I once asked what media franchises need to just stop, that have run their time. Now I want to know which ones DID stop, and could be restarted with new content.
I once asked what media franchises need to just stop, that have run their time. Now I want to know which ones DID stop, and could be restarted with new content.
Andromeda. Yeah, the Kevin Sorbo show.
The premise is actually great, and the overall plot until Robert Wolfe got pushed out showed a lot of promise. The poisonous factor largely came from Sorbo wanting to intentionally turn the show into campy trash, and TV executives who somehow agreed with him.
Reboot the show, get actors who won’t sabotage production, and hire some half decent writers who want to do a Star Trek-like new franchise.
It was originally envisioned by Gene Roddenberry, hence the quality of the concept.
I’ll be honest, I’ve no idea if that’s a codemnation or an endorsement lol.
I like Trek just fine, but it almost entirely stems from catching TNG episodes on daytime TV growing up, as well as the memes. My understanding was that TNG didn’t start to get gud until Roddenberry had largely been sidelined.
I’ve seen this a lot in popular sci-fi. George Lucas did it, Gene Roddenberry did it, Steven Moffat did it.
They have great ideas, they make excellent media…with a team that can on occasion say no.
I remember, I had that VHS set of Star Wars back in the 90s, the one that’s basically the theatrical cut except in 480i, each tape started with an interview with Lucas about what a genius he is. You can find interviews with the cast at the time about how off the rail he already was; Mark Hamill talks about undeliverable lines, his then wife basically saved it in the edit. Star Wars hit mythical status, Lucas was elevated to the rank of turbogod, when it came time to produce the prequel trilogy in the late 90s and early 2000s, what we got was the most disappointing thing since my son.
Steven Moffat wrote many of the best episodes of 21st century Dr. Who. As a showrunner, he is physically incapable of calming his goddamn tits. All he does is shout at you about how awesome the main character is, and over-produce inconsequential shots. There’s an episode of Sherlock that takes place at Watson’s wedding, it’s basically one long monologue by Sherlock, the bridal photo scene is shot like the goddamn Matrix. The man can write! But he prefers to just say “He’s the Dokta! He’s the coolest and most badassest of the cool badasses. His dad could beat up your dad.” And then spend the entire budget on wooshy camera effects.
Gene Roddenberry was a fantastic screenwriter, but by 1987 he was THE man. Series creator. He got a lot of what he wanted, and he wanted what any forward thinking progressive man in his twilight years wants: A group of vegan space socialists who are always right, and women in short little skirts. He was so into his vision of a post-scarcity utopia that he didn’t allow character development, and he knew his boners were rapidly running out so he wanted to sex it up as much as he could. His health declined to the point the team took over, and the show got better. They realized the cast was so damn good that all of them could carry episodes, so they started formatting it as an ensemble cast where each main cast member is the star of a few episodes a season, and they made some of the best television ever broadcast.
He also helmed the original Trek Series and it was all his concept, in the same way Andromeda is a solid concept.
A lot of the ideas of andromeda ended up in the later seasons of star trek discovery
I would watch that. I loved that show for the first few seasons.