5 Sci-Fi TV Series Scuttled by Second Season Changes

[Ubiquitous]

WE might accept as axiomatic the belief that patience is a virtue.
However, over the decades, several notable and even celebrated
science fiction TV series have failed to live up to this ideal.

Instead of demonstrating patience and prudence, their makers have
instead demonstrated radical impatience, and — after promising first
season sorties — instituted sweeping changes that, in some cases,
threw away the baby with the bath water.

Below is a list of five science fiction programs that — had they
adhered more closely to their original format — might have survived
the turbulent air-waves for several additional seasons.

In other words, these science fiction TV series were not broke, and
simply didn’t require the kind of dramatic format “fixing” they
endured.

Space: 1999 (1975 – 1977)

During its first season on the air, Gerry and Sylvia Anderson’s
1970s-era space adventure drew “amazing ratings” in the U.S
according to Dick Adler at The Los Angeles Times (January 7, 1976).
Although prominent critics such as Isaac Asimov complained about the
series’ scientifically-challenged premise, which involved the moon
blasted out of Earth’s orbit and visiting other worlds, the series
was nonetheless incredibly impressive in terms of production design,
miniature effects, and philosophical storylines.

The Wall Street Journal termed Space:1999 “the most flashy,
gorgeous sci-fi trip ever to appear on TV,” (“Sailing Along on a
Moonbase Way,” Fall 1975) while Newsweek’s Harry Waters enthused
that not since Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) had “
sci-fi freaks had the chance to trip out on so much surrealistic
gimmickry”(“Spaced Out,” October 1975).

Meanwhile, the same paper that had printed Asimov’s negative review
— The New York Times — suggested that Space: 1999 featured “what no
other TV science-fiction program except Star Trek had – good stories
and good special effects.” (October 19, 1975).

But at the end of Space:1999’s first year, however, the series stood
on the chopping block of cancellation and American producer Fred
Freiberger replaced Sylvia Anderson. In an effort to save the
series, Mr. Freiberger “Americanized” Space:1999 to a substantial
degree.

One major change was largely successful. Space:1999 Year Two
introduced the shape-shifting metamorph named Maya, played by the
charming and lovely Catherine Schell. Although Maya was a
delightful alien character, the series simultaneously jettisoned
familiar old hands such as Barry Morse’s Victor Bergman and Prentis
Hancock’s controller, Paul Morrow.

Just as troubling, perhaps, Space: 1999’s singular sense of
atmospheric, philosophical terror — in which all of space was an
unsolvable mystery that the Alphans were psychologically unprepared
to contend with — was overturned. That vision of the universe was
replaced with a one more consistent with the tenets of the then-
popular Star Trek. In other words, the marooned denizens of
Moonbase Alpha suddenly found themselves battling sentient plants,
silicon life-forms, and amazon women in cat-suits, as well as a
Harry Mudd like trader/rogue called “The Taybor.” Space:1999 Year
Two featured a lot of action, but much of it involved bad monster
suits too, a far cry from the terrifying monster of the first season
triumph, “Dragon’s Domain.”

In an effort to rival the popular Star Trek, the makers of
Space:1999 thus made their series more like its competitor, a
change which ultimately doomed the series. Instead of growing an
audience based on their notable first season successes, the series
producers fixed the things that, simply, weren’t broken.

Perhaps series star Martin Landau said it best. He told Starlog in
July of 1986 (Lee Goldberg: “Martin Landau: Space Age Hero,” page
45.): “They changed it because a bunch of American minds got into
the act and they decided to do many thing they felt were more
commercial. I think the show’s beauty was that it wasn’t commercial,
it had its own rhythm. I felt the episodes we started with in the
first season were much more along the lines I wanted to go. To some
extent, that was corrupted.”

Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979 – 1981)

Like Space:1999 before it, NBC’s post-Star Wars outer space series
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century(1979 – 1981) endured a dramatic
change from first season to second.

The first year of the Glen Larson series had been a swashbuckling,
tongue-in-cheek adventure that featured Buck Rogers (Gil Gerard) and
Wilma Deering (Erin Gray) essentially acting as secret agents in the
far-flung 25th century. In this capacity, they subverted space
dictators, battled despots like the Draconians and vanquished cult-
leaders such as Kaleel (Jack Palance). They even rescued a
“defector” from a communist-styled planet during the “space
Olympics” episode, “Olympiad.”

Accordingly, the first season of Buck Rogers felt a lot like an
outer-space variation on Mission: Impossible, only cheekier, and
with less information to keep track of.

Although expensive to produce, Buck Rogers had found a distinctive
groove, and proved popular with viewers. It even made the Nielson
Ratings top forty, all while battling the Robin Williams juggernaut
on ABC: Mork and Mindy.

At the end of the first season, producer Bruce Lansbury departed and
was replaced by Gunsmoke’s John Mantley, a talent who enacted major
alterations.

Dr. Huer (Tim O’Connor), Dr. Theopolis, the Earth Defense
Directorate, and the Draconians were dropped from the format
entirely, and Buck became a crew member aboard a starship called the
Searcher, instead. The Searcher had been assigned to find the “lost
tribes” of Earth; people who had departed their home planet after
the nuclear holocaust of the 1980s.

And yes, that description sounds an awful lot like the premise of
Battlestar Galactica (1978-1979).

Buck’s second season introduced a new resident alien, a bird-man
called Hawk (Thom Christopher), while Wilma Deering became less
assertive and much less central to the action. The second season
also the introduction of an irritating new robot called Crichton,
and saw Mel Blanc leave the series as the voice of Twiki.

Although Thom Christopher was always impressive as Hawk, and made
the alien a compelling character (much as Catherine Schell had done
with Maya on Space:1999), the shift in story-telling and tenor was
the real problem. The stories on the new Buck Rogers became wannabe
Star Trek episodes about new “civilizations of the week.” One
especially dire episode saw Buck and Wilma dealing with a golden
alien who aged backwards (like Jonathan Winters’ Mearth on Mork and
Mindy), while another involved mischievous dwarves run amok on the
Searcher.

Series star Gil Gerard was not pleased, and reportedly felt that the
season was a rip off of both Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica.

The re-vamped Buck Rogers was canceled after half-a-season.

War of the Worlds (1988 – 1990)

The premise of this late-1980s syndicated series was that Martian
invaders had attempted to invade Mother Earth in 1953, in the events
depicted by the George Pal movie. However, “common bacteria”
stopped the alien assault. But when scientists discovered later that
the aliens were hibernating, not dead, the U.S. government
suppressed the news, fearing a panic.

Instead, the U.S. army sealed up the alien bodies in black drums and
stored them at remote military installation called “Jericho.”
Meanwhile, the world at large seemed to forget entirely about the
alien invasion.

By the year 1988, however, armed terrorists found the barrels, and
the aliens awoke, stealing human form and launching a new, stealth
war (of the worlds) against humanity.

Dr. Harrison Blackwood (Jared Martin) led a team against the Martian
sleeper cell, known as “The Advocacy.” And protecting the team from
danger was the series’ most popular character, Lt. Colonel Ironhorse
(Richard Chaves), formerly a member of “Delta Squad.”

Shot in Canada and produced on the cheap, War of the Worlds
nonetheless drew a large and supportive fan base throughout its
first season, in part due to the fact that series often highlighted
over-the-top gore, and showcased some quirky humor.

But you know where this is headed, right? Everything changed for
the second season. In the re-booted War of the Worlds, Earth was no
longer the planet we know, but a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Now,
the heroes of the series were suddenly on the run from the aliens,
and without a home base.

The bad guys — The Advocacy — were also dispatched and new aliens,
the Morthren, replaced them.

