Ultraviolet

[Captain Seafort]

The discussion about the shittiness of Twilight reminded me of this old series - which was a damn sight better. Who here remembers it/has heard of it?

For those who haven't seen or heard of it, the premise is one of how the state would respond if vampires existed.

Official YouTube homepage

[Tsukiyumi]

That actually sounds awesome. Shame it only lasted six episodes.

[Captain Seafort]

It was only ever planned to last six episodes. The creator described it as a "high-concept" series, in that once you've explored the themes arising from the basic idea, there's not much further you can go with it. The series was always more about the moral, scientific and psychological repercussions of the premise than the action (not that going after vampires with guns and grenades wasn't important).

[Tsukiyumi]

That's cool. You Brits seem to like one-off miniseries more than we do. To me, it sounded like a concept that could have at least spanned a whole 20+ episode season (series).

[Captain Seafort]

It did span a whole series.

But yeah, you don't seem to do high-concept, limited-run ideas like Ultraviolet, Life on Mars, etc. The closest approach seems to be things like B5 and nBSG, and even they're extremely long-running by comparison. I suspect that thematic difference could be the subject of a Doctoral theses if someone had the mind to do it.

[Aaron]

The recent movie was pure crap mind you, not even Mila Jo-something or other's tits could save it. The Mrs and I almost walked out of it.

[Tsukiyumi]

I'm not sure that's related.

EDIT: I mean, I think it's a different story.

[Captain Seafort]

I'm not sure that's related.

EDIT: I mean, I think it's a different story.

It's related in that they've got the same name and are about vampires. They're polar opposites in that I've never seen the film and all I've heard about matches Kendall's description.

[Sionnach Glic]

That's cool. You Brits seem to like one-off miniseries more than we do. To me, it sounded like a concept that could have at least spanned a whole 20+ episode season (series).

The American guy who runs SFDebris made a very similar comment to that in his first Red Dwarf review. He noted that a lot of British programs, even if they're considered "classics" of Brit TV (Fawlty Towers, for example) often have surprisingly short runs.

I think it's more to do with how the industries are run.

Britain seems to produce shows that from the very start have the beginning, middle and end already planned out, with an already decided number of series (seasons for you Yanks) or episodes. I think that because British producers have to often work on a tight budget, they're rather careful about agreeing to long runs for shows that may be a bit iffy in terms of ratings. So when a show like Ultraviolet here comes along, they basically say "You've got six episodes to tell your story. Make it good." With the result that, even if it's very popular, the show gets a very short run. At the same time, it means that shows that aren't really that popular but are still very good will usually be able to stagger through to their finale.
Obviously there are exceptions, such as Doctor Who (what are we up to now? Series 28, IIRC?)

American TV companies, on the other hand, tend to play it series by series. If it gets good ratings, they'll extend the show's run for another year or so, even if it fucks with whatever pre-planned plot the creator is trying to work with (B5, I'm looking at you here). This isn't always a good thing, however, as sometimes the shows are dragged out long past the point where they should have been ended and quality begins to nose-dive. The Simpsons is a perfect example of this.

Of course, my knowledge of the workings of television companies is about on par with that of your average house cat, so I could very well be talking nonsense here. But that's always how I've seen it.

[Tsukiyumi]

*snip*

That's about the way I see it as well. X-Files, for example, ran a few seasons longer than it should have. Supernatural (a very good program, BTW) was designed from the beginning to run for five seasons, but the actors are contracted for a sixth if the network decides to renew the show.

Lost (my favorite broadcast TV show) has drastically improved in quality now that they know for sure that the next season is the last.

I like the idea of shows having a game plan from conception; the whims of American network execs tend to screw up those sorts of plans (Firefly - best sci-fi ever IMO - is the obvious example here).

[Tyyr]

The movie sucked ass. I caught it on TV and still wanted my money back.

Firefly was meh at best.

[Tsukiyumi]

Firefly was meh at best.

To each their own.

[Tyyr]

I get the premise, but they brought too much cowboy too it.

[Tsukiyumi]

My first reaction when I saw the preview ads was "A sci-fi western? What the f*ck?", but my opinion changed drastically after I saw the movie, then watched the whole show.

[Tyyr]

The movie only reinforced it for me. It's decent enough to watch but nothing I go out of my way to watch.