You could get vertigo tonight, scaling the heights of the finale of Mad Men on AMC, and then plumbing the depths of the tone-deaf misfire that is Viva Laughlin, premiering on CBS in the plum slot after CSI before moving to Sundays. There, only those with the most morbid curiosity to watch a show’s slow yet hopefully quick death are likely to follow (unless every critic I know is totally off the mark).First, a salute to the best and most fascinating new show to arrive on TV this year (and I’m even including my quirky new treasure Pushing Daisies in that equation). Mad Men, so hypnotic in its look and style as it recreates a classic movie-worthy image of 1960 Manhattan, is a period piece that says volumes about today, or about any era in which salary and status is tied to self-worth and where people construct a false reality to sell themselves on the American dream.Don Draper (instant star Jon Hamm) would seem to have it all. Besides the movie-star looks, he enjoys upward mo...
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Question: Should Bionic Woman fail to achieve network-television-caliber ratings on NBC, would NBC/Universal consider permanently moving the show to the Sci Fi Channel? Ratings expectations on a cable network are much lower. The smaller audience that tuned in to watch the show on NBC might be enough to keep the show alive on Sci Fi, assuming the viewers switch over. Furthermore, if we again assume that Universal airs reruns of Bionic Woman on Sci Fi like they did other NBC shows of the genre (Heroes, Surface) and if it does receive decent (cable) ratings, is that a good enough gauge to make a permanent move? I know this seems like a negative assumption about a brand-new show (sci-fi doesn't exactly have a good track record on network television), but I'm just curious if this is something studios ever consider. And if not, why wouldn't they?
Answer: A one-word answer: money. Bionic Woman is almost certainly too expensive a show to produce on Sci Fi's budget, although that's hard to
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In Part 1 of our Q&A with David S. Goyer, the producer/writer detailed the differences and similarities between Spike TV's Blade: The Series (Wednesdays at 10 pm/ET) and its big-screen begetter. Here he shares the scoop on which other Blade characters will surface on TV, status reports on The Flash, Nicolas Cage's Ghost Rider and the Batman Begins follow-up, and the sad truth about why shows such as
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Question: I have a comment on a topic that I've never seen you address, and I could be the only one who feels this way. With so many new shows in the fall, it's really hard sometimes to keep them all straight, and the names of the shows often make this more difficult. They're not very distinctive! Last season, there were three sci-fi shows premiering, and they all had one-word names: Invasion, Threshold and Surface. I could never keep straight which one was on which network, and even though I had read your reviews and knew that you endorsed one especially, I could never remember which one. For this coming fall I've counted eight new series with one-word titles, and none of them are very distinguishable (Vanished, Standoff, Justice, Smith, Jericho, Shark, Traveler, Kidnapped). Just a note to the networks: If I need a visual aid to remember which shows I want to check out, I'm not likely to watch — unless they become hits and the name is repeated enough to remind me. Not a very good ...
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Question: Why should anyone watch any of the new network sci-fi shows when their record of cancellation is so predictable? Why should I get myself involved in the plot and characters when there's a 90-percent certainty that the network(s) will dump any new show? And why do the networks continue to produce new shows of this sort if they don't intend to support them? I was a huge fan of Invasion and Surface. We Surface fans even dared to hope there would be more episodes when the last show stated it was the "season" finale, not the "series" finale. I and all of my friends are highly disgusted with network TV. The only reason Stargate SG-1 endured was because Showtime premiered it and stuck by it. Thanks for listening.
Answer: I'm guessing this is a retroactive question, because there are almost no new network series that play into the sci-fi/fantasy arena (NBC's Heroes is the most notable exception). If you're wondering why anyone last season bothered watching any of the networks' genre
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