The greatest offense, however, was that the series’ most beloved
character, Ironhorse, was killed off during the first episode of
season two and replaced with Adrian Paul’s John Kincaid. Paul was
absolutely fine in the role, but it made zero sense to replace a
popular character with a new character of similar type.

In short, the second season of War of the Worlds completely
destroyed the world of the first season, killed the most popular
character, and replaced one alien invasion with another. The
changes were so radical and sweeping that the series was virtually
unrecognizable, and it was canceled by the end of its sophomore
season.

SeaQuest DSV (1993 – 1995)

This Steven Spielberg –produced series from the mid-1990s began its
TV life as a serious, scientific, and futuristic exploration of the
Earth’s sea. The meme was displayed ably in SeaQuest’s opening
voice-over narration: “The 21st century: mankind has colonized the
last unexplored region on Earth; the ocean. As captain of the
seaQuest and its crew, we are its guardians, for beneath the surface
lies the future…”

The series involved the voyages of a state of the art sub, SeaQuest,
which operated under the aegis of the UEO (United Earth Oceans).
SeaQuest was “the largest deep sea exploration vehicle ever,” and
outfitted with a crew of 124 scientists and 88 military personnel.
Playing the captain, Bridger, was the late Roy Scheider.

Among the other crew members on SeaQuest were the headstrong
executive officer, Jonathan Ford (Don Franklin), head of science and
medicine, Dr. Kristin Westphalen (Stephanie Beacham), Chief Engineer
Katherine Hitchcock (Stacy Haiduk) and communications officer Tim
O’Neill (Ted Raimi).

Other notable crew members and passengers on the first season of
SeaQuest DSV included the teenage genius and computer whiz, Lucas
Wolenczak (Jonathan Brandis) and Darwin, a dolphin who could
communicate verbally with Bridger and the others using an instrument
called a “vocorder.”

During the first season there was a dedicated attempt every week on
SeaQuest to marry a hard-science concept or mission with some small
but fantastical aspect of the sci-fi genre. In “Treasure of the
Mind,” for instance, the SeaQuest discovered the lost Great Library
of Alexandria intact at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. Another
story (“Games”) saw the sub exploring the polar ice caps.

Finally, each episode of the first season ended with a brief
epilogue featuring the series’ science adviser, oceanographer Dr.
Robert Ballard. His monologues would always point out how specific
aspects of the episode were based on fact; and then encourage
viewers to learn more about the subject.

But reality and science went out the window in the dramatically re-
vamped second season.

Fully half the cast was axed from the show, including Stacy Haiduk,
John D’Aquino, Stephanie Beacham. Worse, their replacement
characters were obvious rejects from the Star Trek universe. The
new doctor had Counselor Troi-like empathic powers, for instance,
and other characters were genetically-engineered “resident” aliens
called “Daggers.”

Once more, the real problem, however, was not the cast-changes, but
the shift in storytelling style. The second season found the
SeaQuest encountering giant sea monsters and on one wretched
occasion, the Greek God, Poseidon/Neptune.

In a notorious with the Orlando Sentinel on September 13, 1994 star
Roy Scheider lambasted the new direction of Sea Quest. He said he
was “ashamed” of the series, and noted that the new stories were
“junk.” He also said that the series was “not even good fantasy. I
mean Star Trek does this stuff much better than we can do it. To me
the show is now 21 Jump Street meets Star Dreck.”

Dark Angel (2000 – 2002)

Long before Avatar, James Cameron produced this sci-fi series with
writing partner Charles Eglee, and Jessica Alba starred as “Max,” a
genetically-enhanced woman born of Project Manticore.” Max, a
“transgen” lived in an economically depressed and EMG-ravaged
Seattle of the year 2020.

In this dystopian future, the United States had become a third-world
country with its treasures sold off to the highest bidders. The
series also anticipated the use of automated military drones in
combat, and featured a Seattle run by a “protectorate” of corrupt
agencies.

The first season of Dark Angel was extremely grounded in gritty
reality, and saw Max working with a resourceful journalist/crusader,
Logan Cale (Michael Weatherly) known as “Eyes Only.” He called
himself “the only free voice left in” Seattle, and made it his
business to expose the corrupt. Cale ran a version of WikiLeaks
before such a thing existed.

Although initial ratings were strong — in the realm of 17 million
viewers for the premiere episode — Dark Angel was barely renewed by
Fox for a second season. And that second season was quite different
in style and feel from the first, a veritable dumbing down or
lobotomy of the premise.

Suddenly, Max became surrounded by other genetic mutations — the
equivalent of “resident aliens” – and had to care for a chimera
creature called Joshua (Kevin Durand), a dog-boy of sorts. This
dreadful character offered lame comic relief and in one terrible
episode (“Medium is the Message”) ate a tube of paint.

In just one season, the show went from being a smart exploration of
dystopia, military rule, and economic depression to a partially-
comedic effort that ramped up the romantic angles, and featured a
love triangle between Logan, Max, and future Supernatural star
Jensen Ackles, as a transgen named Alec. Similarly, many supporting
cast members from the first season were either axed or given
substantially less screen-time than before.

Today, history might remember Space:1999, Buck Rogers in the 25th
Century, War of the Worlds, SeaQuest DSV, and Dark Angel quite
differently if their second season re-vamps had not so radically
altered the very qualities that made the programs successes in the
first place.

These series — trees cut down in winter, as it were — weren’t broken
to begin with, and history now records that many of these efforts to
“fix them” were misguided…or worse, the very reason they were
cancelled.

[Rhino]

