Battlestar Galactica

Is three enough?

31 October 2006 Rob Buckley 7 Comments

I’m getting worried. As you may (or may not) know, I do a “third-episode verdict” thing here. The general argument is that a pilot episode is always unrepresentative of a series, since it has a bigger budget, the format is still a bit fluid, characters might change or get recast and so on. So shows can often become completely different once they start their runs. Usually, though, the third episode is enough to see if the show is going to be worth sticking with.

Or so I thought. But now all the big new US shows are serials. They all have running themes. And they’ve all either got good or dropped off from around the fourth or fifth episode: Heroes, Jericho, Battlestar Galactica, even Men in Trees, apparently, although I’ve stopped watching, of course. Robin Hood, depending on whom you talk to, either got really good (a regular got killed) or really bad (Robin fires pies over Nottingham Castle’s walls) during the fourth episode.

What do you think? Should I change the system to “fifth-episode verdict”? It’ll be next to useless for British shows (“Here’s a show you should have been watching. You can catch the last episode next week”). There’ll be some delayed gratification. And it means I’m going to have to sit through possibly two additional episodes of rubbish for each new show, something I’m not exactly looking forward to if they’re all like Brothers and Sisters. But I’ll fall on that sword for you guys if you want me to.

Holy frack: Last week on US TV

23 October 2006 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Quite a stupendous week in US TV for various shows that have been up and running for a few weeks. Battlestar Galactica‘s fourth episode, Exodus Part 2, shifted upwards the quality threshold for TV sci-fi by about 10,000 feet, alternating between tear-jerking tragedy (I certainly had a sniffle at one particular scene) and staggering action that probably blew the show’s budget for the next decade. If you’re ever going to give Battlestar Galactica a look in, UK viewers, that’s the one to watch.

Meanwhile, Jericho has suddenly turned properly interesting, five episodes in. Both Skeet Urich and Lennie James’ characters have revealed themselves to be a gadzillion times more interesting than anything up to the third episode had really promised. Despite a saggy middle section that featured yet another “disaster of the week”, the episode also had a promising opening as well as very, very promising ending that indicates a whole load of interesting things are going to be happening soon. Looking around at the various spoiler zones, I’d say that these aren’t false promises either. So hang in there until the fifth episode, potential Jericho viewers in the UK: it’s worth it now.

US TV

Webisodes cause trouble for BSG

19 October 2006 Rob Buckley Post a comment

BSG Webisode 1We touched briefly on Battlestar Galactica‘s webisodes on Monday: 10 three-minute dramas put out over the Internet to entice people into watching the third season of BSG. Unlike Doctor Who‘s mobisodes, these were most popular indeed, with 5.5 million people streaming them compared with the 2.2 million who turned up for BSG‘s third-season premiere. All this kind of backs up my point: if you’re prepared to invest creatively in something, even if it’s three minutes long, people are far more likely to watch it – and even pay for it eventually.

The trouble is the webisodes were almost too good: at three times the length of a Doctor Who mobisode and with a ten-episode arc, they were effectively an episode of BSG in and of themselves. But NBC, which owns the SciFi Channel, is refusing to paying any of the writers for their hard work, on the grounds the mobisodes are promotional material, not series content. So now exec producer Ron Moore and the writers have decided to hold the webisodes hostage and are refusing to make any more in future unless they get paid for their work.

Which comes to another point: if you’re going to invest creatively in something, you’re going to have to invest money as well. “360º commissioning” as it’s known needs to have a budget to match if it’s going to work.

PS Scott, over on TV Today, argues that two of the advantages BSG has over Doctor Who when it comes to making mobisodes/webisodes are “long term standing sets and a large regular cast list”, which enable the producers to film additional content when required.

All true to some extent, although it should be pointed out that the main cast members involved in the webisodes were also the main characters in the first four third-season episodes, so everything had to be squeezed in something chronic while they were filming those episodes (to find out who did what and for more details, Ron Moore’s blog gives credits and explanations).

Also, the standing sets used were short-term, rather than long-term, since they’re probably not going to be needed post episode four (no spoilers, my friends, I promise). So BSG had no real advantage over Doctor Who in producing its webisodes this time round. And let’s not forget that lovely TARDIS set Doctor Who has had for nearly three years now: Doctor Who is running out of excuses…