With the exception of The Simpsons, everyone's list of long-runners is a litany of crap-tastic stuff.
I don't know, maybe the true metric is how well it runs, rather than how long.
Harken: You fought with Captain Reynolds in the war? Zoe: Fought with a lot of people in the war. Harken: And your husband? Zoe: Fight with him sometimes, too.
'Bushwhacked'
The Minearverse 5: Closer to the Earth, Further from the Ax
[NAFDA] "There will be an occasional happy, so that it might be crushed under the boot of the writer." From Zorro to Angel (including Wonderfalls, The Inside and Drive), this is where Buffistas come to anoint themselves in the bloodbath.
Gus - Aug 14, 2006 4:45:18 pm PDT #764 of 10001
Bag the crypto. Say what is on your mind.
Jesse - Aug 14, 2006 4:47:40 pm PDT #765 of 10001
Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be.
Not when the question is WHY DOESN'T SF SEEM TO LAST ON TV?
JenP - Aug 14, 2006 4:47:51 pm PDT #766 of 10001
M*A*S*H ran for a long time, didn't it?
Gus - Aug 14, 2006 5:01:32 pm PDT #767 of 10001
Bag the crypto. Say what is on your mind.
No need to shout. I am sure that Tim has a well-supported argument. I am fiddling around with the defintions of "TV" and "last"-ing.
In recent years, TV has gone to larger channel numbers, for me. If Tim is doing a history lesson on TV ... nah. He is talking about current and coming events.
Cashmere - Aug 14, 2006 5:16:09 pm PDT #768 of 10001
Now tagless for your comfort.
M*A*S*H ran for a long time, didn't it?
11 years if memory serves.
Gus - Aug 14, 2006 5:25:26 pm PDT #769 of 10001
Bag the crypto. Say what is on your mind.
Grr. The audience for SF on TV is smaller because the audience for SF is smaller in the population.
SF people are not necessarily smarter than anyone else, or better in any other way. They just have the SF-gene.
Strega - Aug 14, 2006 7:26:26 pm PDT #770 of 10001
SF people are not necessarily smarter than anyone else, or better in any other way.
I didn't see anyone claiming otherwise.
I don't think that there's a select group of "SF people" who are the only ones who'll watch SF shows. That's what I tried to say before. If the audience is that limited, it's odd that so many successful movies are SF.
Lost was already mentioned; if I stick to the broadcast newtorks, I can think of Ghost Whisperer, Smallville, and Supernatural. If you're defining the genre in such a way that only cult shows count, then sure, there's only a cult audience.
§ ita § - Aug 14, 2006 9:25:51 pm PDT #771 of 10001
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.
Lost is not better than Eureka. Take that back.
It's possibly true that I lack perspective.
Matt the Bruins fan - Aug 14, 2006 11:31:45 pm PDT #772 of 10001
"I remember when they eventually introduced that drug kingpin who murdered people and smuggled drugs inside snakes and I was like 'Finally. A normal person.'” —RahvinDragand
Medium had something like 25 million viewers its first season, didn't it?
I also maintain that the idea of having a U.S. President as principled as Jed Bartlet in this day and age involved as much fantasy as any Whedon show.
Kevin - Aug 15, 2006 12:58:07 am PDT #773 of 10001
Never fall in love with somebody you actually love.
I think there's an audience more endeared to sci-fi. You know, the kind of person who'll check out a sci-fi show because it's.. uhm.. sci-fi. In a way, that audience acts as a nice bonus.
However, there's also the more casual viewer who doesn't care what speed the ship flies at, and doesn't want to know if it's one solar system or 12 and a half. Those are the people you have to reach to be successful, as they provide the viewing figures.
"Serenity" is a great example of this. A large section of Browncoats could be described as the SF audience - they were suspible to the show, they gathered around it and hunted out the DVDs, trailers etc. They set up booths at cons (me included), they did their own posters, got in newspapers, got everywhere they could... But ultimately, it didn't reach out of that audience as much as it needed to for sequels. In TV land, that'd be cancellation of a Sci-Fi show - because it failed to reach outside of the built in audience of the genre.