Anybody else psyched for the new Galactica on Sunday night?

[NewJeffCT]

I wonder how they will wrap up the cliffhanger they left us with a few months back?

Should be great, as I thought the first half of this season was the best the show has been.

http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/

[soleft]

1. Adama certainly has the President freaked out

I'm also interested to see how Athena's going to react now that she knows her baby is alive.

[Little Wing]

6. President freaked out about what?

I forgot

[crispini]

8. Adama's fixing to drop a nuclear bomb on the planet.

Blow away the Eye of Jupiter and everyone else down there. Of course, he can't do it, cause he would kill off like half the cast, but still, I'm dying to see how they get out of it.

[Little Wing]

9. ooooo right!

thanks

[Xithras]

2. Oh yes.

I'm paranoid about the show right now though. If you haven't heard, viewership is down and because of that the Sci-Fi channel hasn't decided yet whether or not it will be renewed for a fourth season. The producers are trying to brush away concerns by claiming that the decision isn't due until February anyway, but Sci-Fi has NEVER waited until the last minute to announce a renewal...unless they were seriously considering cancelling. With viewership dropping, they're simply not sure yet how they want to proceed with it.

While the ratings aren't bad, BSG is very susceptible to "Dark Angel Syndrome". If you weren't a Dark Angel fan back in the day, it was another science fiction show that had pretty good ratings overall but STILL got cancelled. Why? Because it had very high production costs, and even its "good ratings" weren't enough to cover those expenses. The costs of creating a show are passed on to advertisers. If a show is really expensive to make, the channel has to charge advertisers more to cover its costs. If you're going to ask advertisers to spend more for show X than show Y, you MUST be able to justify that cost increase with improved viewership. Good ratings are enough to keep an average show on the air, but not expensive ones. That's what doomed Dark Angel, Firefly, and several other sci fi shows over the past decade.

BSG, with its heavy CG and massive sets, is an expensive show to make. To keep an expensive show on the air, you need to do better than "good". Right now they're just at "good", which is why SciFi isn't making any announcements about the future of the series. It's also why they moved it to Sundays...they are hoping the Sunday timeslot will pull more viewers than the Friday timeslot.

[Jokerman]

3. Frak!

The line about pretty good ratings but not enough to justify the high production costs was cited when the original BSG was canceled many yarons ago.

[NewJeffCT]

5. I wonder if the long layoffs have hurt them?

In the previous season, they had what, 3 months between new episodes, and then a few more months until this past new season... it does make it difficult to follow, especially since they don't seem to repeat them ad infinitum like they do with the ubiquitous Stargate episodes.

[Xithras]

10. SciFi's schedules really do screw with their success.

If the SciFi channel had half a brain, they'd syndicate BSG and let one of the big networks air it. The show would have WAY more viewers than it does currently, and the network would be making far more money off of it. The odd Sci-Fi "few months on, few months off" schedule that plagues ALL of their shows does definitely cost them viewers. Unlike the networks, most people don't watch SciFi regularly. When the show vanishes, they may not catch the commercials telling them when it will be back. They miss part of the next season, get lost, and quit watching.

Personally, I'm wondering what they're going to be dropping into the old Friday Prime slot. Friday Prime has only been a shadow of its former glory for the past several years (I would argue that it's been declining since Farscape was cancelled), but it seems to be completely off the air now...it's all Jake 2.0 reruns. With BSG moving to Sunday, has the venerable Friday night scifi fest finally come to an end? Dr. Who is off the air in the US for at least a year, BSG is gone to Sundays, Eureka is doing too well in its Tuesday slot to move, and nothing else is coming down the pipe. That just leaves the Stargate twins, and while I enjoy them, two hours of Stargate doesn't make a good Friday evening SciFi fest.

Though the marketed name has changed a few times over the years, Friday Prime has been around since 1999 and has run everything from BSG, Stargate, and Farscape, to Dr. Who, the new Outer Limits, Invisible Man, Andromeda, First Wave, John Doe, and even the Twilight Zone. It's always been the coolest three hours of science fiction on TV every week, but it seems to be on the way out. Eureka is on Tuesdays, and the Dresden Files have been introduced on Sunday along with BSG...that wouldn't have happened a few years back. It's looking like a venerable television institution has finally met its end. The fact that nobody cares enough to even comment on it probably explains why.

Oh, and can someone tell me WTF ECW WRESTLING has to do with SciFi?!?! It's almost criminal that on a science fiction channel, scifi is getting bumped for inane entertainment like WRESTLING!

[crispini]

11. Friday is an awful TV night.

It's the end of the week. I wanna go out drinking after work, not rush home to get to the TV. :D

[Xithras]

13. That's what DVR's are for! n/t

:)

[crispini]

15. I go back and forth between...

"I need to get one" and "I don't need anything that will encourage me to watch tv." :D

Actually, I don't want to pay any more monthly subscription fees. I should just cowboy up and look into building my own DVR, but that sounds... well... like it would take TIME, which I have very little of...

[Okiojira]

17. My guess re: Wrestling on SciFi...

...is they're going for some fast $$. As odious as pro wrestling is, hey, if it helps bring in the bucks to keep great shows like Galactica on the air, then I'm all for it. Man, I hope they don't cancel BSG - I will be so effing bummed out!

[crispini]

7. OH NO!

That would be AWFUL. This is the Best. Show. Ever!

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

4. I am.

But it given the commercials it looks like the Sci-fi channel is trying to play it off like some kind of Beverly Hills 90210 in Space. What with the cheesy pop music and soap opera style drama.

[crispini]

12. Dude. The show IS a soap opera in space.

Thank heavens they moved it to Sunday. Now I can go out tonight.

[NewJeffCT]

18. it's kind of a soap opera

with the Starbuck-Apollo thing going on & off... but, not too many soaps deal with genocide, terrorism, and religious conflict.

[crispini]

19. Starbuck-Apollo,

Madame President and Adama, and the whole Baltar-Six-Three thing they've got going on, and Cally and Tyrol, and Sharon and her baby and Helo... it's just oodles and oodles and oodles of soap-operatic-goodness angst. :crazy:

Okay, AND, genocide, terrorism, etc., I'll grant you that. :P

[Mojambo]

14. I never got to see the fall finale.

We were mired in a week long power outtage when it aired.

Hopefully I'll be able to catch a re-run before Sunday.

[Okiojira]

16. Totally!

:bounce: :bounce: :bounce: