightily to save.
"They're not generally calculating and cold and purely analytical. They tend to
be very personally modest and very emotional themselves about the shows that
they do -- they are champions of the ones they love."
What's changed most since Edward Zwick and Herskovitz premiered
"thirtysomething" in the '80s, he says, is that "advertisers are more and more
surly about the money that they spend on TV shows. They are very concerned and
upset about the amount of [audience] share that has been lost to cable."
But that tough ad environment, which makes networks more inclined to yank a
show that isn't pulling in decent numbers, isn't limited to the major networks.
"There's generally less and less [ad] money -- there are so many people
offering discounted ads and that creates problems," says Brian Henson. "Budgets
have to go down, and that's hard for everyone to swallow."
But if a program -- even a cult show such as "Farscape" -- can deliver
committed viewers, that's good news for advertisers, according to Kathryn
Thomas, a media buyer for Starcom, a Chicago firm that finds the right TV
programs for various advertisers.
"Research shows that more attentive viewers are more likely to pay attention
to ads and less likely to skip ads," Thomas said. "Nielsen can only give us
program ratings -- they can't give us commitment ratings. Even a select group of
[passionate fans] is probably indicative of a larger group of people who are
interested in a show."
Though their initial letter/telephone campaign was so big that it merited
scores of press stories and half a dozen mentions on CNN, "Farscape" fans knew
that the usual outcry probably wasn't going to be enough to bring back the show.
BraScape was probably their most creative moment: SciFi execs have said they
want to expand the channel's viewers beyond the typical male audience, so
hundreds of female fans sent their bras to the network. Early on in the
campaign, they also deluged the SciFi Channel with boxes of crackers, in
reference to an episode called "Crackers Don't Matter" and staged picket lines
outside the network's corporate office.
A perhaps more practical initiative was their post-cancellation effort to
contact advertisers and gauge their support for the program; they even sent big
batches of KFC receipts to the fast-food chain. Nina Lumpp, one of the
co-founders of savefarscape.com, says that several advertisers, including UPS,
Kia and KFC, expressed interest in advertising on "Farscape" if it does comes
back.
Enjoy... (EDIT: This one is so long I'm going to have to post it in 2 parts.)
Tom
--------------------------------------------------
Chicago Tribune
August 8, 2003
Science friction
A TV show is dead and buried yet its fans think they can bring it back. Are they
nuts?
Author:
Maureen Ryan, Tribune staff reporter.
Edition: Chicago Final
Section: Tempo
Page: 1
Index Terms:
TELEVISION
MEETING
LIST
ANALYSIS
Estimated printed pages:
7
Article Text:
If only Dr. Linnea Boyev's patients could see her now. The Northbrook eye
surgeon -- covered in white body makeup, wearing a platinum wig and dressed in
the skin-tight outfit of a randy alien -- was roaming the Radisson O'Hare Hotel
on Saturday as she joined hundreds of others to celebrate "Farscape," a TV show
that was canceled last year.
"This is my secret life," she said half-jokingly, after adopting the look of
the alien Chiana to perform in a musical parody of "Farscape."
Boyev, however, wasn't there just to praise the former Sci-Fi Channel show, but
to unbury it. "Farscape" fans have waged a clever, sophisticated and expensive
campaign to revive the series.
The problem is that, to an outsider, the effort seems hopeless: The cast
members have new jobs, the sets are gone and the show never got huge ratings
anyway.
So why are they doing it? And why are all these nice people at a convention
devoted to a show that has been off the air for months?
"I really feel like ['Farscape'] is art," Boyev said from her Northbrook home a
few days after the convention. "If the Art Institute of Chicago said, 'We're
just not going to show that Seurat anymore, we're not making enough money on the
painting,' people would be outraged. Just because 'Farscape' is on TV doesn't
mean it's not art."
Boyev isn't alone. Most of the "Scapers" at the Radisson over the weekend --
and many of them were women who had never been to any kind of genre-show
convention before they found "Farscape" -- remain solidly committed to saving
the program.
"We're not looking at this like, `If this comes back,' but, `When it comes
back,'" said Jackie Tanner of San Antonio, who was one of the staffers at the
table for SaveFarscape.com. And when will that happen? Within a year, she
predicts.
So, do they have a chance? Even a tiny one?
"I never discourage a fan campaign," says TV Guide critic Matt Roush, who
constantly hears from disgruntled fans of canceled shows. "It's something that
gives people a sense of engagement -- people feel so out of the loop. There's
nothing more frustrating than being passionate about a TV show and seeing it
yanked for what seems like arbitrary reasons."
Certainly the show, about a contemporary American astronaut shot through a
wormhole into a dicey part of space, had to be doing something right to engage a
fan like Jenni Neugebauer, a 23-year old from Philadelphia who says she didn't
really care that "Farscape" was science fiction -- she just loved the complex
storytelling.
