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No luck again this week. The producers will have a very hard time trying to sell a spinoff with ratings like these.
SHOW HHR
Farscape 1.2
Bermuda Triangle 0.9
Flash Gordon 0.9
Superman 0.9
The Outer Limits 0.8
Strange World 0.7
Universal Soldier III 0.7
Dead Weekend 0.7
Yor 0.7
John Edward 0.6Source: Nielsen Galaxy Report, 4/22/02 – 4/28/02
Yeah near impossible to see a spinoff, at least on Sci-Fi. Think they made it clear they wanted to see 1.7+? Something along that lines.
This might sound a bit ethno-centric but USA is the most important viewerbase for several reasons, mostly advertising. First off Series 1 and 2 dont really matter. Any fan base picked up during that time was not casual, and those that did have a casual attatchment to Lexx had forgotton it or assumed it was cancelled due to the amount of time the passed between Series2 and 3.
Last season did really well in the USA mainly because it was a dark and creepy show about the Afterlife with these whacky characters thrown in. It was 45 minutes of *intense* action and plot.
This season took a much different turn as testified by just about everyone at some point during the season. You could argue that they were intentionally trying to ride the wave from Series3 by having the entire series4 take place on a familiar place like Earth thus getting more viewers on top of the Series3 viewers.
It just didnt work, in fact it turned away quite a few Series3 viewers. I had a hard time talking my friends into watching any eps this season, and one of them was the one that got me interested in Lexx in the first place. The most common excuse was that the show didnt take itself seriously anymore. Series 3 didnt have many “silly” episodes, but Series 4 was loaded with them.
I personally loved this season, but I do wonder how many of its US viewers were lost by the turn of events the series took this season.
quote:
Originally posted by LexxLurker:
The most common excuse was that the show didnt take itself seriously anymore.
ROFLMAO! Name one episode where Lexx, the show itself, took itself seriously!
Lexx was doing realy well when it started season 4 it was after scifi stoped showing it for a while that the viewership took such a down turn hopefully they won’t blame lexx for their mistake in putting it on hiatus
its sad to see the bang go out with such a whimper.
like lexxlurker, I also experienced a thinning of the herd in terms of previous viewers not wanting to watch it with me anymore.
clearly this situation was replicated across many homes previously committed to it. the ratings merely register this ‘fact’, and is an indication of its perceived ‘value’.
as for episodes taking themselves seriously – it depends on what we mean by ‘serious’. Yo Way Yo took itself seriously by virtue of following up on avowed themes, principles or situations – that’s why it was moving and funny. it resonated on a variety of levels, mostly accumulated over four seasons in distinct ways. as for season 4, though, the only general guiding principles appeared to be atrophy and entropy – where Lexx seemed intent on emptying iself of content or failed to develop/explore its own potential and avowals. That is a pretty serious failing, irrespective of genre or tone (whether you purport to be a comedy or drama, are going for laughs or tears, etc.). I tend to regard Lexx’s detoriation at the end of Yo Way Yo as a visible metaphor for the way the show itself ended up, and was a possible self critique by the half baked Beans.
[ 20-05-2002: Message edited by: bonnee ]
What a shame Lexx had to end on such a lowpoint, but with the shoddy treatment Lexx got from Sci-fi and some pretty bad eps it comes as not too much of a surprise.
I know I’m gonna get shot for saying this by some, but isn’t obvious why Lexx did so badly in the ratings, it did not have the drama as previous seasons, and was played mostly for laughs.
It’s kinda like Star Wars and Mr Lucas, you get these idiot critics working for the press who slam it, why…because it’s not arty enough for them, they are completely out of touch with what your average joe wants to see.
I still say the same applies to Lexx in the final season, most wanted to see a good balance of serious sci-fi (i.e Kai doing his thing ala Vlad) mixed with the unique humour only Lexx can do, we ended having far too much of the latter.
I can still feel uncomfortable after suggesting a few friends give Lexx a try, and them coming back to me after watching Midsummers, swearing never to watch again.
We have a few people who feel Lexx can do no wrong, sorry, but it has done wrong, far too many Midsummers and not enough Vlads or Yo Vay Yo’s this season.
I felt bitter through half the season, because I felt betrayed, knowing that there was a potential mass audience in the U.S who had not seen Lexx, thinking that all the newbies would catch the Lexx bug (no pun intended!), only for the realisation that most would find it a huge turn off.
At the same time I thought it would improve, as I promised my brother that he hadn’t seen the best of Lexx and it was too come…it didn’t (apart from a few rare gems), he lost interest several weeks towards the end, and I don’t think he was alone.
Squishy
quote:
Originally posted by Squishy:
I know I’m gonna get shot for saying this by some, but isn’t obvious why Lexx did so badly in the ratings, it did not have the drama as previous seasons, and was played mostly for laughs.
