OT: B Hammer on Farscape cancellation

[peter noble]

TV Guide Online: So, what gives? Why would you want to cancel such a rad show?
Bonnie Hammer: We never wanted to cancel it. What we were trying to do was do 13 more episodes, not 22. The ratings had softened, and it was getting increasingly expensive to produce. We just couldn't make the financial deal. But we never wanted it to end when it ended. We had all intentions of doing 13 more episodes [beyond these 11] — we wanted to keep it in '03 and end it in '03. But financially, it was just too difficult to do.

TVGO: In that case, why not at least do a proper wrap-up, a TV movie or something?
Hammer: We looked at all the options. But with the speed in which it would have had to be done — because the set had to be broken down and the cast had to come back [from Australia, where shooting took place] and the scripts weren't written — [the cost] would have been enormous. [It would] have been almost as if we were doing [the upcoming epic miniseries] Children of Dune — and with less potential upside. We love the series... and would have liked nothing more than for it to have had a little bit more of a broad appeal. If all of those incredible fans who wrote in and sent notes and flowers and [whatnot] had actually watched it every week, we would have been able to do the 22.

TVGO: You mean to tell me that Farscape doesn't have the numbers to merit a fourth season, but Stargate SG-1, which you just renewed, is attracting a big enough audience to deserve a seventh?
Hammer: Yes. Take a look at our numbers on Monday nights just for the Stargate repeats. It's crazy! Before we ended the season on Stargate, we were getting a very high 1 [rating] and peaked at, I think, a 2 or a 2.1. That was for new, original episodes. [Now] our average for Stargate repeats has been unbelievable — 1.7 and 1.8 [ratings]. When Farscape was repeating, we were lucky if we got a .8. So there's a huge difference.

TVGO: But Farscape is so cool. How can that be?!
Hammer: Even though Stargate is sci fi, it's very broad sci fi. It's not serialized. Every episode, you can come to it whether you've watched the one before [or not]. They are self-contained. My husband is kind of an absentee watcher, and he would tune in every fifth or sixth episode and have absolutely no issues [with following the plots]. Farscape, on the other hand, got very, very serialized. It got very "in."

TVGO: And that's a bad thing... ?
Hammer: They had brilliant and sophisticated writing, but it was so narrow that it basically was an invitation to not tune in if you weren't totally familiar with the show. It was brilliant when you got it, and some of the characterizations were truly amazing, but it took a little too much work.

[peter noble]

Stargate SG1 not serialised? I watch it every week and there's an arc going all the way through it!

Good grief!

Peter

... but she's right on Farscape being more serialized than SG1.

I'm a big Sci-Fi fan, but I don't watch Farscape, for that very reason. I've missed so many episodes, that when I tried to watch one, I couldn't figure out what was going on.

With SG1, its much less of an issue than Farscape. Though Peter Noble is right that there are arcs in SG1 too. I'm a big SF1 fan too, however, most of the episodes can stand on thier own.

As a person who also loved B5 (and is novellzation approach to the story line) I hated writing this, but you got to call them as you seem them!

[Apothis]

It is not as serialized but every episode ties together into an overall plot. It is not like watching GI Joe where Cobra attacks and flees every episode.

[Apothis]

Sorry Warrior. I well try not to do it again. :-)

[DuaneWilson]

heh

Typical moronic viewer - 1
Intelligent viewer - 0

[thomas7g]

actually I am a fan of both shows but I came to watch both shows several years after the first years.

SG1 was very easy to get into. Few episodes are actually about the war with the Goulds. Most episodes are just exploration. I watch, BOOM, I like. Infact its awesome.

But Farscape was incredibly hard to get into. I had to ask alot of questions to get into it. Luckily I had Arrghman who helped me out alot. (thanks lee!) So now I like the show. But it is still hard show for newbies. And the characters are very hard to like at first glance.

Though I think Farscape fans deserve to get better treatment. of course so do fans of the original BG show, fans of Firefly,...etc etc...

[Artemis]

Originally posted by thomas7g
But Farscape was incredibly hard to get into. I had to ask alot of questions to get into it. Luckily I had Arrghman who helped me out alot. (thanks lee!) So now I like the show. But it is still hard show for newbies. And the characters are very hard to like at first glance.

Being a fan from the first promo I can't say if I would have had trouble getting into it but 2 friends of mine didn't. One came over while my husband and I were watching "John Quixote" and like it enough to borrow our season 1 dvds. The other friend rented the best of dvd after hearing us endlessly talk about it and came over again last night to borrow the rest of season 1. It does build on itself but that is why it is intelligent and interesting.

I have actually been a bit lost in SG1, I missed season 5 since Scifi didn't show it before starting season 6 and it hadn't aired on our local channel yet. I knew Daniel was gone but I don't know why or anything about Jonah's background.
:colwar:

[Rhade]

Originally posted by peter noble
Yes. Take a look at our numbers on Monday nights just for the Stargate repeats. It's crazy! Before we ended the season on Stargate, we were getting a very high 1 [rating] and peaked at, I think, a 2 or a 2.1. That was for new, original episodes. [Now] our average for Stargate repeats has been unbelievable — 1.7 and 1.8 [ratings]. When Farscape was repeating, we were lucky if we got a .8. So there's a huge difference.

Boy, talk about trying to mislead people by throwing meaningless statistics at them.

The so-called Monday "repeats" are in their first run on the SciFi Channel. A lot of people who tuned in for Season 6 on Sci-Fi simply started watching the Monday Night repeats of S1 through S5 because they hadn't ever seen those eps before. The Monday Night "repeat" episodes are as new to them as any S6 episode was… which is why the ratings have not dropped all that much.

And Bonnie’s argument becomes even more specious when you consider that Farscape reruns have not been shown except for that one day S4 chain reaction towards the end of December. How can you can compare the ratings for a show airing in the Fall of 2002 to the ratings of a show that wasn't aired in the same TV climate? Who knows how Farscape would have performed in Fall of 2002, let alone on Monday Nights in Fall of 2002?

SciFi should just come clean and admit they cancelled the show because the network is moving away from that type of television in favor of producing series like the shoot-the-monster "Tremors" TV show and the intergalactic space vampire show "Bloodsuckers" they just greenlighted.

Rhade

----- ----- -----
"It went down to the wire, but finally SFC decided that the premise of Polaris was a little too science fictiony, when they were looking to go for ideas that had more immediate mainstream appeal... they went for a project about intergalactic (not interstellar, intergalactic) vampires called "Bloodsuckers."
- J. Michael Straczynski, January 7, 2003

[Artemis]

"Oh, people can come up with statistics
to prove anything. 14% of people know
that."
--Homer Simpson

I too was wondering what the ratings would have been like if they had shown repeats of Farscape, especially after all the media attention the fans generated. If Bonnie Hammar was saying it was too hard to get new viewers because of the serial nature of Farscape then wouldn't it help if they repeated the episodes to get the new viewers interested?