Comments on: SciFi Friday: Kara Thrace is Still Dead, Veronica Mars Might Warp Into The Future, and Extermination by Chocolate

By: Concepcion Petty

Concepcion Petty — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 04:06:57 +0000

» SciFi Friday: Kara Thrace is Still Dead, Veronica Mars Might... http://tinyurl.com/ye8kjeo

By: SciFi Friday: Doctor Who Meets The Beatles, Nominated for Hugos; Scotty Returns to Space; and Veronica Mars is No. 11 - Liberal Values - Defending Liberty and Enlightened Thought

Sat, 31 Mar 2007 04:17:04 +0000

[...] My wish of two weeks ago for Seventh Heaven to be put out of its misery has been fulfiled as word is now out that the show is to be cancelled. I bet there is no last minute reprieve this season. The fate of Veronica Mars is still up in the air with many expecting them to skip forward and show Veronica training to work for the FBI if the show returns next year. Checking the stat counters, I found that the picture of Kristin Bell in SciFi Friday from two weeks ago is beating search engine hits here for Britney Spears, which I guess shouldn’t be surprising considering that Bell has been named #11 on Maxim’s Hot 100 of 2006 list. I imagine her photos in Maxim were to get her fans prepared for her bathtub scene in Pulse. [...]

By: Ron Chusid

Ron Chusid — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 21:17:31 +0000

The West Wing was a little different situation where it went downhill after losing Sorkin, whose writing was responsible for the greatness of the show in its early years. It was worse after the intitial change in writing staff, but I think it did improve over time. At the end it never achieved the greatness of early West Wing, but then shows rarely achieve that greatness. While I never expected it to last beyond the final season, I would have liked to have seen what they could have done with another season on the first year of a Santos administration. Having new characters and situations could have helped revive the show further. Of course there is also talk that at one time they planned to have Vinick win, which would really have changed the show if it had been renewed. They said they decided against a Vinick victory as that would have been too much of a loss with Leo also dying. Despite that talk, my bet is that they would only have had Vinick win if it was definite the show would not have been renewed. If they were to do another season, I bet they would have ultimately decided to go with Santos as this would have allowed them to keep some old characters (such as Josh, Leo and Donna) to give a sense of continuity. Maybe they could have even gotten Rob Lowe to stick around instead of taking the role on Brothers and Sisters.

Veronica Mars didn’t have The West Wing’s problem of losing the person responsible for its greatness but did suffer from trying to dumb down the show in order to achieve a bigger market. Another problem is that they simply might not have been able to recreate the situations which they had with the season-long mysteries of the first two seasons. It also hurt going off to college as the social structure of the high school was a big part of the first two seasons. Such a situation wouldn’t work on a college campus as at a local high school.

They also lost something by having Veronica lose her outsider status. Going back to dating two rich kids ended this, but regardless it would be hard to believe that such a beautiful girl, who also seemed to be helping virtually kid in her school at one time or another, would remain on the outside socially.

By: democrafty

democrafty — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 19:09:52 +0000

I agree on the credits thing.

And also on Veronica – there’s been so much sturm and drang about cancellation for the past three years, I’m just sort of over it. (Or possibly bitter and cynical after the axing of Arrested Development.) I’d much rather see it go out with a bang than take the long road to suck, a la The West Wing.

By: Ron Chusid

Ron Chusid — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 17:49:53 +0000

I think that the removal of Katee Sackhoff from the credits was intentional to get attention. Beyond that, I suspect they will keep us guessing until next season.

Veronica Mars doesn’t have the ratings of a major network show, but there are many shows that could be considered successes without that type of rating. Generally great cable and small network shows, including Battlestar Galactica, Supranos, Six Feet Under, and Gilmore Girls, as well as Veronica Mars, will have much smaller ratings than major network shows but still have an impact.

With Veronica Mars the question isn’t the number of viewers but whether it can regain the greatness it had the first two seasons. It’s a long shot, but I’m hoping that someone realizes that dumbing it down didn’t help ratings so they might as well return to the quality of the first two seasons. It’s more likely the’d cancil it than do that, but we can hope.

By: democrafty

democrafty — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 17:36:06 +0000

I’ve always thought the Battlestar credits were on the odd side, since the show only lists 7 (now 6?) actors as cast members…. I did hear that Katee Sackhoff is done filming for this season, but that doesn’t mean much, IMO.

I’m really torn about Veronica. I can understand wanting to repackage the show, since no matter how great it is, nobody watches it. And I would certainly miss it if it ended. At the same time, I do wonder if it’s time just to let Kristen Bell, et. al., off the sinking ship and with their lives…