Best Scifi Series ever, canceled! (OT)

[Hiruu]

I'm with the Owlman...I hate FOX and they are underhanded punks. They try to screw Marvel and Tribune with Mutant X...why? Because of Dark Angel...which was yanked after 2 seasons. They 2nd season of the show tried to go the mutant route and got creamed! FOX will resort to any means to get better Ratings, but they are cracking on all front!

[disabled]

Actually, anyshow involved with Tribune gets royally screwed up.

[Baron Munchausen]

Originally posted by AeoN2:

quote:

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Originally posted by Owlman:
...But then I always though B5 was a cheezy DS9 rip off.

Actually the truth is probably the other way around in many ways.

What happened is that JMS (creator of B5), was going to many different film studios to try and find someone willing to fund and air his series... since they already had star trek, he decided to visit them first (can't remember what they are called on the top of my head though)

So he talked with them about it, and left them his huge "bible" of B5 material to study, which they did for a month or so...

Then they returned it and said they weren't interested in creating competitors to star trek, so JMS continued his search (ending up at Warner Bros.)

Then, some time later... wham... Deep Space 9 suddenly appears from nowhere... now I'm not saying the creators read all the things in JMS's notes and decided to make a star trek copy, but quite "coincidentaly" it has more than a few likenesses to B5 as mentioned, and it was written after the creators had access to JMS's notes...

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AeoN2

[edit]
And he also considered sueing them for the ripoff actually... but he was more interested in getting his own series aired than starting a huge fight...

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Well, if you won't say it, I will. DS9 was a sleazy, deliberate and obvious attempt to 'stamp out' potential competition to the Star Drek Cash Cow and it definitely used huge amounts of detailed material from JMS own outline submitted to Paramount when he was shopping around. You can see story after story in the DS9 'arc' that appears just WEEKS before the same episodes in B5 using the same material. They were obviously hoping that most people would see the Trek episode first and think that B5 was the rip-off, since most people don't visit fan websites or go to conventions or anything like that. Too bad nearly all serious SciFi fans already knew that Trek was too brainless to have anything like a 'story arc', and they could put 2+2 together when JMS said in the fan forums on Usenet and at the conventions that he had submitted his story to Paramount before acceptance by WB. Paramount also aggressively recruited all of the actors who were working on B5, and successfully stole some of them -- forcing some minor revisions of the story line to cover the gaps, and they even pressured stations which were showing the syndicated B5 to move it to some graveyard shift time slot away from Trek or they'd pull their rights to show Trek.

If JMS had bothered to sue he'd undoubtedly have won big, not only on 'theft of intellectual property' but on anti-competitve business practices for the pressure on the independent tv stations. He might well have won enough damages to force Paramount into major financial peril, but in order to do that he'd have had to abandon the project itself, which consumed just about every waking moment of his life for those five years. If he'd not been able to hold it together against the constant attack from Paramount I guess he'd have had plenty to do for the next 5 or 10 years while the lawsuit worked its way through the system. I went sour on Trek some years before TNG ended, but when I saw the unbelievable sleaziness of Paramount in their cynical exploitation of both Trek and someone else's creative work I was pretty much guaranteed of never liking anything produced by Paramount again.

[ September 09, 2002, 01:32: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[The Canuck]

This really F***in sucks. B5 and farscape are or should i say WERE my favorite Sci-fi series ever. and both have gone down in flames... sort of. i really really hope another station picks up FS if thats possible. also has anyone heard anything about B5: Legend of the Rangers becoming a series?

also DS9 is the most blatant copy of another series ive ever seen, both station got upgraded at the same time, both had wars at the same time, i mean come on, really.

[ September 09, 2002, 02:08: Message edited by: The Canuck ]

[gregebowman]

Well, that really sucks about Farscape. I also haven't been able to watch most episodes due to various reasons. Mainly that the wife isn't a big sci-fi fan and is the "queen of the remote"! I bought the first 2 DVD's when they came out, but haven't been able to get the rest of the series yet. I also like B5 better than DS9, but had trouble watching the entire sereis of both shows. I do think B5 was the better show. I didn't know about JMS going to Paramount first, but I'm not surprised that they may have stolen the idea.

Speaking of the Sci-Fi channel, I hear that they are trying to revive some old shows, such as Battlestar Galactica, Quantum Leap (without the original actors) and a couple of other shows. These I will have to watch if they are ever produced. Also, I hear that NBC is trying to revive Lost In Space (God, please let them do a serious show, like they did in the movie. I couldn't stand all of that camp in the original series). Also, Fox is supposed to resurrecting The Time Tunnel, one of my favorite shows as a kid. Can't wait.

[ September 09, 2002, 02:44: Message edited by: gregebowman ]

[disabled]

Time tunnel, there's an old friend long lost.

I heard somewhere johnathan frakes is involved in a remake of the prisoner.

I should point out something here, everything coming out is a remake.

[AeoN2]

Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:

quote:

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Originally posted by AeoN2:
can't remember what they are called on the top of my head though

Well, if you won't say it, I will. DS9 was a sleazy, deliberate and obvious attempt to 'stamp out' potential competition to the Star Drek Cash Cow and it definitely used huge amounts of detailed material from JMS own outline submitted to Paramount when he was shopping around.

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Paramount... Guess I had subconsciously wiped my memory of that name

I had the pleasure to meet Patricia Tallman (plays the telepath Lyta Alexander) at a convention I attended, and she left me with no doubt in my mind that JMS and the cast are all incredibly nice and funny people... Too bad nice guys finish Last...

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AeoN2

[edit: grammar, it's 6:40 in the morning for gawd sakes]

[ September 09, 2002, 05:43: Message edited by: AeoN2 ]

[dumbluck]

Originally posted by Hadrian Tyrael S. Aventine:
Time tunnel, there's an old friend long lost.

I heard somewhere johnathan frakes is involved in a remake of the prisoner.

I should point out something here, everything coming out is a remake.

Oh, you noticed that, too? It won't be long now before they start making remakes of really campy shows like The Flintstones, Scooby Doo, and.... Oh, wait a minute.....

[ September 09, 2002, 09:05: Message edited by: dumbluck ]

[Perrin]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
Conspiracy theories aside, it is entirely possible that the show is the number one rated show on scifi channel and still losing money because of the higher production costs that you mentioned. Since televsion networks are in business to make money, not because it makes them happy just to have people watching their show.

It may just be that even though the Ratings were good, they weren't good enough to turn a profit.

Geoschmo

This is the exact reason that the original Battlestar Galactica was cancelled. The high production costs forced the network to pull the plug. Ratings wise, it was the most watched show of its time. Celebrities were lining up to do walk on bit parts.

Unfortunately, qualtiy television costs money. Trash you can find, in the can outside, for free.

[mac5732]

can you imagine the production costs for a series based on SE4 would be, it would be highly rated like Galactica and some of the others, but would probably be cancelled because of costs, yet I would think with Tech today that graphics would be cheaper due to computers then the older ways

mac