"It doesn't insult your intelligence at all," said Neugebauer, a day-care
worker. "It's more in-depth -- they expect you to be smart enough to follow it,
and I appreciate that."
The romance factor
And the fact that there was an epic Romeo-and-Juliet romance between the two
lead characters, John Crichton (Ben Browder) and Aeryn Sun (Claudia Black),
didn't hurt.
"`Farscape' is a well-rounded drama and it has all these emotional
undercurrents, in a way that typical sci-fi shows don't have," says Brigitta
Vesei, co-leader of the Chicago Scapers fan club. " I think women respond to
that in any show."
But is it realistic for fans to expect a comeback, now that the sets of the
show, which was filmed in Australia, were destroyed and the actors have
dispersed?
"It's absolutely terrific that people aren't giving up," says executive
producer Brian Henson. He recently banded together with his siblings to buy back
the Jim Henson Co., which created the show, and he says this is a positive
development for "Farscape's" future. "If, early on, [fans] had given up, I might
have given up too."
Still, Anthony Simcoe doesn't think he's going to be wearing his "Farscape"
costume again anytime soon. The 6-foot-6, ebullient Australian played the
warrior D'Argo on "Farscape," and though he'd love it if the show returned, he's
not betting on it. "It didn't get the ratings," Simcoe said in a serious moment
before his convention appearance. "It's a business."
Indeed it is. "Farscape," which premiered on the SciFi Channel in 1999 and
cost more than $1 million per episode to make, never managed to get a 2 share in
the Nielsen ratings (a share equals approximately a million viewers). Its
ratings usually hovered around 1.5 or so, even after it was paired during its
final season with the more successful genre show "Stargate SG-1."
Last September, financial negotiations over a planned fifth season fell apart
and the show was canceled (the final episode aired in March).
Astrid Reinhardt (normally a workaholic genome researcher, but made up at the
convention as the villain Scorpius from the show) might have been speaking about
the show's demise when she noted that, on "Farscape," "the line between good and
bad isn't clear and sometimes the good guys make bad decisions."
Internet makes it easy
Given that sending an angry note to a television network only takes a few
mouse clicks these days, campaigns to save cult shows aren't unusual. But they
can't hurt and they often help a lot, experts say, though usually they're most
beneficial to shows that are still on the air but in danger of cancellation.
"With `Roswell,' ... I really believe [the fans] did a great deal to keep
that show from getting canceled," says Jason Katims, the former executive
producer of the show about teen aliens. The fan campaign "was a significant part
of the WB's decision to bring it back [for season two] and UPN's decision to
pick it up for a third season when the WB let it go."
"The people who run the networks, in my experience, are . . . not as the
public imagines them," says Marshall Herskovitz, executive producer of "Once and
Again" and "My So-Called Life," both shows that fans battled mightily to save.
"They're not generally calculating and cold and purely analytical. They tend to
be very personally modest and very emotional themselves about the shows that
they do -- they are champions of the ones they love."
What's changed most since Edward Zwick and Herskovitz premiered
"thirtysomething" in the '80s, he says, is that "advertisers are more and more
surly about the money that they spend on TV shows. They are very concerned and
upset about the amount of [audience] share that has been lost to cable."
But that tough ad environment, which makes networks more inclined to yank a
show that isn't pulling in decent numbers, isn't limited to the major networks.
"There's generally less and less [ad] money -- there are so many people
offering discounted ads and that creates problems," says Brian Henson. "Budgets
have to go down, and that's hard for everyone to swallow."
But if a program -- even a cult show such as "Farscape" -- can deliver
committed viewers, that's good news for advertisers, according to Kathryn
Thomas, a media buyer for Starcom, a Chicago firm that finds the right TV
programs for various advertisers.
"Research shows that more attentive viewers are more likely to pay attention
to ads and less likely to skip ads," Thomas said. "Nielsen can only give us
program ratings -- they can't give us commitment ratings. Even a select group of
[passionate fans] is probably indicative of a larger group of people who are
interested in a show."
Though their initial letter/telephone campaign was so big that it merited
scores of press stories and half a dozen mentions on CNN, "Farscape" fans knew
that the usual outcry probably wasn't going to be enough to bring back the show.
BraScape was probably their most creative moment: SciFi execs have said they
want to expand the channel's viewers beyond the typical male audience, so
hundreds of female fans sent their bras to the network. Early on in the
campaign, they also deluged the SciFi Channel with boxes of crackers, in
reference to an episode called "Crackers Don't Matter" and staged picket lines
outside the network's corporate office.
A perhaps more practical initiative was their post-cancellation effort to
contact advertisers and gauge their support for the program; they even sent big
batches of KFC receipts to the fast-food chain. Nina Lumpp, one of the
co-founders of savefarscape.com, says that several advertisers, including UPS,
Kia and KFC, expressed interest in advertising on "Farscape" if it does comes
back.