Post by Ubiquitous
WE might accept as axiomatic the belief that patience is a virtue.
However, over the decades, several notable and even celebrated
science fiction TV series have failed to live up to this ideal.
Instead of demonstrating patience and prudence, their makers have
instead demonstrated radical impatience, and — after promising first
season sorties — instituted sweeping changes that, in some cases,
threw away the baby with the bath water.
Below is a list of five science fiction programs that — had they
adhered more closely to their original format — might have survived
the turbulent air-waves for several additional seasons.
In other words, these science fiction TV series were not broke, and
simply didn’t require the kind of dramatic format “fixing” they
endured.
Space: 1999 (1975 – 1977)
During its first season on the air, Gerry and Sylvia Anderson’s
1970s-era space adventure drew “amazing ratings” in the U.S
according to Dick Adler at The Los Angeles Times (January 7, 1976).
Although prominent critics such as Isaac Asimov complained about the
series’ scientifically-challenged premise, which involved the moon
blasted out of Earth’s orbit and visiting other worlds, the series
was nonetheless incredibly impressive in terms of production design,
miniature effects, and philosophical storylines.
The Wall Street Journal termed Space:1999 “the most flashy,
gorgeous sci-fi trip ever to appear on TV,” (“Sailing Along on a
Moonbase Way,” Fall 1975) while Newsweek’s Harry Waters enthused
that not since Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) had “
sci-fi freaks had the chance to trip out on so much surrealistic
gimmickry”(“Spaced Out,” October 1975).
Meanwhile, the same paper that had printed Asimov’s negative review
— The New York Times — suggested that Space: 1999 featured “what no
other TV science-fiction program except Star Trek had – good stories
and good special effects.” (October 19, 1975).
But at the end of Space:1999’s first year, however, the series stood
on the chopping block of cancellation and American producer Fred
Freiberger replaced Sylvia Anderson. In an effort to save the
series, Mr. Freiberger “Americanized” Space:1999 to a substantial
degree.
One major change was largely successful. Space:1999 Year Two
introduced the shape-shifting metamorph named Maya, played by the
charming and lovely Catherine Schell. Although Maya was a
delightful alien character, the series simultaneously jettisoned
familiar old hands such as Barry Morse’s Victor Bergman and Prentis
Hancock’s controller, Paul Morrow.
Just as troubling, perhaps, Space: 1999’s singular sense of
atmospheric, philosophical terror — in which all of space was an
unsolvable mystery that the Alphans were psychologically unprepared
to contend with — was overturned. That vision of the universe was
replaced with a one more consistent with the tenets of the then-
popular Star Trek. In other words, the marooned denizens of
Moonbase Alpha suddenly found themselves battling sentient plants,
silicon life-forms, and amazon women in cat-suits, as well as a
Harry Mudd like trader/rogue called “The Taybor.” Space:1999 Year
Two featured a lot of action, but much of it involved bad monster
suits too, a far cry from the terrifying monster of the first season
triumph, “Dragon’s Domain.”
In an effort to rival the popular Star Trek, the makers of
Space:1999 thus made their series more like its competitor, a
change which ultimately doomed the series. Instead of growing an
audience based on their notable first season successes, the series
producers fixed the things that, simply, weren’t broken.
Perhaps series star Martin Landau said it best. He told Starlog in
July of 1986 (Lee Goldberg: “Martin Landau: Space Age Hero,” page
45.): “They changed it because a bunch of American minds got into
the act and they decided to do many thing they felt were more
commercial. I think the show’s beauty was that it wasn’t commercial,
it had its own rhythm. I felt the episodes we started with in the
first season were much more along the lines I wanted to go. To some
extent, that was corrupted.”
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979 – 1981)
Like Space:1999 before it, NBC’s post-Star Wars outer space series
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century(1979 – 1981) endured a dramatic
change from first season to second.
The first year of the Glen Larson series had been a swashbuckling,
tongue-in-cheek adventure that featured Buck Rogers (Gil Gerard) and
Wilma Deering (Erin Gray) essentially acting as secret agents in the
far-flung 25th century. In this capacity, they subverted space
dictators, battled despots like the Draconians and vanquished cult-
leaders such as Kaleel (Jack Palance). They even rescued a
“defector” from a communist-styled planet during the “space
Olympics” episode, “Olympiad.”
Accordingly, the first season of Buck Rogers felt a lot like an
outer-space variation on Mission: Impossible, only cheekier, and
with less information to keep track of.
Although expensive to produce, Buck Rogers had found a distinctive
groove, and proved popular with viewers. It even made the Nielson
Ratings top forty, all while battling the Robin Williams juggernaut
on ABC: Mork and Mindy.
At the end of the first season, producer Bruce Lansbury departed and
was replaced by Gunsmoke’s John Mantley, a talent who enacted major
alterations.
Dr. Huer (Tim O’Connor), Dr. Theopolis, the Earth Defense
Directorate, and the Draconians were dropped from the format
entirely, and Buck became a crew member aboard a starship called the
Searcher, instead. The Searcher had been assigned to find the “lost
tribes” of Earth; people who had departed their home planet after
the nuclear holocaust of the 1980s.
And yes, that description sounds an awful lot like the premise of
Battlestar Galactica (1978-1979).
Buck’s second season introduced a new resident alien, a bird-man
called Hawk (Thom Christopher), while Wilma Deering became less
assertive and much less central to the action. The second season
also the introduction of an irritating new robot called Crichton,
and saw Mel Blanc leave the series as the voice of Twiki.
Although Thom Christopher was always impressive as Hawk, and made
the alien a compelling character (much as Catherine Schell had done
with Maya on Space:1999), the shift in story-telling and tenor was
the real problem. The stories on the new Buck Rogers became wannabe
Star Trek episodes about new “civilizations of the week.” One
especially dire episode saw Buck and Wilma dealing with a golden
alien who aged backwards (like Jonathan Winters’ Mearth on Mork and
Mindy), while another involved mischievous dwarves run amok on the
Searcher.
Series star Gil Gerard was not pleased, and reportedly felt that the
season was a rip off of both Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica.
The re-vamped Buck Rogers was canceled after half-a-season.
War of the Worlds (1988 – 1990)
The premise of this late-1980s syndicated series was that Martian
invaders had attempted to invade Mother Earth in 1953, in the events
depicted by the George Pal movie. However, “common bacteria”
stopped the alien assault. But when scientists discovered later that
the aliens were hibernating, not dead, the U.S. government
suppressed the news, fearing a panic.
Instead, the U.S. army sealed up the alien bodies in black drums and
stored them at remote military installation called “Jericho.”
Meanwhile, the world at large seemed to forget entirely about the
alien invasion.
By the year 1988, however, armed terrorists found the barrels, and
the aliens awoke, stealing human form and launching a new, stealth
war (of the worlds) against humanity.
Dr. Harrison Blackwood (Jared Martin) led a team against the Martian
sleeper cell, known as “The Advocacy.” And protecting the team from
danger was the series’ most popular character, Lt. Colonel Ironhorse
(Richard Chaves), formerly a member of “Delta Squad.”
Shot in Canada and produced on the cheap, War of the Worlds
nonetheless drew a large and supportive fan base throughout its
first season, in part due to the fact that series often highlighted
over-the-top gore, and showcased some quirky humor.
But you know where this is headed, right? Everything changed for
the second season. In the re-booted War of the Worlds, Earth was no
longer the planet we know, but a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Now,
the heroes of the series were suddenly on the run from the aliens,
and without a home base.
The bad guys — The Advocacy — were also dispatched and new aliens,
the Morthren, replaced them.
The greatest offense, however, was that the series’ most beloved
character, Ironhorse, was killed off during the first episode of
season two and replaced with Adrian Paul’s John Kincaid. Paul was
absolutely fine in the role, but it made zero sense to replace a
popular character with a new character of similar type.
In short, the second season of War of the Worlds completely
destroyed the world of the first season, killed the most popular
character, and replaced one alien invasion with another. The
changes were so radical and sweeping that the series was virtually
unrecognizable, and it was canceled by the end of its sophomore
season.
SeaQuest DSV (1993 – 1995)
This Steven Spielberg –produced series from the mid-1990s began its
TV life as a serious, scientific, and futuristic exploration of the
Earth’s sea. The meme was displayed ably in SeaQuest’s opening
voice-over narration: “The 21st century: mankind has colonized the
last unexplored region on Earth; the ocean. As captain of the
seaQuest and its crew, we are its guardians, for beneath the surface
lies the future…”
The series involved the voyages of a state of the art sub, SeaQuest,
which operated under the aegis of the UEO (United Earth Oceans).
SeaQuest was “the largest deep sea exploration vehicle ever,” and
outfitted with a crew of 124 scientists and 88 military personnel.
Playing the captain, Bridger, was the late Roy Scheider.
Among the other crew members on SeaQuest were the headstrong
executive officer, Jonathan Ford (Don Franklin), head of science and
medicine, Dr. Kristin Westphalen (Stephanie Beacham), Chief Engineer
Katherine Hitchcock (Stacy Haiduk) and communications officer Tim
O’Neill (Ted Raimi).
Other notable crew members and passengers on the first season of
SeaQuest DSV included the teenage genius and computer whiz, Lucas
Wolenczak (Jonathan Brandis) and Darwin, a dolphin who could
communicate verbally with Bridger and the others using an instrument
called a “vocorder.”
During the first season there was a dedicated attempt every week on
SeaQuest to marry a hard-science concept or mission with some small
but fantastical aspect of the sci-fi genre. In “Treasure of the
Mind,” for instance, the SeaQuest discovered the lost Great Library
of Alexandria intact at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. Another
story (“Games”) saw the sub exploring the polar ice caps.
Finally, each episode of the first season ended with a brief
epilogue featuring the series’ science adviser, oceanographer Dr.
Robert Ballard. His monologues would always point out how specific
aspects of the episode were based on fact; and then encourage
viewers to learn more about the subject.
But reality and science went out the window in the dramatically re-
vamped second season.
Fully half the cast was axed from the show, including Stacy Haiduk,
John D’Aquino, Stephanie Beacham. Worse, their replacement
characters were obvious rejects from the Star Trek universe. The
new doctor had Counselor Troi-like empathic powers, for instance,
and other characters were genetically-engineered “resident” aliens
called “Daggers.”
Once more, the real problem, however, was not the cast-changes, but
the shift in storytelling style. The second season found the
SeaQuest encountering giant sea monsters and on one wretched
occasion, the Greek God, Poseidon/Neptune.
In a notorious with the Orlando Sentinel on September 13, 1994 star
Roy Scheider lambasted the new direction of Sea Quest. He said he
was “ashamed” of the series, and noted that the new stories were
“junk.” He also said that the series was “not even good fantasy. I
mean Star Trek does this stuff much better than we can do it. To me
the show is now 21 Jump Street meets Star Dreck.”
Dark Angel (2000 – 2002)
Long before Avatar, James Cameron produced this sci-fi series with
writing partner Charles Eglee, and Jessica Alba starred as “Max,” a
genetically-enhanced woman born of Project Manticore.” Max, a
“transgen” lived in an economically depressed and EMG-ravaged
Seattle of the year 2020.
In this dystopian future, the United States had become a third-world
country with its treasures sold off to the highest bidders. The
series also anticipated the use of automated military drones in
combat, and featured a Seattle run by a “protectorate” of corrupt
agencies.
The first season of Dark Angel was extremely grounded in gritty
reality, and saw Max working with a resourceful journalist/crusader,
Logan Cale (Michael Weatherly) known as “Eyes Only.” He called
himself “the only free voice left in” Seattle, and made it his
business to expose the corrupt. Cale ran a version of WikiLeaks
before such a thing existed.
Although initial ratings were strong — in the realm of 17 million
viewers for the premiere episode — Dark Angel was barely renewed by
Fox for a second season. And that second season was quite different
in style and feel from the first, a veritable dumbing down or
lobotomy of the premise.
Suddenly, Max became surrounded by other genetic mutations — the
equivalent of “resident aliens” – and had to care for a chimera
creature called Joshua (Kevin Durand), a dog-boy of sorts. This
dreadful character offered lame comic relief and in one terrible
episode (“Medium is the Message”) ate a tube of paint.
In just one season, the show went from being a smart exploration of
dystopia, military rule, and economic depression to a partially-
comedic effort that ramped up the romantic angles, and featured a
love triangle between Logan, Max, and future Supernatural star
Jensen Ackles, as a transgen named Alec. Similarly, many supporting
cast members from the first season were either axed or given
substantially less screen-time than before.
Today, history might remember Space:1999, Buck Rogers in the 25th
Century, War of the Worlds, SeaQuest DSV, and Dark Angel quite
differently if their second season re-vamps had not so radically
altered the very qualities that made the programs successes in the
first place.
These series — trees cut down in winter, as it were — weren’t broken
to begin with, and history now records that many of these efforts to
“fix them” were misguided…or worse, the very reason they were
cancelled.

