Why? People say weird things about almost all the networks. Like "if CW makes this show, it will be ruined" or "If CBS does this", with little thought behind it.
News flash, many things TV companies make shows that fail, more than the number that live on. They cancel it because it is their business and livelihood, no matter if a person has been won over into following a "good" show.
Shows that I have really enjoyed that have made it well on Fox.
Fringe, 24, Prison Break, and the X-Files all had great runs that even lasted for some time, all being unique iconic shows. Ones that didn't last long on Fox, but I really enjoyed while they were still in Fox would be Firefly, and Tru Calling for me.
Lots of people would probably mention House, but personally, I never liked House, despite its large popularity. But another highly successful Fox show.
Name another station, and I will show you a list of ones that were the hits. AMC, ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, SciFi/SyFy, TNT, USA, The CW/UPN+TheWB, MTV have all had good shows at one time or another that I can name if you want, and those are just the ones I have watched with any continuity off the top of my head. And they all had very, very bad ones. And they also all cancelled shows I like and felt they should have given it a better chance at one time or another. These companies do that for money.
reply
share
darrylschnell
9 years ago
I think the argument against Fox (or other networks) handling Parallels isn't about their success rate, I agree pretty much with your entire post, but how they handled Sliders. Under advertised, pushed around the schedule (if I remember correctly), episodes aired out of order, and restricting the creative team - not to mention letting Peckinpah touch it during the 3rd season.
SciFi didn't handle it much better, but at least the episodes started to be watchable again to some extent when they took over.
I'm also concerned with someone like FOX handling Parallels, because they've already been "bitten" by Sliders tepid audience response and might be quicker to cancel if it doesn't pull in sufficent ratings out of the starting gate.
If SciFi or AMC isn't interested in the show, then Parallels needs to remain on either Amazon or NetFlix if it has any chance to survive. Prime Time will kill it before it reaches the second episode, because the pilot while enjoyable was weak and geared towards a niche audience.
To the Network(s):
Ideally, I'd like to see it kept to a six or eight episode season or one or two 2 hour movies on Netflix, Amazon or Hulu to keep production costs down, spend the balance on decent writers and fresh scripts, and keep CGI to a minimum.
Basically let them keep doing what they've already done in the first episode, but give them better resources to expand on it and otherwise keep your hands out of it. It's not going to be a blockbust, but I do think it has the potential to attract a decent sized audience.
(And please - if you can't get Constance Wu back don't reboot the series or the characters; just cast a new actress)
reply
share