SciFi Surplus Podcast #040 Council
May 14, 2008
Thank you for taking time to listen to us. This is show number 40. We’re talking about the “State of the SciFi Channel” as our main discussion. We’re also going to talk about the SciFi 16 semi-final round 3. There’s also news to discuss. The council today is made up of Vince, Randy, Jeromy and Casey.
Casey finished reading “Neuromancer” by William Gibson
Vince’s issues with Episode #038.
1. Reaper parties. Great idea. One huge problem with it. If everybody goes over to Casey’s house to watch Reaper then the ratings will really tank. A better idea would be some sort of online Reaper party, or maybe like a Reaper trivia contest that encourages everyone to sit at home and watch the show. Since the Nielsen’s don’t factor in viewers who watch via DVR, work out someway to reward people who watch the show in realtime.
2. Heroes really long hiatus. First of all, I’m glad that there’s a little bit of time between season’s two and three. Especially since I’ve found out that some of the listeners who have left comments on the website think that I should leave my mother’s basement and step out into the sunshine. A longer hiatus for Heroes is great because it’s freeing me up for my other hobbies. I have Warhammer 40k miniatures that need painting, a scale model of R2D2 that needs assembly, and at night I like to go outside, record the movements of satellites, and compare them to the published Kepler coordinates to identify the spy satellites. That’ll show those folks that I’m not a lonely, pathetic, loser. Also, I really don’t think that the hiatus was that long, about nine and a half months I think. The Battlestar Galactica hiatus was over a year. For the record, I used that time to finish my steam powered babbage engine just in time to use it to file my taxes.
DVR Meltown Endangers New Episode of Galactica
Spaced Coming to DVD
Speedracer doesn’t do so well at box office.
- RottenTomatoes: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/speed_racer/
- IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0811080/
- Just over $20 million it’s opening weekend
Network TV Advertiser Upfronts:
NBC - Presented in April
- “My Own Worst Enemy” Christian Slater in Jekyl/Hyde thriller
- “Knight Rider”
- “Chuck”
ABC - Tuesday
- “Life on Mars” is probable (BBC Time-Travel Remake)
CBS - Wednesday
- Ghost Whisperer
- Moonlight
Fox - Thursday
- “The Fringe” is go (J.J. Abrams Unexplained Phenomena Drama)
- “Dollhouse” is go (Joss Whedon Mind-Wiping Drama)
CW - Thursday
- Outsourcing Sunday nights to Media Rights Capital
“State of the SciFi Channel”
Shows: http://www.scifi.com/onair/index.php?id=0
Schedule: http://www.scifi.com/schedulebot/index.php3
Battlestar Galactica
Eureka
Ghost Hunters
Stargate SG-1
Stargate Atlantis
Flash Gordon
Who Wants to be a Superhero?
The Most Dangerous Night in America (Vince)
ECW (Extreme Championship Wrestling) Live on Tuesdays
Re-airs
Jake 2.0
X-Files
Star Trek Enterprise
The Twilight Zone
The Outer Limits
Threshold
Andromeda (picked up in the middle of season 4)
John Doe
Firefly
SF16 Update
Outer Rim vs. Hall of Justice
Star Wars (1) 46%
Doctor Who (4) 54%
-2.86 SoV
-8.69 Perfomance
Alpha Quadrant vs. Demon Dimension
Star Trek (2) 53%
Joss Whedon (3) 47%
5.56 SoV
-0.27 Performace
May 14th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
Dr Who isn’t shot in HD:
http://www.syfyportal.com/news423426.html
So the best you are going to get is upscaled video.
May 14th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
Excellent point! I wasn’t aware of that.
May 15th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
You talked about all they ways you could watch firefly and I was surprised you missed probably the easiest one. Thats Hulu.com. 14 episodes are available free at http://www.hulu.com/firefly (don’t ask me why 15 is not there). Hulu also has some other great scifi content. The only problem with Hulu is that often not all episodes are there and it seems a bit random which ones are. But they have stuff like Babylon5 (22 episodes including the pilot), Buffy (34 episodes from seasons 1 and 2), Buck Rogers, Lost in Space, Roswell, Eureka, John Doe, Sliders, and many more. Check it out!