I think I can offer an example of a show that got BETTER after a revamp.

I have only dim recollections at this point but Lost in Space had a
major revamp too in Season 2. As I recall, Season 1 found them on the
planet they had landed in the pilot (or second episode) for the entire
season. I remember being disappointed that they weren't seeing any other
planets. But then, in Season 2, starting very early on, they started
travelling to other stars and planets and hardly ever spent more than
one episode on a given planet. At the time, I thought that was a big
improvement. Lost in Space ran three seasons didn't it? If so, that is
one longer than the other examples listed.

Mind you, I was only a kid when all this took place and had different
sensibilities than I do today. If I were watching the show for the first
time as an adult, I might be more distressed than pleased that they'd
started gallivanting around the universe instead of staying put on tthe
original planet. Or not.

[anim8rfsk]

Post by Rhino

Post by Ubiquitous
WE might accept as axiomatic the belief that patience is a virtue.
However, over the decades, several notable and even celebrated
science fiction TV series have failed to live up to this ideal.
Instead of demonstrating patience and prudence, their makers have
instead demonstrated radical impatience, and — after promising first
season sorties — instituted sweeping changes that, in some cases,
threw away the baby with the bath water.
Below is a list of five science fiction programs that — had they
adhered more closely to their original format — might have survived
the turbulent air-waves for several additional seasons.
In other words, these science fiction TV series were not broke, and
simply didn’t require the kind of dramatic format “fixing” they
endured.
Space: 1999 (1975 – 1977)
During its first season on the air, Gerry and Sylvia Anderson’s
1970s-era space adventure drew “amazing ratings” in the U.S
according to Dick Adler at The Los Angeles Times (January 7, 1976).
Although prominent critics such as Isaac Asimov complained about the
series’ scientifically-challenged premise, which involved the moon
blasted out of Earth’s orbit and visiting other worlds, the series
was nonetheless incredibly impressive in terms of production design,
miniature effects, and philosophical storylines.
The Wall Street Journal termed Space:1999 “the most flashy,
gorgeous sci-fi trip ever to appear on TV,” (“Sailing Along on a
Moonbase Way,” Fall 1975) while Newsweek’s Harry Waters enthused
that not since Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) had “
sci-fi freaks had the chance to trip out on so much surrealistic
gimmickry”(“Spaced Out,” October 1975).
Meanwhile, the same paper that had printed Asimov’s negative review
— The New York Times — suggested that Space: 1999 featured “what no
other TV science-fiction program except Star Trek had – good stories
and good special effects.” (October 19, 1975).
But at the end of Space:1999’s first year, however, the series stood
on the chopping block of cancellation and American producer Fred
Freiberger replaced Sylvia Anderson. In an effort to save the
series, Mr. Freiberger “Americanized” Space:1999 to a substantial
degree.
One major change was largely successful. Space:1999 Year Two
introduced the shape-shifting metamorph named Maya, played by the
charming and lovely Catherine Schell. Although Maya was a
delightful alien character, the series simultaneously jettisoned
familiar old hands such as Barry Morse’s Victor Bergman and Prentis
Hancock’s controller, Paul Morrow.
Just as troubling, perhaps, Space: 1999’s singular sense of
atmospheric, philosophical terror — in which all of space was an
unsolvable mystery that the Alphans were psychologically unprepared
to contend with — was overturned. That vision of the universe was
replaced with a one more consistent with the tenets of the then-
popular Star Trek. In other words, the marooned denizens of
Moonbase Alpha suddenly found themselves battling sentient plants,
silicon life-forms, and amazon women in cat-suits, as well as a
Harry Mudd like trader/rogue called “The Taybor.” Space:1999 Year
Two featured a lot of action, but much of it involved bad monster
suits too, a far cry from the terrifying monster of the first season
triumph, “Dragon’s Domain.”
In an effort to rival the popular Star Trek, the makers of
Space:1999 thus made their series more like its competitor, a
change which ultimately doomed the series. Instead of growing an
audience based on their notable first season successes, the series
producers fixed the things that, simply, weren’t broken.
Perhaps series star Martin Landau said it best. He told Starlog in
July of 1986 (Lee Goldberg: “Martin Landau: Space Age Hero,” page
45.): “They changed it because a bunch of American minds got into
the act and they decided to do many thing they felt were more
commercial. I think the show’s beauty was that it wasn’t commercial,
it had its own rhythm. I felt the episodes we started with in the
first season were much more along the lines I wanted to go. To some
extent, that was corrupted.”
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979 – 1981)
Like Space:1999 before it, NBC’s post-Star Wars outer space series
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century(1979 – 1981) endured a dramatic
change from first season to second.
The first year of the Glen Larson series had been a swashbuckling,
tongue-in-cheek adventure that featured Buck Rogers (Gil Gerard) and
Wilma Deering (Erin Gray) essentially acting as secret agents in the
far-flung 25th century. In this capacity, they subverted space
dictators, battled despots like the Draconians and vanquished cult-
leaders such as Kaleel (Jack Palance). They even rescued a
“defector” from a communist-styled planet during the “space
Olympics” episode, “Olympiad.”
Accordingly, the first season of Buck Rogers felt a lot like an
outer-space variation on Mission: Impossible, only cheekier, and
with less information to keep track of.
Although expensive to produce, Buck Rogers had found a distinctive
groove, and proved popular with viewers. It even made the Nielson
Ratings top forty, all while battling the Robin Williams juggernaut
on ABC: Mork and Mindy.
At the end of the first season, producer Bruce Lansbury departed and
was replaced by Gunsmoke’s John Mantley, a talent who enacted major
alterations.
Dr. Huer (Tim O’Connor), Dr. Theopolis, the Earth Defense
Directorate, and the Draconians were dropped from the format
entirely, and Buck became a crew member aboard a starship called the
Searcher, instead. The Searcher had been assigned to find the “lost
tribes” of Earth; people who had departed their home planet after
the nuclear holocaust of the 1980s.
And yes, that description sounds an awful lot like the premise of
Battlestar Galactica (1978-1979).
Buck’s second season introduced a new resident alien, a bird-man
called Hawk (Thom Christopher), while Wilma Deering became less
assertive and much less central to the action. The second season
also the introduction of an irritating new robot called Crichton,
and saw Mel Blanc leave the series as the voice of Twiki.
Although Thom Christopher was always impressive as Hawk, and made
the alien a compelling character (much as Catherine Schell had done
with Maya on Space:1999), the shift in story-telling and tenor was
the real problem. The stories on the new Buck Rogers became wannabe
Star Trek episodes about new “civilizations of the week.” One
especially dire episode saw Buck and Wilma dealing with a golden
alien who aged backwards (like Jonathan Winters’ Mearth on Mork and
Mindy), while another involved mischievous dwarves run amok on the
Searcher.
Series star Gil Gerard was not pleased, and reportedly felt that the
season was a rip off of both Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica.
