Enterprise only had 4 seasons, not 7.

Also, do you call it "Enterprise" (its original name) or "Star Trek: Enterprise" (which it was renamed later on as viewers were bleeding away)?



The Jedi Master

"Enterprise".
I can't remember now, did they break up the usual seasons into half seasons?

Ok, edited

No, it was on UPN before it merged with WB to become CW. They had standard fall-to-spring seasons, with a few weeks' hiatus around Christmas.

Cable channels started the half-season thing a few years back and now have so far gone as to split ONE season over TWO years (ie BSG S4 and 4.5 starting the same month in successive years).



The Jedi Master

SG1/SGA/SGU were shot in Vancouver, as was most of the SciFi Shows...

Indeed, one of the amusing DVD extras talks about how in the scene where B5 received hundreds of Narn refugees, it was a loop of about 20 production staff and extras that just kept walking in one door, out another, and back round the set to come in again

Yeah, I remember that commentary well. I also remember hearing Jerry Doyle complaining all the time about their pathetic paychecks on some of the commentaries.

Contrast those TV show budgets with the web series, The Guild, which boasts similar audience numbers (about 4 million views per episode). While Felicia Day has been tight-lipped about their budget, Forbes estimates it to be around 7 thousand dollars an episode. The first episodes were probably far less.

4 million viewers per week will get you cancelled very quickly on network tv. The cost structure of network tv is such that a show really needs to draw at least 7-8 million viewers in order to stay on the air. I think the only types of programs that are safe right now from Internet competition are sporting events.

The only reason we have cable TV is because you have to have it here to get high-speed cable internet. We'd have FiOS if it was here but it isn't and cable is the only game in town. We have one converter box, and the only thing I watch really is The Walking Dead other than the occasional Military Channel or History Channel special, or movies on AMC or TMC, or the news in the evenings. Sometimes we catch The Big Bang Theory or stupid things like South Park or Family Guy just for silly laughs. When BSG was on, I never missed an episode. It's one of the very few series since The Shield that I've made sure not to miss. I gave up on Siffy a long time ago. I'm not their target audience.

And I heartily disagree with the poster that says there is no market for lower-budget drama with real characers and great stories and sets that aren't quite perfect. One thing I watch a lot of are the fan-made Star Trek films on You Tube, and they generally have pretty shallow acting and production values, but they try hard and their hearts are clearly in the right place, and that makes up for it.

I can't watch those fan-made ST things. I can't read their stories either.

Now non-related stuff, sure. People make their own Clerks-budget SF thing, or write a story, and I have no issue with it. I just can't swallow amateurs doing something made famous by professional writers, directors, producers, and actors. Same with Star Wars.

Parodies are separate because they're of course not serious. My mind just picks apart anything done seriously, I can't help it.




The Jedi Master

Giant boxing robots reality show unveiled by Syfy

http://insidetv.ew.com/2012/11/20/robot-combat-league/

Weird.
I do miss Battlebots from the late 90's though. Wasn't that the first one that was so good?

BBC had Robot Wars (UK), with Craig Charles (of Red Dwarf fame) and Philippa Forrester.

I never understood the logo/name change. "Syfy" always sounded like a cutesy way of saying syphilis (which according to the severe infection of non-science fiction program, may be much closer to the truth?).

I think it was a copyright thing - they couldn't copyright sci-fi because it was already a common term.

The change was part of their product re-branding from a niche network to a mainstream network that caters to a wider audience. The network felt that using "SciFi" would not be consistent with the type of varied programming that they wanted to show.

Fixed it for ya Panzer

The SFC of 15 years ago was great...they still had MST3K!



The Jedi Master