MovieChat Forums > War of the Worlds (1988) Discussion > Nothing Wrong With Season One...Season T...

Nothing Wrong With Season One...Season Two, yes

posted 16 years ago by jeffyoung1
12 replies | jump to latest

Whose bone-headed idea was it to completely change the theme and direction of the television show, WAR OF THE WORLDS, season one, and turn it into a Blade-Runner rip-off dystopia of Season Two, which effectively killed the show

This is an excellent example when TV show producers get impatient and panicky, and take bad advice from other people or from themselves.
Here was an example of a television show whose producers perceived an audience image problem when there was none.

Just because some critic or critics ridiculed the episodes for showing the same theme, the aliens being thwarted by the heroic earth resistance team on a weekly basis, did not mean the show was not liked by its viewers. Speaking as one typical season one fan, I loved each episode depicting the aliens doing something diabolical and dastardly, killing a lot of humans in the process, but by the show's end, being stopped in the nick of time.

Understand this, the aliens may have been thwarted weekly, but they were winning everywhere else. The fact that each week showed the aliens infiltrating human society, institutions, and top secret installations as faux humans, shows that they were getting closer and closer. Each week showed a setback dealt to the aliens by the earth resistance team, but the aliens had other plots around the world and the infiltration was becoming more widespread and more insidious, not less, despite a weekly victory by the humans.

Yet, the television show's producer heard the critics' criticism and panicked. They now perceived WAR OF THE WORLDS as in imminent failure and they just had to do a KNEE-JERK reaction to resurrect a dying tv show, which wasn't dying at all.

SEASON TWO: Sucked. That describes the whole premise. It was like watching a weekly Blade Runner, only worse. Every episode seem to take place only at night. The aliens had infiltrated human society to the extent that everything was breaking down. The United States was in a state of accelerated social and economic decay. Everyone on the street that our new heroes encountered were selfish, unpatriotic, greedy, short-sighted, vicious SOBs. Everyone seemed to be demanding money to do anything, even give information. Everyone the new, unheroes encountered seemed to be street-like people. There was no more decency in people. It was everyman for himself. The whole season just seemed to cry out to make you want to hate it, and I did. Season Two which depicted the imminent triumph of the aliens and the accelerated decline of human society and the nation only succeeded in accelerating the demise of the television show. War of the Worlds didn't even last out Season Two. To me it appeared the show's producers deliberately wanted the television show to tank so they could wash their hands of it and move on to some other project, more of the shallow, vapid, yuppie sitcoms that were starting to proliferate at the time. Older people can remember the similar fate of 1975's Kolchak: The Night Stalker, a popular weekly horror tv show tanked by the studio execs who didn't like that kind of a show and typically, 'wanted to move into a new direction'. What we got in return were shows like, "Charlie's Angels". Yep, that was a brilliant, strategic ratings switch.

P.S. Why would the aliens want earth? Earth is not only overpopulated with six billion humans, it's the wrong geography, climate, atmosphere, topography, everything...the aliens purportedly come from a dark, dank, damp, hot, humid jungle-like world. Can't their advanced space propulsion technology take them to a more suitable, habitable world?

[–] Snusmumrikken 16 years ago

Yes, i agree. I hated season 2.

"The unsub"

[–] Jasons_Argonaut 16 years ago

What I don't get is this...why bother making a second season if you want the thing to fail? Why not just refuse to continue the first season altogether? "Hey guys, we're losing money on this thing. I know, let's spend another bundle on a whole other year and purposely sabotage it so they won't want any more!"

[–] kolchak-thenightstalker 16 years ago

Yes, i agree. Season 1 was great! When Season 2 debuted i was like, "Am i watching the same show"? I couldn't believe they would change the show so dramatically when the first season was great.

I doubt the producers deliberately sabotaged the show. perhaps what happened was that the show was contractually obligated to produce a certain number of episodes.

Even though the first season was great it might not have had high enough ratings that the execs wanted and decided to cancel the show.

