Digger
03-24-2003, 09:54 AM
Matt Roush answered 2 Farscape questions this week. Gotta love the first sentence of his response!
Question: Can you think of an appropriate name for the award Sci Fi Channel should get for having the gall to hype the Farscape Season Four cliff-hanger as "The Series Finale?" And do you agree with Salon.com columnist Adrienne Crew that government agencies like the FTC or FCC should have stepped in to protect viewers from losing Farscape? — Stevens
Matt: This being a column meant for general family consumption, I can't be specific on what Sci Fi should be bestowed with for their cluelessness in canceling Farscape. But the last thing I want to happen to TV is for any government agency to get involved in programming decisions. Aren't network presidents bad enough? More bureaucracy, more opportunity for bad decision making. I've now been doing this column long enough to know that nearly every series, no matter how mediocre, has some fans that are upset at its cancelation. We can't start getting litigious about it. Where would it end?
And just so you know that the e-mails I get about Farscape aren't all praiseworthy, read on.
Question: It's been a pleasure to see your consistent support of Farscape. I, too, am a fan, and even found the series based on a recommendation of yours. But Matt, let's be candid. The fourth season stank. The characters were inconsistent, the stories ludicrous, the plot devices obvious, and Sikozu is the most blatant use of a deus ex machina since the Greeks had actual flying machines descend from the skies. Resonance is something that was killed with Crais last season. Suspense was manufactured. David Kemper appeared to be in some sort of one-sided competition with Chris Carter to see who could introduce more dangling plot questions in one season without answering any of them. And when potty humor is substituted for true wit, you know you have trouble. None of this fits my criteria for quality television. The series left me shaking my head with puzzled confusion, and I'm a Phi Beta Kappa with a six-figure income. More to the point, this season pretty much killed any empathy I had for the characters.
There is still a lot of quality television out there, both genre and non, and I'm not crying into my Wheaties over the cancelation. There's the Law & Order series, the CSI series, Alias, The Simpsons, 24, Monk, Six Feet Under, etc. I'm glad that Sci-Fi recognized that David Kemper ran out of ideas halfway through last year, and they are quite rightly refusing to throw good money after bad. Tremors may look stupid — but that didn't stop 40 million viewers from tuning in to see a dumb-as-a-post construction worker choose his favorite gold digger. Sci Fi is a network, and networks are businesses that need eyeballs, no matter the IQ behind them. As long as I get Taken and Children of Dune along with my Dream Team, I'll cut Sci Fi some slack. So while it is fantastic to see you champion quality TV, let's be real — does Farscape's Season Four even count in that category? Well-organized fan campaigns, in which 10 make themselves look like 10,000, aside — I think not. — Alexa B.
Matt: For what it's worth, I'm also a Phi Beta Kappa, and I also have often found myself confused (though also exhilirated) by what I see on Farscape. But even when the show goes way over the top, I feel refreshed by the spectacle of something so unrepentantly flamboyant and wild. Sikozu didn't float my boat either — but c'mon, she's better than Jools! — but to have lost empathy with the core characters? This season? With Crichton and Aeryn? I think we were either watching different shows or brought different expectations to it. And I don't buy the argument that because Joe Millionaire was a hit that all networks should start dumbing down to succeed. But I do agree that while I deplore Sci Fi execs for not giving Farscape the promised fifth season, I applaud them for going forward with ambitious originals like Taken and the two Dune miniseries.
Question: Can you think of an appropriate name for the award Sci Fi Channel should get for having the gall to hype the Farscape Season Four cliff-hanger as "The Series Finale?" And do you agree with Salon.com columnist Adrienne Crew that government agencies like the FTC or FCC should have stepped in to protect viewers from losing Farscape? — Stevens
Matt: This being a column meant for general family consumption, I can't be specific on what Sci Fi should be bestowed with for their cluelessness in canceling Farscape. But the last thing I want to happen to TV is for any government agency to get involved in programming decisions. Aren't network presidents bad enough? More bureaucracy, more opportunity for bad decision making. I've now been doing this column long enough to know that nearly every series, no matter how mediocre, has some fans that are upset at its cancelation. We can't start getting litigious about it. Where would it end?
And just so you know that the e-mails I get about Farscape aren't all praiseworthy, read on.
Question: It's been a pleasure to see your consistent support of Farscape. I, too, am a fan, and even found the series based on a recommendation of yours. But Matt, let's be candid. The fourth season stank. The characters were inconsistent, the stories ludicrous, the plot devices obvious, and Sikozu is the most blatant use of a deus ex machina since the Greeks had actual flying machines descend from the skies. Resonance is something that was killed with Crais last season. Suspense was manufactured. David Kemper appeared to be in some sort of one-sided competition with Chris Carter to see who could introduce more dangling plot questions in one season without answering any of them. And when potty humor is substituted for true wit, you know you have trouble. None of this fits my criteria for quality television. The series left me shaking my head with puzzled confusion, and I'm a Phi Beta Kappa with a six-figure income. More to the point, this season pretty much killed any empathy I had for the characters.
There is still a lot of quality television out there, both genre and non, and I'm not crying into my Wheaties over the cancelation. There's the Law & Order series, the CSI series, Alias, The Simpsons, 24, Monk, Six Feet Under, etc. I'm glad that Sci-Fi recognized that David Kemper ran out of ideas halfway through last year, and they are quite rightly refusing to throw good money after bad. Tremors may look stupid — but that didn't stop 40 million viewers from tuning in to see a dumb-as-a-post construction worker choose his favorite gold digger. Sci Fi is a network, and networks are businesses that need eyeballs, no matter the IQ behind them. As long as I get Taken and Children of Dune along with my Dream Team, I'll cut Sci Fi some slack. So while it is fantastic to see you champion quality TV, let's be real — does Farscape's Season Four even count in that category? Well-organized fan campaigns, in which 10 make themselves look like 10,000, aside — I think not. — Alexa B.
Matt: For what it's worth, I'm also a Phi Beta Kappa, and I also have often found myself confused (though also exhilirated) by what I see on Farscape. But even when the show goes way over the top, I feel refreshed by the spectacle of something so unrepentantly flamboyant and wild. Sikozu didn't float my boat either — but c'mon, she's better than Jools! — but to have lost empathy with the core characters? This season? With Crichton and Aeryn? I think we were either watching different shows or brought different expectations to it. And I don't buy the argument that because Joe Millionaire was a hit that all networks should start dumbing down to succeed. But I do agree that while I deplore Sci Fi execs for not giving Farscape the promised fifth season, I applaud them for going forward with ambitious originals like Taken and the two Dune miniseries.