The re-vamped Buck Rogers was canceled after half-a-season.
War of the Worlds (1988 – 1990)
The premise of this late-1980s syndicated series was that Martian
invaders had attempted to invade Mother Earth in 1953, in the events
depicted by the George Pal movie. However, “common bacteria”
stopped the alien assault. But when scientists discovered later that
the aliens were hibernating, not dead, the U.S. government
suppressed the news, fearing a panic.
Instead, the U.S. army sealed up the alien bodies in black drums and
stored them at remote military installation called “Jericho.”
Meanwhile, the world at large seemed to forget entirely about the
alien invasion.
By the year 1988, however, armed terrorists found the barrels, and
the aliens awoke, stealing human form and launching a new, stealth
war (of the worlds) against humanity.
Dr. Harrison Blackwood (Jared Martin) led a team against the Martian
sleeper cell, known as “The Advocacy.” And protecting the team from
danger was the series’ most popular character, Lt. Colonel Ironhorse
(Richard Chaves), formerly a member of “Delta Squad.”
Shot in Canada and produced on the cheap, War of the Worlds
nonetheless drew a large and supportive fan base throughout its
first season, in part due to the fact that series often highlighted
over-the-top gore, and showcased some quirky humor.
But you know where this is headed, right? Everything changed for
the second season. In the re-booted War of the Worlds, Earth was no
longer the planet we know, but a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Now,
the heroes of the series were suddenly on the run from the aliens,
and without a home base.
The bad guys — The Advocacy — were also dispatched and new aliens,
the Morthren, replaced them.
The greatest offense, however, was that the series’ most beloved
character, Ironhorse, was killed off during the first episode of
season two and replaced with Adrian Paul’s John Kincaid. Paul was
absolutely fine in the role, but it made zero sense to replace a
popular character with a new character of similar type.
In short, the second season of War of the Worlds completely
destroyed the world of the first season, killed the most popular
character, and replaced one alien invasion with another. The
changes were so radical and sweeping that the series was virtually
unrecognizable, and it was canceled by the end of its sophomore
season.
SeaQuest DSV (1993 – 1995)
This Steven Spielberg –produced series from the mid-1990s began its
TV life as a serious, scientific, and futuristic exploration of the
Earth’s sea. The meme was displayed ably in SeaQuest’s opening
voice-over narration: “The 21st century: mankind has colonized the
last unexplored region on Earth; the ocean. As captain of the
seaQuest and its crew, we are its guardians, for beneath the surface
lies the future
”
The series involved the voyages of a state of the art sub, SeaQuest,
which operated under the aegis of the UEO (United Earth Oceans).
SeaQuest was “the largest deep sea exploration vehicle ever,” and
outfitted with a crew of 124 scientists and 88 military personnel.
Playing the captain, Bridger, was the late Roy Scheider.
Among the other crew members on SeaQuest were the headstrong
executive officer, Jonathan Ford (Don Franklin), head of science and
medicine, Dr. Kristin Westphalen (Stephanie Beacham), Chief Engineer
Katherine Hitchcock (Stacy Haiduk) and communications officer Tim
O’Neill (Ted Raimi).
Other notable crew members and passengers on the first season of
SeaQuest DSV included the teenage genius and computer whiz, Lucas
Wolenczak (Jonathan Brandis) and Darwin, a dolphin who could
communicate verbally with Bridger and the others using an instrument
called a “vocorder.”
During the first season there was a dedicated attempt every week on
SeaQuest to marry a hard-science concept or mission with some small
but fantastical aspect of the sci-fi genre. In “Treasure of the
Mind,” for instance, the SeaQuest discovered the lost Great Library
of Alexandria intact at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. Another
story (“Games”) saw the sub exploring the polar ice caps.
Finally, each episode of the first season ended with a brief
epilogue featuring the series’ science adviser, oceanographer Dr.
Robert Ballard. His monologues would always point out how specific
aspects of the episode were based on fact; and then encourage
viewers to learn more about the subject.
But reality and science went out the window in the dramatically re-
vamped second season.
Fully half the cast was axed from the show, including Stacy Haiduk,
John D’Aquino, Stephanie Beacham. Worse, their replacement
characters were obvious rejects from the Star Trek universe. The
new doctor had Counselor Troi-like empathic powers, for instance,
and other characters were genetically-engineered “resident” aliens
called “Daggers.”
Once more, the real problem, however, was not the cast-changes, but
the shift in storytelling style. The second season found the
SeaQuest encountering giant sea monsters and on one wretched
occasion, the Greek God, Poseidon/Neptune.
In a notorious with the Orlando Sentinel on September 13, 1994 star
Roy Scheider lambasted the new direction of Sea Quest. He said he
was “ashamed” of the series, and noted that the new stories were
“junk.” He also said that the series was “not even good fantasy. I
mean Star Trek does this stuff much better than we can do it. To me
the show is now 21 Jump Street meets Star Dreck.”
Dark Angel (2000 – 2002)
Long before Avatar, James Cameron produced this sci-fi series with
writing partner Charles Eglee, and Jessica Alba starred as “Max,” a
genetically-enhanced woman born of Project Manticore.” Max, a
“transgen” lived in an economically depressed and EMG-ravaged
Seattle of the year 2020.
In this dystopian future, the United States had become a third-world
country with its treasures sold off to the highest bidders. The
series also anticipated the use of automated military drones in
combat, and featured a Seattle run by a “protectorate” of corrupt
agencies.
The first season of Dark Angel was extremely grounded in gritty
reality, and saw Max working with a resourceful journalist/crusader,
Logan Cale (Michael Weatherly) known as “Eyes Only.” He called
himself “the only free voice left in” Seattle, and made it his
business to expose the corrupt. Cale ran a version of WikiLeaks
before such a thing existed.
Although initial ratings were strong — in the realm of 17 million
viewers for the premiere episode — Dark Angel was barely renewed by
Fox for a second season. And that second season was quite different
in style and feel from the first, a veritable dumbing down or
lobotomy of the premise.
Suddenly, Max became surrounded by other genetic mutations — the
equivalent of “resident aliens” – and had to care for a chimera
creature called Joshua (Kevin Durand), a dog-boy of sorts. This
dreadful character offered lame comic relief and in one terrible
episode (“Medium is the Message”) ate a tube of paint.
In just one season, the show went from being a smart exploration of
dystopia, military rule, and economic depression to a partially-
comedic effort that ramped up the romantic angles, and featured a
love triangle between Logan, Max, and future Supernatural star
Jensen Ackles, as a transgen named Alec. Similarly, many supporting
cast members from the first season were either axed or given
substantially less screen-time than before.
Today, history might remember Space:1999, Buck Rogers in the 25th
Century, War of the Worlds, SeaQuest DSV, and Dark Angel quite
differently if their second season re-vamps had not so radically
altered the very qualities that made the programs successes in the
first place.
These series — trees cut down in winter, as it were — weren’t broken
to begin with, and history now records that many of these efforts to
“fix them” were misguided
or worse, the very reason they were
cancelled.