However, the producers were under contract to produce a certain number of episodes and so they decided to experiment and completely revamp the show. I don't know if this is what happened, but maybe it's a possibility.

something similar to this did in fact happen to the 80's version of the Twilight Zone. the show failed after season two and was cancelled but CBS had to produce a certain number of episodes. for season 3 a Canadian production company was given the job of producing episodes to fulfill the contract agreement. if i recall, season 3 was pretty bad compared to the rest of the series. however, the better episodes of season 3 were written by J. Michael Straczynski who went on the create Babylon 5, which i think is one of the most brilliant tv shows ever.

BTW, i also agree that Kolchak: The Night Stalker was a great series as well

[–] kindeyes 15 years ago

Obviously not...or they would go there. And I agree totally...season 1 was awesome. Season 2 destroyed the show.
The early bird might get the worm,
But the 2nd mouse gets the cheese!
Kindeyes

[–] lmb100 15 years ago

Most likely a producer with lousy taste saw an affordable franchise and thought he could exploit the existing audience but make it better according to his "vision", derivative of Blade Runner. Turning it into a B- show that had it been a new show would not have outlasted its pilot without the running start of season 1. Ridley Scott he wasn't.

and PS

Why did those others come to a planet that is 70% water if it's toxic to them? It's a movie, silly.

[–] 15 years ago

[deleted]

[–] x1nd0lent 14 years ago

What basically happened is that the first series was created and produced by Strangis, but for the second season Frank Mancuso Jr took over. Different creative team = different story. I do not know the details of why it happened, but Mancuso Jr's dad was the CEO of Paramount, and Jr himself was successful with his efforts at being a tv producer. Maybe he asked his dad to give him the show as a Christmas present?

I was a teenager when the show ran, but I enjoyed both series for different reasons. First was better quality all around, both had lots of bad acting. Why I liked the grittiness of the second season was that the scale of the first season made no sense. As if the US military said: "hey, the Earth has been infiltrated by powerful aliens and the population have amnesia, the hammer might come down on us at any moment - but you four nerds are pretty smart, so go investigate on your own with no resources and let us know if you find anything interesting." So it was doomsday but hardly anybody was aware of it, and the few who did know were not doing very much about it. Now, I still think the first series was excellent despite or maybe because of this weird outlook. The stories were quite odd where smalltown America was slowly taken over by radioactive alien zombies who sounded like they were talking through a phone scrambler and some guitar effects, along with nods to the classic radio show and film before it.

The second season was less interesting, but it delivered on the promise of alien takeover actually happening. It was still quite weird. Did not in any way remind me of Blade Runner. Probably would have been cool if they went the dystopian future approach but kept Strangis on. Even though I agree that the first season was better, doing another season or two of skulking around like that was probably not going to build more suspense, and they did not have the budget to show large-scale alien uprising.

[–] rebelpearltl 13 years ago

Pretty much what you said, x1ndOlent. The heads of the studio wanted it to have the same ratings as Star Trek The Next Generation which was the highest one hour syndicated show at the time. War of the Worlds was the second highest, but the numbers were no where near STNG's. So they told the Strangis' they wanted the show to go in a different direction. The Strangis' said "No" so the studio fired them and had Frank Mancuso Jr. take over.

[–] Paula_Abdul_Alhazred 13 years ago

It's hard to know for certain exactly what went down behind the scenes with this show. The first season seemed to be successful, but it must not have been to the level Paramount was hoping. Certainly none of the harder-edged syndicated sci-fi/horror/fantasy series, from Paramount or otherwise, could compete with the success of "Star Trek: The Next Generation". But both "War of the Worlds" and "Friday The 13th: The Series" were still comparatively successful, though "F13" never suffered the same kind of drastic retooling as "WOTW".

I do think Frank Mancuso Jr. did a great job with "F13: The Series"; it's obvious he cared about that show. And it's also no secret that he was really trying to make a name for himself outside of the "F13" movie series, which became something he really wanted to get away from, so I can see why some may feel he was opportunistic and either tried to use "War of the Worlds" as just another stepping stone or simply squashed it so his other show would shine brighter. Yet I don't think he had ill intentions towards "WOTW". I doubt he and the other people at Hometown really tried to destroy the series on purpose. While you can make a case for nepotism, given that Frank Sr. was a Paramount bigwig, Mancuso Jr. did truly demonstrate he could steer a syndicated series, given the success of the "F13" TV show. So it wasn't completely off-base to have him take over for "WOTW" season two.

