Saturday, August 26, 2006
SciFi - How Typical
Kudos to the Sci-Fi channel executives who continue to stay the course by making ham-fisted, unintelligent programming choices. Showing the tact and grace one normally attributes to the eponymonous bull in the china shop, the cable network announced the cancellation of its once-proud flagship series, Stargate SG-1, on the very eve the channel celbrated its 200th episode, cementing its place as the longest-running American science fiction television series.Am I disappointed? You bet. SG-1 had run out of steam by the end of the eighth season, and had reached a satisfying conclusion with the final defeat of Anubis. The ninth season took a long time to find itself and its new characters. However, by the end of the ninth season, I felt the series had found a bold new direction, a new formidable enemy, and a storyline that was as compelling as it was topical.
So what now? MGM has an incredible amount of capital invested in the series, which is its golden franchise for television. Producing both SG-1 and Atlantis in the same locations allowed the show to produce two shows relatively cheaply, and new episodes of SG-1 bolstered the sales of the series dvds. A MMORGP is due to be released soon, and buzz for the show has been ever increasing. New spin-offs and movies have been discussed.
At first MGM discussed finding a new network for SG-1, and found some initial interest. Jumping to a new network would be problematic from a story perspective, especially given the increasingly in building continuity between its spin-off Atlantis. Such concerns are moot, however, as Sci-Fi decided to shoot the dead horse by stating MGM’s contract with them forbids SG-1 to air on any other network than Sci-Fi. Essentially, so they don’t want it, but no one else can have it either.
MGM has a few options. They can rename the show, which they have discussed doing for several years, to Stargate Command, and take it to another network. Or they could do something truly innovative.
MGM signed a deal with Apple last month to put SG-1 on Itunes. Should they choose to do so, they could offer the entire eleventh season of the show exclusively as an online download. It would not violate their contracts with Sci-Fi, and would create an instant buzz with the hard-core geek community as a true novelty. It’d be a bold experiment in the future viability of delivering content via the web, and one that is practically risk free, as the costs of producing the season would be absorbed through producing Atlantis at the same time and by sales of the DVD set of the season afterwards.
Stargate will find a way to go forward from this, in some incarnation. The ultimate loser in this decision is the Sci-Fi channel. SG-1’s ratings had cooled, but this was also inpart to the programming decision to run the new seasons of the Stargates in the summer, and hold Galactica until late fall. Having all three shows on one night created a programming block that was irresistable to science fiction fans. Each shows audience bolstered the audience of the next. Losing Stargate will affect the ratings of Atlantis, as the show will lose the carryover from its sister show. In turn, that will affect Galactica’s ratings.
I give Atlantis one more season. It already is starting to feel like a retread of storylines already explored in SG-1 (I for one am sick of “It was all-in-your-head” stories). Galactica will have one or more seasons after that, not from a lack of quality, but from a dearth of audience follow-through from whatever replaces the gates. Probably wrestling.
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