I think I can offer an example of a show that got BETTER after a revamp.
I have only dim recollections at this point but Lost in Space had a
major revamp too in Season 2. As I recall, Season 1 found them on the
planet they had landed in the pilot (or second episode) for the entire
season. I remember being disappointed that they weren't seeing any other
planets. But then, in Season 2, starting very early on, they started
travelling to other stars and planets and hardly ever spent more than
one episode on a given planet. At the time, I thought that was a big
improvement. Lost in Space ran three seasons didn't it? If so, that is
one longer than the other examples listed.
Mind you, I was only a kid when all this took place and had different
sensibilities than I do today. If I were watching the show for the first
time as an adult, I might be more distressed than pleased that they'd
started gallivanting around the universe instead of staying put on tthe
original planet. Or not.

OMG, Rhino, not to be unkind, but you're as 'wrong as Ian' here.

LOST IN SPACE is one of the very few examples of a show that cratered in
and then got better. Season 2 is universally considered the low point,
what with the space vikings and god help us the Questing Beast and such.

While it's true they have a much welcome lift off in season 2 (leaving
all their friends on the planet to die horribly), by the 4th (IIRC) ep
they're settled back in on a planet that looks suspiciously like their
old one.

Now, in season 3, they lift off again, and actually have several
episodes with space adventures and a lack of silliness until they
finally settle down and let Smith ruin the show again with space hippies
and the like.

[Rhino]