Yes, it lacked the drama of, say, “Love Grows,” “Twilight,” “Wake the Dead,” “White Trash,” “Eating Pattern,” or “Lafftrak,” which were all played completely straight-faced and full of dignity…
Oh, wait, no it didn’t.
quote
It’s kinda like Star Wars and Mr Lucas, you get these idiot critics working for the press who slam it, why…because it’s not arty enough for them, they are completely out of touch with what your average joe wants to see.
Well, when you take into account that the average joe has pretty much been conditioned to believe that anything made with a budget of hundreds of millions of dollars is something of lasting quality and worth, no matter how lousy the acting (Attack of the Clones features the worst acting I’ve ever seen in a major motion picture) or how poorly executed a story it may be (“Ummm…let’s have the kids frolic through some fields here, and then juxtapose that with some political debating…the kids’ll love that!” “They sure will, Mr. Lucas!!!!”), then I wouldn’t want the critics to pander to that demographic. I don’t think it’s asking too much of George Lucas to make a movie that somehow evokes the best aspects of Star Wars (and, yes, it’s Star Wars. It was Star Wars until Lucas realized that he could milk this franchise for all it was worth and re-titled it Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope, in his best revisionist tradition). Lucas likes to propogate the myth that his films have always been savaged by the press, but the first films (at least the first 2) were exceptionally well-received critically, with Star Wars being nominated for something like 10 Academy Awards including Best Picture. I don’t think that I’ve read *any* critic complain that AOTC is “not arty enough.” It’s just not as good as it could, or should, be. And the major fan excuse is that people are expecting too much — that it’s not Shakespeare. Well, if Lucas isn’t going to bother to try and deliver the best he can (and it’s far, far from the best he can deliver), then why should anyone care? The fans are right — it’s not Shakespeare. But it also sure as hell isn’t Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back or even Return of the Jedi. It’s tons better than Phantom Menace, but that still ain’t saying a lot. To say critics are idiots for attempting to discuss the merits of a film instead of just pandering to Average Lowest-Common-Denominator Joe and just saying “Well, it’s great. It’s big and it’s loud and it runs around really fast,” is just wrong.
–Aleck
Well,a spinoff is not necessarily out of the question.
I don’t know how networks work. They very well may live by the old showbiz adage that you’re only as good as your last ratings.
However, Scifi may be willing to capitalize on the fanbase. They don’t have to explain a complicated premise in depth like they do with Strange World or First Wave. And this time they have the opportunity to change scheduling mistakes.
It may be that they saw where they went wrong. Here’s hoping that they recognized thier mistake of programming solely for the college crowd(it went off the air during christmas break and came back on for the Spring semester)in order to obtain a more stable, dedicated and wider audience.
Like I said, I know nothing about running a network. It may be advantageous to avoid sweeps month. But I still agree it was a mistake to start back up with Midsummer’s nightmare.
You would think that the last episode would have been more popular. Lord knows I told everyone I knew whether they asked or not.quote:
It’s kinda like Star Wars and Mr Lucas, you get these idiot critics working for the press who slam it, why…because it’s not arty enough for them, they are completely out of touch with what your average joe wants to see.
I’m not sure what kind of reception Attack of the Clones has received in England, but my experience is that the film has pretty much divided critics down the middle. This situation is verified at rotten tomatoes, which gathers reviews from around the world (although tends to favor the American press ). The film’s current approval rating is 53 percent – when the film was initially released, early reviews had the film as high as 61 percent.
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/StarWar sEpisodeIIAttackoftheClones-1112314/[/url]As for Lexx, my feeling is that season 4 was not unlike season 2 in that it preserved and extended Lexx’s worst elements (as opposed to its best, which could also be found in season 2). Lexx is interesting because the quality and tone of episodes is often so variable. Season 4, hoever, struck me as never being able to find the right tone or sensibility, and was all over the place as a result. Well, not everywhere all at once of course – television screens being the notable exception.
[ 21-05-2002: Message edited by: bonnee ]
originally posted by Warsaw
quote
Well, a spin-off is not necessarily out of the question. I don’t know how the networks work.
