Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Now it makes sense

I was thinking that Fox's move of putting T:SCC and Dollhouse on Friday nights was to kill each show dead.  Then I realized that X-Files came on Fridays for a long time and the show did very well there.  Then I thought about the sci fi channel and their Sci Fi Friday promotion of the recent past.  The current lineup is BSG that is ending, two incarnations of Stargate (don't watch, don't care) that I think are ending, Doctor Who which won't be back for another year, and some show called sanctuary that I have never heard of (maybe I should hulu, but given scifi's recent past with original programming maybe not).  Fox is making a play here.  They are filling a void that the absense of these shows has created.  If it works it is brilliant.  But, it won't work, both shows will be cancelled. 

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8 comments:

Ross said...

Sanctuary is worth watching, in my opinion. But you need to go back to the beginning, as they're starting to get into a longer story arc that is going to require you to know the characters better.As for your main point - Fox has ALWAYS put their "questionable" programming on Friday nights. They always put the minimum amount of advertising into the shows, and don't seem to care when they kill them off later. I'm not sure why. Definitely a Friday night curse - I think your first impression of the move was correct.From comicmix:"The Friday night curse began with the genre-related The Adventures of
Brisco County Jr. in 1993 and was following in subsequent years by
Mantis (1994), Strange Luck (1995), Vr.5 (1995), Sliders (1996), Millennium (1996), The Visitor (1997), Harsh Realm (1999), Freakylinks (2000), Dark Angel (2000), The Lone Gunmen (2001), John Doe (2003), and Firefly (2003)."(Also, Wonderfalls, Strange Luck, and Drive fall into this category, which the article didn't mention).

Steve Betz said...

Yep -- I think you're dead-on with regards to the "why" behind the move to Friday night -- though I wonder with the rapidly expanding role of DVR and hulu -- will it begin to matter when something is on??

Ginger_sister said...

I agree with your original sentiment, which makes me sad, because many of the shows I enjoyed over the years have been sent here to die. I enjoyed Dark Angel, Adored Firefly, which by the way I did watch in it's original setting, Wonderfalls as well. Drive was becoming very interesting when the killed it, and I'm starting to be intrigued by Dollhouse. Episode 2 was so much better than the pilot. A Plague on your house FOX.....Curses!

grrrace said...

i just started watching dollhouse. the first ep wasn't great, but good enough to bring me back. i used to watch terminator. i don't know if it's better now, but somewhere along the line in season 1, i got annoyed and stopped watching...

Budd said...

Season two is much better, though the last episode was a bit slow.

Budd said...

great point. I wonder how strongly they look at those numbers. Maybe you will have production companies invest in shows and make full seasons and just sell the rights to broadcast these shows before the DVD comes out. New business plan.

Budd said...

I liked Drive and they gave it all of one episode in its actual time slot before axing it.

Budd said...

maybe they aren't doing it as a curse but as a marketing ploy. na, they are axing them.