Post by anim8rfsk

Post by Rhino

Post by Ubiquitous
WE might accept as axiomatic the belief that patience is a virtue.
However, over the decades, several notable and even celebrated
science fiction TV series have failed to live up to this ideal.
Instead of demonstrating patience and prudence, their makers have
instead demonstrated radical impatience, and — after promising first
season sorties — instituted sweeping changes that, in some cases,
threw away the baby with the bath water.
Below is a list of five science fiction programs that — had they
adhered more closely to their original format — might have survived
the turbulent air-waves for several additional seasons.
In other words, these science fiction TV series were not broke, and
simply didn’t require the kind of dramatic format “fixing” they
endured.
Space: 1999 (1975 – 1977)
During its first season on the air, Gerry and Sylvia Anderson’s
1970s-era space adventure drew “amazing ratings” in the U.S
according to Dick Adler at The Los Angeles Times (January 7, 1976).
Although prominent critics such as Isaac Asimov complained about the
series’ scientifically-challenged premise, which involved the moon
blasted out of Earth’s orbit and visiting other worlds, the series
was nonetheless incredibly impressive in terms of production design,
miniature effects, and philosophical storylines.
The Wall Street Journal termed Space:1999 “the most flashy,
gorgeous sci-fi trip ever to appear on TV,” (“Sailing Along on a
Moonbase Way,” Fall 1975) while Newsweek’s Harry Waters enthused
that not since Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) had “
sci-fi freaks had the chance to trip out on so much surrealistic
gimmickry”(“Spaced Out,” October 1975).
Meanwhile, the same paper that had printed Asimov’s negative review
— The New York Times — suggested that Space: 1999 featured “what no
other TV science-fiction program except Star Trek had – good stories
and good special effects.” (October 19, 1975).
But at the end of Space:1999’s first year, however, the series stood
on the chopping block of cancellation and American producer Fred
Freiberger replaced Sylvia Anderson. In an effort to save the
series, Mr. Freiberger “Americanized” Space:1999 to a substantial
degree.
One major change was largely successful. Space:1999 Year Two
introduced the shape-shifting metamorph named Maya, played by the
charming and lovely Catherine Schell. Although Maya was a
delightful alien character, the series simultaneously jettisoned
familiar old hands such as Barry Morse’s Victor Bergman and Prentis
Hancock’s controller, Paul Morrow.
Just as troubling, perhaps, Space: 1999’s singular sense of
atmospheric, philosophical terror — in which all of space was an
unsolvable mystery that the Alphans were psychologically unprepared
to contend with — was overturned. That vision of the universe was
replaced with a one more consistent with the tenets of the then-
popular Star Trek. In other words, the marooned denizens of
Moonbase Alpha suddenly found themselves battling sentient plants,
silicon life-forms, and amazon women in cat-suits, as well as a
Harry Mudd like trader/rogue called “The Taybor.” Space:1999 Year
Two featured a lot of action, but much of it involved bad monster
suits too, a far cry from the terrifying monster of the first season
triumph, “Dragon’s Domain.”
In an effort to rival the popular Star Trek, the makers of
Space:1999 thus made their series more like its competitor, a
change which ultimately doomed the series. Instead of growing an
audience based on their notable first season successes, the series
producers fixed the things that, simply, weren’t broken.
Perhaps series star Martin Landau said it best. He told Starlog in
July of 1986 (Lee Goldberg: “Martin Landau: Space Age Hero,” page
45.): “They changed it because a bunch of American minds got into
the act and they decided to do many thing they felt were more
commercial. I think the show’s beauty was that it wasn’t commercial,
it had its own rhythm. I felt the episodes we started with in the
first season were much more along the lines I wanted to go. To some
extent, that was corrupted.”
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979 – 1981)
Like Space:1999 before it, NBC’s post-Star Wars outer space series
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century(1979 – 1981) endured a dramatic
change from first season to second.
The first year of the Glen Larson series had been a swashbuckling,
tongue-in-cheek adventure that featured Buck Rogers (Gil Gerard) and
Wilma Deering (Erin Gray) essentially acting as secret agents in the
far-flung 25th century. In this capacity, they subverted space
dictators, battled despots like the Draconians and vanquished cult-
leaders such as Kaleel (Jack Palance). They even rescued a
“defector” from a communist-styled planet during the “space
Olympics” episode, “Olympiad.”
Accordingly, the first season of Buck Rogers felt a lot like an
outer-space variation on Mission: Impossible, only cheekier, and
with less information to keep track of.
Although expensive to produce, Buck Rogers had found a distinctive
groove, and proved popular with viewers. It even made the Nielson
Ratings top forty, all while battling the Robin Williams juggernaut
on ABC: Mork and Mindy.
At the end of the first season, producer Bruce Lansbury departed and
was replaced by Gunsmoke’s John Mantley, a talent who enacted major
alterations.
Dr. Huer (Tim O’Connor), Dr. Theopolis, the Earth Defense
Directorate, and the Draconians were dropped from the format
entirely, and Buck became a crew member aboard a starship called the
Searcher, instead. The Searcher had been assigned to find the “lost
tribes” of Earth; people who had departed their home planet after
the nuclear holocaust of the 1980s.
And yes, that description sounds an awful lot like the premise of
Battlestar Galactica (1978-1979).
Buck’s second season introduced a new resident alien, a bird-man
called Hawk (Thom Christopher), while Wilma Deering became less
assertive and much less central to the action. The second season
also the introduction of an irritating new robot called Crichton,
and saw Mel Blanc leave the series as the voice of Twiki.
Although Thom Christopher was always impressive as Hawk, and made
the alien a compelling character (much as Catherine Schell had done
with Maya on Space:1999), the shift in story-telling and tenor was
the real problem. The stories on the new Buck Rogers became wannabe
Star Trek episodes about new “civilizations of the week.” One
especially dire episode saw Buck and Wilma dealing with a golden
alien who aged backwards (like Jonathan Winters’ Mearth on Mork and
Mindy), while another involved mischievous dwarves run amok on the
Searcher.
Series star Gil Gerard was not pleased, and reportedly felt that the
season was a rip off of both Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica.
The re-vamped Buck Rogers was canceled after half-a-season.
War of the Worlds (1988 – 1990)
The premise of this late-1980s syndicated series was that Martian
invaders had attempted to invade Mother Earth in 1953, in the events
depicted by the George Pal movie. However, “common bacteria”
stopped the alien assault. But when scientists discovered later that
the aliens were hibernating, not dead, the U.S. government
suppressed the news, fearing a panic.
Instead, the U.S. army sealed up the alien bodies in black drums and
stored them at remote military installation called “Jericho.”
Meanwhile, the world at large seemed to forget entirely about the
alien invasion.
By the year 1988, however, armed terrorists found the barrels, and
the aliens awoke, stealing human form and launching a new, stealth
war (of the worlds) against humanity.
Dr. Harrison Blackwood (Jared Martin) led a team against the Martian
sleeper cell, known as “The Advocacy.” And protecting the team from
danger was the series’ most popular character, Lt. Colonel Ironhorse
(Richard Chaves), formerly a member of “Delta Squad.”
Shot in Canada and produced on the cheap, War of the Worlds
nonetheless drew a large and supportive fan base throughout its
first season, in part due to the fact that series often highlighted
over-the-top gore, and showcased some quirky humor.
But you know where this is headed, right? Everything changed for
the second season. In the re-booted War of the Worlds, Earth was no
longer the planet we know, but a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Now,
the heroes of the series were suddenly on the run from the aliens,
and without a home base.
The bad guys — The Advocacy — were also dispatched and new aliens,
the Morthren, replaced them.
The greatest offense, however, was that the series’ most beloved
character, Ironhorse, was killed off during the first episode of
season two and replaced with Adrian Paul’s John Kincaid. Paul was
absolutely fine in the role, but it made zero sense to replace a
popular character with a new character of similar type.
In short, the second season of War of the Worlds completely
destroyed the world of the first season, killed the most popular
character, and replaced one alien invasion with another. The
changes were so radical and sweeping that the series was virtually
unrecognizable, and it was canceled by the end of its sophomore
season.
SeaQuest DSV (1993 – 1995)
This Steven Spielberg –produced series from the mid-1990s began its
TV life as a serious, scientific, and futuristic exploration of the
Earth’s sea. The meme was displayed ably in SeaQuest’s opening
voice-over narration: “The 21st century: mankind has colonized the
last unexplored region on Earth; the ocean. As captain of the
seaQuest and its crew, we are its guardians, for beneath the surface
lies the future…”
The series involved the voyages of a state of the art sub, SeaQuest,
which operated under the aegis of the UEO (United Earth Oceans).
SeaQuest was “the largest deep sea exploration vehicle ever,” and
outfitted with a crew of 124 scientists and 88 military personnel.
Playing the captain, Bridger, was the late Roy Scheider.
Among the other crew members on SeaQuest were the headstrong
executive officer, Jonathan Ford (Don Franklin), head of science and
medicine, Dr. Kristin Westphalen (Stephanie Beacham), Chief Engineer
Katherine Hitchcock (Stacy Haiduk) and communications officer Tim
O’Neill (Ted Raimi).
Other notable crew members and passengers on the first season of
SeaQuest DSV included the teenage genius and computer whiz, Lucas
Wolenczak (Jonathan Brandis) and Darwin, a dolphin who could
communicate verbally with Bridger and the others using an instrument
called a “vocorder.”
During the first season there was a dedicated attempt every week on
SeaQuest to marry a hard-science concept or mission with some small
but fantastical aspect of the sci-fi genre. In “Treasure of the
Mind,” for instance, the SeaQuest discovered the lost Great Library
of Alexandria intact at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. Another
story (“Games”) saw the sub exploring the polar ice caps.
Finally, each episode of the first season ended with a brief
epilogue featuring the series’ science adviser, oceanographer Dr.
Robert Ballard. His monologues would always point out how specific
aspects of the episode were based on fact; and then encourage
viewers to learn more about the subject.
But reality and science went out the window in the dramatically re-
vamped second season.
Fully half the cast was axed from the show, including Stacy Haiduk,
John D’Aquino, Stephanie Beacham. Worse, their replacement
characters were obvious rejects from the Star Trek universe. The
new doctor had Counselor Troi-like empathic powers, for instance,
and other characters were genetically-engineered “resident” aliens
called “Daggers.”
Once more, the real problem, however, was not the cast-changes, but
the shift in storytelling style. The second season found the
SeaQuest encountering giant sea monsters and on one wretched
occasion, the Greek God, Poseidon/Neptune.
In a notorious with the Orlando Sentinel on September 13, 1994 star
Roy Scheider lambasted the new direction of Sea Quest. He said he
was “ashamed” of the series, and noted that the new stories were
“junk.” He also said that the series was “not even good fantasy. I
mean Star Trek does this stuff much better than we can do it. To me
the show is now 21 Jump Street meets Star Dreck.”
Dark Angel (2000 – 2002)
Long before Avatar, James Cameron produced this sci-fi series with
writing partner Charles Eglee, and Jessica Alba starred as “Max,” a
genetically-enhanced woman born of Project Manticore.” Max, a
“transgen” lived in an economically depressed and EMG-ravaged
Seattle of the year 2020.
In this dystopian future, the United States had become a third-world
country with its treasures sold off to the highest bidders. The
series also anticipated the use of automated military drones in
combat, and featured a Seattle run by a “protectorate” of corrupt
agencies.
The first season of Dark Angel was extremely grounded in gritty
reality, and saw Max working with a resourceful journalist/crusader,
Logan Cale (Michael Weatherly) known as “Eyes Only.” He called
himself “the only free voice left in” Seattle, and made it his
business to expose the corrupt. Cale ran a version of WikiLeaks
before such a thing existed.
Although initial ratings were strong — in the realm of 17 million
viewers for the premiere episode — Dark Angel was barely renewed by
Fox for a second season. And that second season was quite different
in style and feel from the first, a veritable dumbing down or
lobotomy of the premise.
Suddenly, Max became surrounded by other genetic mutations — the
equivalent of “resident aliens” – and had to care for a chimera
creature called Joshua (Kevin Durand), a dog-boy of sorts. This
dreadful character offered lame comic relief and in one terrible
episode (“Medium is the Message”) ate a tube of paint.
In just one season, the show went from being a smart exploration of
dystopia, military rule, and economic depression to a partially-
comedic effort that ramped up the romantic angles, and featured a
love triangle between Logan, Max, and future Supernatural star
Jensen Ackles, as a transgen named Alec. Similarly, many supporting
cast members from the first season were either axed or given
substantially less screen-time than before.
Today, history might remember Space:1999, Buck Rogers in the 25th
Century, War of the Worlds, SeaQuest DSV, and Dark Angel quite
differently if their second season re-vamps had not so radically
altered the very qualities that made the programs successes in the
first place.
These series — trees cut down in winter, as it were — weren’t broken
to begin with, and history now records that many of these efforts to
“fix them” were misguided…or worse, the very reason they were
cancelled.