Now that Sci-Fi has been merged into Vevendi,INTERNAL productions will be the lucrative course for new material (via Universal). This combined with the all-mighty recent ratings (ancient history,or what happened a month ago is of no concern)
translates into more Lexx being a VERY TOUGH SELL.On a personal note,I am gathering the distinct impression (tho unsubstantiated yet) that Sci-Fi has no plans to resurrect Lexx.It is probable that an airing of the movies, and any of the seasons in order,(and in a decent time-slot)would only happen as a re-evaluation process, if they were considering an option on new Lexx material!The bottom line is the $$$$ in proportion to current fan base(measured in ratings)
back when I had to lookfor the ratings myself(over 40 miles of hills in the snow) I remember thinking that Lexx got equal ratings for their Friday, Monday, and Sunday timeslots. This to me signals a destination show. This is what I was thinking of when I said that a spinoff could not be counted out. Sadly even with these loyal fans, you may be right. Lexx won’t even get the Swamp Thing or First Wave treatment of running in the middle of the day.(grammar?)
I would blame it on the inconsistent momentum change, but how many new episodes of Farscape have aired consistently?May I say something? Okay, the Beans wanted to go to Earth; that was their intent from the beginning ; the problem is that most Sci-Fi ends up on Earth so how do you make it different? Star Trek- Earth; Aliens Earth; etc…. And to this that one/two of the big talent ie… Ms. Seeburg and Mr. McManus wanted to moveon in their careers as well as the writers were tired of writing the same old formula dialogue. They have been working on this; trying to PLEASE YOU since LEXX’s conception around 1994 and look at how you treat them. Not only that, how about how you totally dissed the work of Mr. Kaines and Ms. Zentilli and Ms. Wischerman.
I’m so sorry you were embarrassed in frontof your friends because you deemed LEXX was not the show it was. Horse Hockey!!!! Rent or buy the old stuff and be happy with that then; stop whining about it here. And guess what? LEXX is over and you are killing the chance of any kind of Sci-Fi like LEXX.I don’t know about you but Iloved the humor of Series 4; so what about the all encompassing arcs? I give the Beans kudos for taking on suburbia in Prime Ridge; The Game and being open about everything from anal humor to war. That’s what I love about it; that they were not afraid to try out new stuff or put a new spin on the old. I, personally found the “popular eps” trite (like Vlad- you’ve seen one vamp you’ve seen them all) or even Yo Way Oh (c’mon we all knew he was going to die). I miss the option of watching a Sci-Fi show like LEXX; whether it was good or bad in relation to its past. I personally prefer the movies over all of the series; but I watched the series not because of one or two characters I thought were good but because LEXX was and is different.
If it was not what you wanted to see; well then may be you should have wrote the Beans, or e-mailed them etc… about what YOU wanted; I do not think they live in Siberia: mail and e-mail does arrive in Canada. True, they may not have listened to you; BUT they might have; now you will never know because you lack of support basically is smothering Baby LEXX before she has even lived.All this debate makes me need to listen to Dave Matthews Band. If they decide to make a spinoff, ratings will not matter because there is still all the fans out there pining for one. Look at Star Trek, people thought that it sucked in the ratings but a dozen and some years later ‘they’ brought TNG. Perhaps we’ll see a mini series that resolves the series finale, perhaps not. I hope for one, but for now let’s let all of them (actors/writers, etc.) rest.
As far as I’m concerned, Season 4 was not the best. Many of the eps were just too ridiculous. However, I still loved it. I think it was so frenetic simply because the writers knew it was the last season for the show and consequently, they did what ever they darn well pleased with it. Hey, more power to them. Among the junk, were some true gems and frankly, I miss the show. As far as a spinoff, IMO, it would have to be very different from the original. Not only because two of the major characters, Xenia(Xev) and Kai (McManus)have moved on to other things, but also because a different ensemble cast would have to have whole new story lines. Can Stan carry the show minus Xev and Kai? His personna does not lend itself to flying solo. How much of Priest and Bunny and Prince is too much? Personally, although I very much enjoyed all three characters, the Priest, Bunny interplay was beginning to wear a bit thin. Prince is a versatile character, but how far could you go with him popping in and out and being different people like he was in S3? I loved Lexx and if they figure out a spin-off and are able to sell it to a station I can get, I’ll watch it. Meanwhile, I’m going to hope the show goes into syndication and I will be able to watch the whole story unfold again.
quote:
Originally posted by Aleck:
It was Star Wars until Lucas realized that he could milk this franchise for all it was worth and re-titled it Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope, in his best revisionist tradition). –Aleck
erm, most respectfully beg to differ sweetie…way back when the star wars hoopla was fresh, lucas explained that the idea was meant to be the middle portion of three separate trilogies…in other words, he started telling the story in the middle, and eventually would go back and tell the first part of the story in three films, then the last part in three films…
by the time return of the jedi was released, however, he was tired and burned out and no longer wanted to pursue the rest…and don’t i wish i had copies of the original posters for the third film as revenge of the jedi; those would be nice little pieces of history now…on another trivial note (and no, i am not enough of a star wars fan to wage trivia wars with you guys, i just happen to have been fairly sentient when the first three were released ) , francis ford coppola was so taken with the fanaticism surrounding star wars that he was urging lucas to set up a church/cult around the whole idea of ‘the force’…coppola is always one to let his enthusiasms get the better of him quote:
Originally posted by FX:
erm, most respectfully beg to differ sweetie…way back when the star wars hoopla was fresh, lucas explained that the idea was meant to be the middle portion of three separate trilogies…
When the hoopla was fresh, and the cash was running in, yes, he made that statement. Retro-fitting. Wasn’t his intention at the beginning. On the original release prints of Star Wars, the title of the film was simply Star Wars, and the opening scroll made no mention of the subtitle Episode IV: A New Hope. When the film became a success, and he became able to make sequels to the first film, he decided to make it into a 9-picture series — and on the re-release of SW right before the initial release of Empire, he added the episode IV reference.