May 15th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Neuromancer: Never read it, never will- I fear it’s one of those things that was revolutionary in it’s time but now will seem trite.
According to imdb Hayden Christensen will star. Sorry!
Hackers: again, SO not a great movie. Only a great so-bad-it’s-good movie. Tried so hard to be cool and edgy, and failed hilariously. But I guess if you’re a hacker it SEEMED cool.;-)
Heroes: Way too long a hiatus, considering how bad the second season was, but they needed the extra time, for the same reason. I hope they figure out how to fix that show, season one was so great, but making season two just like one was a huge mistake. They need to come back with something different and prove themselves quickly.
BBC America: Awesome channel.
Speed Racer: I’m waiting to see it in IMAX. I think it’s going to be GREAT.
Upfronts: Last year we (at my dayjob Nickelodeon) had ours in March. I think we just had this years’.
Sci Fi:
Flash Gordon: Isn’t this cancelled and gone? Yeah, you guys agreed to never mention that show again.
Who Wants to be a Superhero: I got to meet Fat Mamma at the New York Comic Con. I was VERY excited and offered to draw her.
Vince’s reading of the rules of those crappy Sci Fi movies was hilarious, and I think it does sound like a great formula, even though the movies are crappy. I never watch them, but the commercials almost make me want to. Almost.
Wrestling: It’s on there the same reason the bad movies are- lowest common denominator appeal. Most of America loves Nascar and wrestling.
Sarah Jane Adventures- I love Dr. Who, and I wanted to watch SJC. I love the character and I’ll watch her on anything. It’s not Dr. Who but it’s not a bad show, I watch it with my daughter (who’s finally agreed to watch Dr. Who with me- AWESOME!!).
Sci Fi channel schedule: Good point, it’s a undecipherable.
Firefly: There are whole episodes (I think the whole series) on Veoh.
Great focus on the Sci Fi Channel. It should be a mecca for us, and I do always check it when I can, but I almost never find anything good outside of Who and Galactica. I wish they would show way more old sci fi and horror movies at night, and old sci fi shows at night like Lost in Space, Twin Peaks, Wonder Woman- anything but their original movies.
The other Doctors Who: ALL great (except Colin Baker), certainly including Sylvester McCoy.
George Lucas: The man is/was a visionary, he does not deserve the crap people give him. The prequel movies may have not measured up for older fans of the old movies, but kids who started with the prequels LOVE them, just like you loved the originals. Let them have that.
Sure, Lucas could have used more back-and-forth, which I’m sure he had more of in the past. The biggest mistake he made with the prequels was falling in love with the technology, and forgetting to give us characters we could love and care about.
By the way, C3PO loves Artoo, but Artoo only tolerates C3PO.
Great Council! Thanks!
May 15th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
I also forgot the full length scifi movies they have on Hulu like “At the Earth’s Core”, “Empire of the Ants”, “The People That Time Forgot” and “Planet of the Apes” (the new version).
May 16th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Lots to think about John.
I wish I could remember how I came to the conclusion that Keanu Reeves was going to play Case (Neuromancer). It’s probably because I put Hayden Christiansen in the same category.
May 17th, 2008 at 11:05 am
That is SO not fair. Keanu is SO much better than Christensen. Just imagine trying to watch Christensen in all 3 Matrix movies- torture! Also, catch Keanu in Sam Raimie’s “The Gift”- it’s a really good movie, and Keanu was really good and scary in it, a different role for him that shows his range.
Maybe you were also thinking of Keanu in Johnny Mnemonic, or in the upcoming “The Day the Earth Stood Still” remake?
May 17th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
anyone remember SNL’s Keanu Reeves’ school of acting? Like, whoa.
May 19th, 2008 at 9:24 am
The problem that Hakers had (and it is a film I enjoy) was that it was stuck useing terminology that was already becoming obsolete before the movie was released. I still think one of the strengths of the movie was in how they represented the abstract world of cyberspace.