Text 5894, 70 rader
Skriven 2006-08-09 19:27:00 av Robert E Starr JR (6391.babylon5)
Ärende: Re: Help me out, please?
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* * * This message was from Joseph DeMartino to rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.m * * *
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Michael Malloy wrote:

> If I may suggest, I think I know why "Legend of the Rangers" didn't do
> so well. It had nothing to do with football.

If I may suggest, you don't.  ;-)

1)  "Legend of the Rangers" did OK.  The ratings were in line with
previous "B5" movies, even *with* the effect of the football game on
the east coast.  They weren't the spectacular numbers (ratings of 4+)
that Sci-Fi had acheived with previous heavily promoted originals
airing in the December-January time frame (like the two "Dune"
mini-series.)  Absent the football game the ratings would have been
somewhat higer.

2)  Comparisons of the east and west coast ratings clearly show that
the football game *did* have an effect.

3)  It wasn't the ratings *per se* that prevented the pilot from going
to series, and it certainly wasn't the cast or the characters.  The
problem was purely a business disagreement between Sci-Fi and Warner
Bros., and it went back to before the start of filming on the project.
Sci-Fi wanted to own a piece of the series, Warner didn't want tos
share its toys.  Result:  the ratings weren't good enough to justify
Sci-Fi doing a series they didn't own a share of.  If they'd had an
ownership interest they almost certainly would have taken a chance on
the series.  If the ratings had been better, it would have been worth
doing the series even if they didn't own the show.  Given that neither
was the case, they passed.

The notion that "Rangers" "failed" because fans somehow didn't like, as
evidenced by ratings or feedback to Sci-Fi, simply has no basis in
reality.

I don't believe it is an accident that after they turned down
"Rangers", which they hoped to be an original space-based novel for
television akin to "B5", Sci-Fi ended up ordering the rebooted
"Battlestar Galactica" - a spaced-based novel for television with a
very "B5"-like political/military arc that happens to be based on a
property already owned by parent company Universal.  Sci-Fi, or at
least its corporate siblings, will derive the income from reruns, DVDs,
and overseas sales - 100 percent of all of which would have gone to
Warner Bros. if there had been a "Rangers" series without Sci-Fi owning
part of the show.

Frankly I thought the "Rangers" pilot was no worse than many other SF
pilots (better than the tedious "Encounter at Farpoint" and probably
better than the original cut of "The Gathering" - the one that sold
"B5".)  The biggest weakness (apart from everybody saying "We live for
the One, we die for the One" every five minutes <g>) was the weapons
system, and that was another casualty of the pissing contest between
SFC and WB.  (The system in JMS's script proved too costly to build at
the last minute, and neither production partner would pony up the extra
money to do it right.  So what ended up in the finished film was a
last-minute improvisation, cobbled together on the soundstage from
whatever happened to be on hand.)  

Regards, 

Joe
                                                                               
                                         
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