Of course, it took a lot of hard evidence to get Lucas to admit that he had ever envisioned 9 films in the series, as he swore up and down that there was no third trilogy ever planned. So I wouldn’t put much faith in anything he says about what his intentions were at any given moment.
–Aleck
quote:
Originally posted by Aleck:
When the hoopla was fresh, and the cash was running in, yes, he made that statement. Retro-fitting. Wasn’t his intention at the beginning. On the original release prints of Star Wars, the title of the film was simply Star Wars, and the opening scroll made no mention of the subtitle Episode IV: A New Hope. When the film became a success, and he became able to make sequels to the first film, he decided to make it into a 9-picture series — and on the re-release of SW right before the initial release of Empire, he added the episode IV reference.
–Aleck
okay, so he began retrofitting 25 years ago, when star wars was released and did well, as opposed to recently? details, details
(fx blows very moist raspberries at aleck)quote:
Originally posted by FX:
okay, so he began retrofitting 25 years ago, when star wars was released and did well, as opposed to recently? details, details (fx blows very moist raspberries at aleck)
Well, he’s been changing his story since at least 1979 or 80, at least, and seems to do so freely whenever money is concerned (which he’s admitted is the only validation he needs — that Episode 1 made bags of cash, so it must be a good movie), so I wouldn’t trust his accounts of what he “had in mind all along” any more than if he said that he never had a hand in putting together a film called Howard the Duck.
Anyway, my point was that Star Wars was just Star Wars when I saw it, and it’s still Star Wars to me now, no matter what revisionist spin Lucas put on it.
–Aleck
Go ahead with the spinoff, or just continue the show itself! Just do it syndication where horrible shows with crap ratings can survive for years.
Who cares about the sci-fi channel. As 790 would say “Sci-Fi management, please kill yourself and never come back”.
The story that I heard many years ago is what I tell to anyone who brings up the subject. George Lucas brought a story to the studio. They thought it was good, but it was too long and complicated. They said something like, “Why don’t you take a part of the story and use that?” This resulted in the production of Star Wars. When that movie because monstrously popular, George decided to make sequels and implement the other parts of the story he originaly dreamed up.
As a footnote to how unpopular Season 4 was, it seems that Contender (the UK distributors of Lexx Videos and DVDs) were the only bidder for the 4th Season and in the end they have decided not to release it in any form in the UK. Its a shame because it was a good Season, a few crap episodes but also some of the best Lexx episodes. A lot of UK Lexx fans will now miss out on seeing Season 4 and will also have a big gap in their Video/DVD collection.
Its sad to see your favourite show die so horribly and slowly….
Actually, Flamegrape, SFX Magazine a couple of years printed an article on his original scripts. They pretty much had nothing to do with the original Star Wars or the trilogy he actually wound up doing, or the one he is doing currently. It was this soap operish swamp of loose events and stellar princesses and generals. I’ll dig it out sometime and quote you, but it was hardly thrilling. When they told Lucas to focus, he focused dramatically.
Basically, the truth for Lucas is that he’s been making it up as he went along. He got lucky and he’s traded off it ever since.
The original script was more or less an EE Smith story, wasn’t it?
‘Doc’ EE Smith was a pulp writer in the 1930’s and 1940’s who wrote the ‘Lensman’
series. Great big intergalactic soap opera, the lensmen were the Universes protectors and agents of a shadowy race of primeval good guys who were fighting a primeval race
of shadowy bad guys. I’m not completely up on the Lensman saga so I couldn’t confirm or deny that Lucas’ original script was a rip off of the Lensman, it seemed more incoherent and unfocused than anything else. However, a number of people have claimed that Lucas owes an unacknowledged debt to Smith, as in fact does the Green Lanterns comics and Babylon 5.I had always thought that Lucas based Star Wars on an old Japanese movie called “Message From Space”, starring Vic Morrow (dressed in what I can only describe as a “Pimp’s Outfit”).
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