Curiouser and Curiouser! on tv

Why can't life imitate art a little better?

Sun, 30 Jun 2002 20:54:39 +0100

I've just been watching The West Wing and enjoying it immensely, I'm completely immersed. Then it's over and the realisation dawns that instead of President Bartlett you guys have the Shrub. Jeez what a come down...

Season 5. One can only hope.

Mon, 04 Nov 2002 13:19:26 +0000

What Farscape Character are you?

Here's hoping that whoever picks up Farscape will make series 5.

A solution to big media

Tue, 26 Nov 2002 11:45:12 +0000

What happens when you blog a Fox executive? Blox

Jonathan Peterson deconstructs the comments of Fox CEO Peter Chernin in a Comdex keynote. Great stuff. Thanks for the link to David Weinberger, who adds his own astute comments.

It all comes down to the notion that programming is scarce or, at least, needs to retain the appearance of scarcity to sustain its value. In fact, if you make connections and let value flow, the investment in programming made today can be much more profitable than it is in the broadcast model.

[RatcliffeBlog: Business, Technology & Investing]

» Folks the solution is simple:

Stop watching TV.

Stop going to the Movies.

Don't buy Music, Videos, Games, Books or Magazines.

Don't by a Tivo, DVD player, stereo, WEGA tv, PlayStation

In a couple of years all the media-related companies (and their dependents) will be bankrupt. It might teach these guys that they need to treat us with a little respect if they want to survive.

We won't do it of course...

Say no to broadcast protection

Fri, 06 Dec 2002 10:26:34 +0000

If You Love Your Tivo then Contact the FCC! Even I Did It.

If You Love Your Tivo then Contact the FCC! Even I Did It

I see that folks like Dave and Scoble love their Tivos and I hope they make their voices heard by following the directions below. The FCC has received very few comments which means we could well get digital content controls right in the TV set -- and then it'll be a short time until they hit the PC. Covered below is what to do. And, yes, even I bothered to do this (and I'm like the most politically unmotivated person on the planet.

Click here to make your voice heard. [_Go_]

,
Joe Kraus, Co-Founder DigitalConsumer.org

[The FuzzyBlog!]

I don't have or even want a TiVo (i'm looking to watch less and less television, not more) and I'm not in the US so I don't know if it counts, but I have registered with the FCC. On a point of principle I hope lots of UK people will do it.

--Addendum--

I've just had my submission rejected by the FCC because my State and Zip Code are not valid. So I guess they're not interested in what the rest of the world thinks about their decisions. That's a pity because they have much wider implications than just for the US consumer market.

Farscape no more

Thu, 13 Mar 2003 09:53:36 +0000

To Be Continued. Ive just watched the final episode of Farscape (recorded from last night on BBC2) Oh my god! Not content with... [From The Orient]

I had exactly the same experience.

I read that the stated reason for the axing was how much the show cost to produce. All I can say is that nothing good comes without cost and producing good shows is why you make television.

This reminds me of something Greg Costikan said yesterday. He was talking about games design and the way publishers will, by and large, only fund sequels to successful games & spinoffs of already successful licenses and how this leads to a dearth of innovative games.

To quote from that piece:

I'm fairly friendly with Tom Doherty, who built Tor Books from a start-up to the single largest publisher of science fiction and fantasy in the world. He has an attitude I like: There's crap you just have to publish. There's stuff that allows you to stay in business. You publish it, and you sell the hell out of it, because you know it can, and will, sell. But fundamentally, that's not why you work in publishing; there are easier ways to make a living. You stay in publishing because you sometimes get to publish books you really like.

Tom Peters, the business guru, echoes the sentiment: No successful business exists to produce a profit. Yes, you need to produce a profit; in a capitalist system (and thank god we have one), profit is the condition of survival. But profit isn't the goal; no one other than the stockholders get excited at that. A corporation is one way or organizating a group of people to strive toward an objective--but that objective, the vision they share, is always, for successful businesses, something other than mere profit.

A game publisher exists to publish games. If its managers and employees are decent human beings, a game publisher exists to publish cool games. And if they aren't decent human beings, they should go out of business instantly; there are far better and easier ways to earn a decent return on investment.

In the same way a TV publisher exists, or should exist, to publish cool TV programmes. But Sci-Fi and it's owners Universal Television Networks are just out to make a buck. Profit is the be-all and end-all of their existance. Cancelling Farscape (without a better show to replace it) proves that they don't give a rats ass about the shows themselves.

A movie? I've heard it too often.

Goodbye Farscape, you will be sorely missed.

We've certainly had a terrifying crop this year

Sat, 02 Jul 2005 10:16:46 +0100

I'm watching I Claudius like I do most years. It's fantastic story telling by the best British actors of a generation.

A favourite quote comes during the beginning of the reign of Caligula, not long after he announces his deification. Claudius is bemoaning the state of the children of Germanicus:

Herrod: You know what they say about the tree of the Claudians, it provides two kinds of fruit; the good and the bad.
Claudius: Well we've certainly had a terrifying crop this season.

How do these things happen?

Fri, 31 Mar 2006 21:06:31 +0100

At the moment I have no TV reception at all. This has turned out to be a good thing because it has drastically reduced (practically to nothing) the amount of mainstream media I am exposed to. I can almost feel the poision seeping out of my system.

I do still like to watch some sort of television when I am eating though so I still buy DVD's from time to time. A couple of weeks ago I picked up the first season of Firefly. I'm glad I did because I think it's great.

And I want to ask: How on earth did this show ever get cancelled in the first place?

Oh wait. It's good and it's a Sci-Fi show. Say no more. Please attribute my even asking this question to the euphoria of not being a slave to the TV anymore. About the only thing I will miss is baseball on Channel 5 but I guess I can subscribe to MLB Radio for my Giants fix.

Huzzah

Thu, 22 Jun 2006 18:06:12 +0100

Well my hayfever is making me feel wretched today. It was so bad I was sneezing continuously and felt like I was choking. I don't remember having such a bad hayfever day for years.

On the other hand (and curse them if this is a hoax) the net is alive with reports that my beloved Futurama is back!!

That's gotta be worth a huzzah!

Update: Chris comments that the article I linked to doesn't say anything about new episodes, so maybe CC are just getting the rights to repeats. It seems unlikely that you'd make a song and dance about that but it's a fair point.

However TheSun of all people are claiming:

At least 13 new episodes will be made for US station Comedy Central by 2008 after new deals were signed with voice-over artists including Billy West who plays lazybones Philip J Fry and John Di Maggio, the man behind robot Bender.

So I have hope once again!