Hec, Eureka is a Sci-Fi Channel show.

We also have the basic issue: every time there's a new show, where will it be grouped? They come from all over the place -- including several on the list that are never aired in the US, and are DVD/ahem only -- and they are all different types, and there is no telling what will take hold and what won't. Intuitive grouping will have to be intuitive enough that everybody can, you know, intuit where new discussion should go, when it suddenly happens.

Realistically speaking, source is not a legit category for taxonomizing, because, e.g., Dr. Who and Torchwood go naturally together -- but one is aired in the US on basic cable, and the other is not and may never be, considering its content. I think it's possible to create simpatico groups, but I'm not sure how possible it is to create simpatico groups that can also be intuitive for new things.

I'm not looking for a perfect solution - just a better one.

This is key, I think. We've never been able to be perfect, and Tivoers or DVDers or tape-delayers (remember that??) have always had to find their own workarounds. It's one of the reasons we instituted NAFDA -- as a general-use workaround.

I'm ignoring mediafannishness. If you didn't need the term before, I don't think you need it now.

I think that, while the forum was low-traffic, you could have mediafannishness in there like -- a subtext. Vonnie and I would make eyes at each other*, and the mediafannish people would be pairing us off and writing porn about us, while the nonmediafannish would be like, "Nutty, do you have something in your eye?" Easy side-by-side parallel conversation, some overlap. It's only when we talk about blowing it up and tearing it to pieces that I worry about the mediafannishness being removed from it.

(* Sorry, Vonnie!)

As Hec says, it's only one sub-aspect of the multiplicity of Buffistaness, but it's one I want to preserve as we go forward. As many things as possible to as many people as possible (within reason)!

And to complicate things, Torchwood does not currently air in the U.S. And the new season of Dr. Who that's about to premiere is premiering in the UK, and who knows if/when it'll show up on Sci-Fi.

Honestly, without trying to sound snarky, I can't believe we're not just talking about having a general TV thread, we're talking about having several.

Personally, if given the choice between adding a Heroes thread and instead developing some kind of TV taxonomy for multiple threads, I say one narrow thread rather than several unwieldy ones with unnatural limitations.

I don't know - there definitely seems to be a good argument for a Sci-Fi Channel thread, at the very least. Or Genre-Basic Cable if you want to focus on Dr. Who running on BBC America or something. But those shows do seem to go together in a way that would provide useful cross-pollination.

I actually think the other groups kind of work too. I'm thinking about other shows which have had heavy discussion and most of them would slot in one of these categories: Due South in NonGenre, Farscape in Sci-Fi, Alias in Genre Broadcast (I'm counting it as a fantasy - maybe I shouldn't....But it ain't Spooks!)

I can't believe we're not just talking about having a general TV thread, we're talking about having several.

Well, I don't think a general TV thread would work. I think these could work. Premium works. Boxed Set used to work pretty well.

But I'm trying to think all Big Picture, and this might ultimately just come back around to having a Heroes thread.

Or Genre-Basic Cable if you want to focus on Dr. Who running on BBC America or something. But those shows do seem to go together in a way that would provide useful cross-pollination.

They do, though BBC America is not basic cable for most of us.

Due South in NonGenre, Farscape in Sci-Fi, Alias in Genre Broadcast (I'm counting it as a fantasy - maybe I shouldn't....But it ain't Spooks!)

due South is enough of a genre show to fit in the Boxed Set discussion parameters (magical realism, ghosts, mysterious snow, pretty much all of seasons 3-4). Whereas Alias was never discussed in Boxed Set.

I know it seems like I'm following you around to make piddling objections to your taxonomy, but a lot of this has been discussed in the thread before, so I'm trying to help. Also, discussions about TV make me tingly.

Good tingly?

Definitely. I could have the due South discussion every week.

I was about to ask whether it was good tingly!!

...that is not as dirty as it sounds.

I wonder if the grouping thing works for Premium, but not (to my eyes) for everything else, because Premium is a "you got it or you don't" type of situation. There aren't that many premium channels; they don't do that much original programming; you've got built-in limits while still providing a variety of shows. Also, the premium channels do not tend to pick up shows from other countries and air them, but produce their own from scratch.

We're kind of in a crazy flux with TV programming, is part of the issue, and the unresolved nature of television sourcing may ultimately confound the question of grouping. Half of SGA is watching it via ahem right now, since it has already aired in Britain, while the other half of the audience is waiting for it to air in the US (on Sci Fi) -- and Boxed Set has developed up a solution for that as we go (whitefont). We had the same problem with the Unaired Firely Episodes, and had to kludge together a last-minute fix for that. If we're going to rework how TV discussion happens, we've actually got a lot to rework. In the absence of overt reworking, we've found solutions on the small scale; it's the big scale that gets problematic.