But in retrospect, of course it was misguided. I think Mancuso Jr. and the other new producers simply did not have the time to really pay much attention to season one, and given that they were likely directed by Paramount to reinvent the show to make it more accessible, there wasn't much incentive on any level to respect what had gone before. They also weren't in charge of "WOTW" when it was getting off the ground, whereas Hometown was there for "F13: The Series" from the beginning, so there simply was not that level of creative/artistic attachment and therefore respect for the series or its fans.

I will never forget how much I loved that first season. It was the first TV show I was truly obsessed with. And I will always remember the disappointment I felt when I sat down to watch season two, and everything I liked about the show was destroyed within one episode. The whole dynamic of the Blackwood Project, gone. Norton and Ironhorse, gone. The Advocacy, gone. New aliens arrived that were the same aliens but also different (????). I do think it was a dramatic end to some great characters, so the second season premiere certainly had some weight to it. And I appreciated the attempt to make the show darker. But they still effed it up. It became a different show, and not one I was particularly invested in watching. I did enjoy an episode here and there, and I also thought the Eternal was a cool idea and that Denis Forest made a fantastic addition to the series . . . but it not only wasn't the same, it was an offensive reversal of what made me fall in love with the show in the first place.

Firing Sam and Greg Strangis was probably a huge mistake, but again I don't think Mancuso Jr. actively tried to ruin "WOTW". It's just that the reinvention was not necessary. Like a lot of fans, I felt they had planted so many great story seeds--Quinn, alien/human hybridization, previous visits to our planet, Project 9, the Qar'To--throughout year one, so the show I wanted to see would have followed those stories further. But when a studio wants a series retooled, odds are a lot of things will be dropped. Plus, it's hard to know if "WOTW" would have continued beyond a second season, even if the series hadn't been extensively reworked or the Strangises hadn't been let go.

[–] regularfellow 12 years ago

I remember this.

I want to say this was Starlog magazine, back in the day.

Frank Mancuso, Jr. was working on adapting "Invasion Of The Body Snatchers" as a TV series. I don't know how far he got, but before it was greenlit for filming, the plugged was pulled.

For me it feels like he just took many of the ideas from the abandoned series and dumped it on "War Of The Worlds".

There were episodes from S2 I liked, like the time travel one. And the reason why Earth got targeted. That actually made sense; the aliens were scanning the galaxy and saw the blast from the first atomic tests = intelligent life.

Buy yeah, year two sucked over all.

[–] ShadowsGathered 12 years ago

Older people can remember the similar fate of 1975's Kolchak: The Night Stalker, a popular weekly horror tv show

Whoa, easy on the "older" part there, dude... okay, okay, you're right... I'm definitely a little older than I was back then... but only by, like... 37 years ... but seriously, you mentioned one of my favorite shows from back then... my father & I used to watch that show regularly... in fact, he has the DVDs and has promised to loan them to me... the fact that he's forgotten to bring them to me for the last 4 months means nothing... he promised... I'm sure he'll keep his promise... I'm almost certain of it... surely he will.

Now, am I wrong or was the series originally just called The Night Stalker? Or....... as I type this something seems to be coming into my mind... did the series come after a couple of TV movies instead? Yeah, that's what I'm thinking... there was at least one movie called The Night Stalker, then a sequel - name of that one escapes me, and then the series... which, unfortunately, didn't last as long as I would have liked... on second thought, don't even bother answering... I'll just go Google it!

P.S. Funny... back during the heyday of Kolchak, we never could have imagined saying something as silly as "I'll just go Google it!"... heh... how times change.

... the hardest thing in this world is to live in it...

[–] regularfellow 12 years ago

You are correct.

There were two TV movies that came before the series.

"The Night Stalker" in 1972 and "The Night Strangler" in 1973.

Both are on DVD, a double feature from MGM Home Entertainment, 2004.