WHATS THIS!!!? TELEVISION PREVIEW Invitation!>?

[Spacepiston]

Dear Televiewer:

You have been selected to participate in a survey whose findings will directly influence what you see on television in the future.

You have been selected to evaluate not-yet released television material that is being considered for nationwide broadcast.

You have been selected to help represent the television viewing preferences of the ENTIRE COUNTRY. We are Television Preview, a nationwide television research service, and we need your help!

It goes on...but enclosed was 4 tickets to the hotel in my area for March 1 730pm

Man if I can somehow make Farscape benefit by this I certainly will! Ever heard of it?

[DZ_Crasher]

Careful, it may be Sci-fi's SCARE TACTICS!!! Bwahahahaha

[Mivonks]

Careful Spacepiston, it could be Amway!!!

:rollin:

Matt
Another Pyramid Marketing Scheme

[Tiriel]

LOL! Scare Tactics it is! :D :D

Here's a link to their webpage: http://www.televisionpreview.com/home.htm

Most TV-shows order pilots first and test them on unsuspecting viewers chosen randomly. You get to see the stuff, maybe something to eat or drink and then you get to fill in a questionaire telling them what you did or didn't like. Depending on the reaction in their target-demographic a channel will then order more episodes or can the show right away.

There are lots of TV-shows that never made it past the pilot. Go ahead, enjoy your power :D Who knows, maybe they'll show a good scifi show and you can help it to get on the air :)

Here in LA they constantly pick people from the street and get you to watch a movie in the final stages of post-production. Then they go and change the ending, because everybody thought it was too teary or too boring or hell knows what. A friend of mine gets drafted every bloody time! He must have the typical John Doe face or something... he got to see three blockbuster movies before release within less than two month after moving to LA!

Love and Peace and Fun :)

Tiriel :bounce:

[Da-Met]

not sure how this could help Farscape... but... maybe you can write in on the reactions...

"It was good, but not as good as FARSCAPE"

"this show was really bad, not like FARSCAPE"

and so on, in similar fashion ;)

But anyways, maybe if you see some good scifi you can help it get on the air :-)

[trubador]

This may be legit. Way back when (when I was a teenager, and still livin' in Philly), my dad got one of those letters. Due to work, he wasn't able to go. I went in his place (which was okay with the people running the whole thing). I can't even remember what the pilots were, but it was one 1/2 hour sitcom and one 1 hour drama. They ask you questions after each viewing. I do remember giving a thumbs down for one and a slight thumbs up for the other.

[CB2001]

Hey, be careful. This is how "Fox Force 5" never got picked up (that was a "Pulp Fiction" reference, in case you are wondering).

[xaysana10]

Be forewarned...

I've actually been to something like this before (letter in the mail, 4 tickets to a hotel, etc.) and it was to evaluate the commercials for television shows. I ended up watching two hours of really bad television pilots just to be asked questions about the commercials when it was all over. They never asked one question about the television shows.

I've also participated in watching a television pilot before but I wasn't chosen through the mall. I was at Universal Studios and one of their researchers walked up to my husband and me and asked "Would you like to participate in a study..."

[das Monkey]

In all seriousness, beware. Below are spoilers for the event, so don't read if you enjoy being taken advantage of by scams. ;)

I'd say there's a 99% chance you will be subjected to what I call the "Pilot Scam." Yes, legitimate television pilots do undergo this process, but so do advertizers. The concept is simple: sucker a bunch of people into thinking they're evaluating pilots, and then to "simulate the viewing experience," you show real commercials at the appointed times. Then to get them to attend, you offer them prizes. What kind of prizes? Well, they give you a huge book of products (a page of tuna fish, a page of soap, etc) and ask you to circle the one per page that interests you and then hold a "drawing." The person who wins gets a sampler with all those products. Then they show you the "pilots" (chuckle). Repeat the process of the ad books and another "drawing" and add some token questions about the pilots to make you think your opinion of them matters.

The event is staged to see if the ads shown during the "pilots," which bear remarkable correlation to the products in the books, affect your product preference.

If you can call ahead, check to see what the pilots are supposed to be. Again, I give it 99% odds that there will be two: a drama and a sit-com, the same as trubador saw. The drama will be called Soulmates, starring Kim Raver who is now on Third Watch. It's a hodge-podge of scenes that were filmed to show a "tone" of what the show might be. By no means is it anywhere near finished and has no coherent story of any kind. It's very likely an aborted pilot, but for their usage it doesn't really matter. The scenes were filmed a good 5+ years ago, and there's no chance in hell the series will ever exist on any level.

The sit-com is City. It's surprisingly funny, and you'll likely want to see it picked up as a new series. It stars some big TV comedy names like Valerie Harper, Liz Torres, Todd Susman, Mary Jo Keenan, Tyra Ferrell. Here's the funny part: this pilot was made in *gulp* 1990, and they've been parading it around Television Preview for 13 years now. When they first started, they claimed it was a real pilot, which it was. Over time, though, people have realized the show is significantly dated (and none of the actors look like that anymore, particularly the lead Harper), so now they claim that it's being used to see if audiences would like to see another Harper vehicle on TV.

Anyway, go and have a good time if you like or sucker someone you don't like into taking the tickets, but considering how long they've been pulling this scam on people (I'm sure some think it's a legitimate advertizing tool ... so is telling my grandmother she won 15 million dollars and a small island off the coast if only she'd "invest" in the swampland on the island), it only seems right to let people know in advance what's really up, so they don't waste a good 2-3 hours of their life.

das

[xaysana10]

This was the event that I went to. Word for word. But I made out very well at this event because I won one of the two $150 prize packages, which is actually a check that they mail out to you with a letter explaining why they can't send the products that you circled in the book. I think the odds of winning are 1 in 200 or somthing like that.

[samati75]

thats frelling nuts. i'm all about you filling in the blanks w/ "not as good as Farscape". :ROFL:

[darius]

I want to one of those TV Preview things almost a year ago. With the same shows as one of the above posts said. Soulmates and City, I didn't like either.

They didn't serve food or anything at the one I went to either. On the questionaire they gave to fill out afterwards they had a question about what was your favorite show. Of course I wrote Farscape.

[grinner]

I received one a few weeks ago. It went right into the trash.

[Rhonda]

I've got 2 invitations from these people in the last month. As a result of the scaper community however I knew what it was about and like grinner I put in the round file. If they want me to preview commercials then they should just ask out-right. They do admit that commercials will be shown but they don't admit the "pilots" are completely and totally dead. That irritates me, even if it is legal.

[TaraK]

I think you've saved a bunch of us from a substantial waste of time.