NBC Universal nailing the coffin shut on Sci-Fi
I don’t understand. NBC Universal is canceling three of the best Sci-Fi shows in recent memory. Journeyman, The 4400, and The Dead Zone are all goners.
What’s the deal?! All three of those shows were good and getting better!
The last I heard, there was talk of giving The Dead Zone a final 7th season to wrap everything up, and it certainly looked like the stories were headed in that direction.
The 4400 looked like it was gearing up for a killer season, based on last season’s finale. That was one show that I carved out time to watch live almost every week!
Journeyman…. I’m so annoyed about that it’s not even funny. The decision to axe the other shows is, in my opinion, incredibly stupid, but at least they had a chance and gave it a good run. Journeyman was slashed with virtually no support at all.
To be fair, Heroes is still around, and despite a less than stellar season, I think that’s a good decision. That was probably right on the edge of the chopping block, too, though.
Network executives need to get a clue about supporting stories that take more than 30 minutes to develop. All of these shows had overarching plots that were headed for some serious revelations and need time to set up (or resolve, in the case of DZ and 4400).
SG-1 is gone… 4400 is gone… Battlestar is almost gone… what the heck am I supposed to watch this year?
Slice of SciFi has a good post about this:
From the way NBC Universal has been operating of late by cancelling “The Dresden Files,” “Journeyman,” “The 4400,” and now “Dead Zone,” it almost looks like upper management at the company is seeing genre-related products as harbingers of leprosy or some other highly dreaded disease. Their other owned and operated cable station, The SCI FI Channel has even begun showing less sci-fi and has leaned more heavily on the fantasy and horror genre, or non-genre programming such as wrestling, and so-called reality programming such as “Ghost Hunters,” “Who Wants To Be a Superhero” and “Destination Truth.”
Currently the only SF shows that have survived NBC Universal’s axe are “Medium,” “Chuck,” “Heroes,” and possibly “Bionic Woman,” however, it wouldn’t be too surprising to not see “Bionic” make a return trip to the NBC network.
IMO, Medium is really a detective show, not so much a sci-fi show. In the same sense, Chuck is only a sci-fi show in that it’s main character has a gimmick (good show, but only tangentially sci-fi). Bionic Woman, sadly, probably deserves to be axed. They’re trying, but it’s not coming together, honestly. I give them credit though, in that they are attempting to show the effect of having this new ability and role on her life and her family.
We had a couple good years lately of some pretty high-quality sci-fi shows, but it looks like that’s all going down the tubes pretty quickly. It’s back to crap-TV apparently, for the foreseeable future.
Tags: heroes, Sci-fi, tv
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