I think I can offer an example of a show that got BETTER after a revamp.
I have only dim recollections at this point but Lost in Space had a
major revamp too in Season 2. As I recall, Season 1 found them on the
planet they had landed in the pilot (or second episode) for the entire
season. I remember being disappointed that they weren't seeing any other
planets. But then, in Season 2, starting very early on, they started
travelling to other stars and planets and hardly ever spent more than
one episode on a given planet. At the time, I thought that was a big
improvement. Lost in Space ran three seasons didn't it? If so, that is
one longer than the other examples listed.
Mind you, I was only a kid when all this took place and had different
sensibilities than I do today. If I were watching the show for the first
time as an adult, I might be more distressed than pleased that they'd
started gallivanting around the universe instead of staying put on tthe
original planet. Or not.

OMG, Rhino, not to be unkind, but you're as 'wrong as Ian' here.

Uh oh. I was prepared to be wrong - I can't remember what I had for
lunch yesterday so remembering TV shows from 50 years ago is a dicey
proposition at best - but I hadn't expected to be *that* wrong....

Post by anim8rfsk
LOST IN SPACE is one of the very few examples of a show that cratered in
and then got better. Season 2 is universally considered the low point,
what with the space vikings and god help us the Questing Beast and such.
While it's true they have a much welcome lift off in season 2 (leaving
all their friends on the planet to die horribly), by the 4th (IIRC) ep
they're settled back in on a planet that looks suspiciously like their
old one.
Now, in season 3, they lift off again, and actually have several
episodes with space adventures and a lack of silliness until they
finally settle down and let Smith ruin the show again with space hippies
and the like.

You either have a much better memory than me or you've seen it more
recently, perhaps in syndication somewhere or maybe it's out on DVD. I
bow to your obviously superior recollection of the show :-)

[anim8rfsk]

Post by Rhino

Post by anim8rfsk

Post by Rhino

Post by Ubiquitous
WE might accept as axiomatic the belief that patience is a virtue.
However, over the decades, several notable and even celebrated
science fiction TV series have failed to live up to this ideal.
Instead of demonstrating patience and prudence, their makers have
instead demonstrated radical impatience, and ‰觝 after promising first
season sorties ‰觝 instituted sweeping changes that, in some cases,
threw away the baby with the bath water.
Below is a list of five science fiction programs that ‰觝 had they
adhered more closely to their original format ‰觝 might have survived
the turbulent air-waves for several additional seasons.
In other words, these science fiction TV series were not broke, and
simply didn‰菄t require the kind of dramatic format ‰裉fixing‰ￜ they
endured.
Space: 1999 (1975 ‰芗 1977)
During its first season on the air, Gerry and Sylvia Anderson‰菄s
1970s-era space adventure drew ‰裉amazing ratings‰ￜ in the U.S
according to Dick Adler at The Los Angeles Times (January 7, 1976).
Although prominent critics such as Isaac Asimov complained about the
series‰菄 scientifically-challenged premise, which involved the moon
blasted out of Earth‰菄s orbit and visiting other worlds, the series
was nonetheless incredibly impressive in terms of production design,
miniature effects, and philosophical storylines.
The Wall Street Journal termed Space:1999 ‰裉the most flashy,
gorgeous sci-fi trip ever to appear on TV,‰ￜ (‰裉Sailing Along on a
Moonbase Way,‰ￜ Fall 1975) while Newsweek‰菄s Harry Waters enthused
that not since Stanley Kubrick‰菄s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) had ‰裉
sci-fi freaks had the chance to trip out on so much surrealistic
gimmickry‰ￜ(‰裉Spaced Out,‰ￜ October 1975).
Meanwhile, the same paper that had printed Asimov‰菄s negative review
‰觝 The New York Times ‰觝 suggested that Space: 1999 featured ‰裉what no
other TV science-fiction program except Star Trek had ‰芗 good stories
and good special effects.‰ￜ (October 19, 1975).
But at the end of Space:1999‰菄s first year, however, the series stood
on the chopping block of cancellation and American producer Fred
Freiberger replaced Sylvia Anderson. In an effort to save the
series, Mr. Freiberger ‰裉Americanized‰ￜ Space:1999 to a substantial
degree.
One major change was largely successful. Space:1999 Year Two
introduced the shape-shifting metamorph named Maya, played by the
charming and lovely Catherine Schell. Although Maya was a
delightful alien character, the series simultaneously jettisoned
familiar old hands such as Barry Morse‰菄s Victor Bergman and Prentis
Hancock‰菄s controller, Paul Morrow.
Just as troubling, perhaps, Space: 1999‰菄s singular sense of
atmospheric, philosophical terror ‰觝 in which all of space was an
unsolvable mystery that the Alphans were psychologically unprepared
to contend with ‰觝 was overturned. That vision of the universe was
replaced with a one more consistent with the tenets of the then-
popular Star Trek. In other words, the marooned denizens of
Moonbase Alpha suddenly found themselves battling sentient plants,
silicon life-forms, and amazon women in cat-suits, as well as a
Harry Mudd like trader/rogue called ‰裉The Taybor.‰ￜ Space:1999 Year
Two featured a lot of action, but much of it involved bad monster
suits too, a far cry from the terrifying monster of the first season
triumph, ‰裉Dragon‰菄s Domain.‰ￜ
In an effort to rival the popular Star Trek, the makers of
Space:1999 thus made their series more like its competitor, a
change which ultimately doomed the series. Instead of growing an
audience based on their notable first season successes, the series
producers fixed the things that, simply, weren‰菄t broken.
Perhaps series star Martin Landau said it best. He told Starlog in
July of 1986 (Lee Goldberg: ‰裉Martin Landau: Space Age Hero,‰ￜ page
45.): ‰裉They changed it because a bunch of American minds got into
the act and they decided to do many thing they felt were more
commercial. I think the show‰菄s beauty was that it wasn‰菄t commercial,
it had its own rhythm. I felt the episodes we started with in the
first season were much more along the lines I wanted to go. To some
extent, that was corrupted.‰ￜ
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979 ‰芗 1981)
Like Space:1999 before it, NBC‰菄s post-Star Wars outer space series
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century(1979 ‰芗 1981) endured a dramatic
change from first season to second.
The first year of the Glen Larson series had been a swashbuckling,
tongue-in-cheek adventure that featured Buck Rogers (Gil Gerard) and
Wilma Deering (Erin Gray) essentially acting as secret agents in the
far-flung 25th century. In this capacity, they subverted space
dictators, battled despots like the Draconians and vanquished cult-
leaders such as Kaleel (Jack Palance). They even rescued a
‰裉defector‰ￜ from a communist-styled planet during the ‰裉space
Olympics‰ￜ episode, ‰裉Olympiad.‰ￜ
Accordingly, the first season of Buck Rogers felt a lot like an
outer-space variation on Mission: Impossible, only cheekier, and
with less information to keep track of.
Although expensive to produce, Buck Rogers had found a distinctive
groove, and proved popular with viewers. It even made the Nielson
Ratings top forty, all while battling the Robin Williams juggernaut
on ABC: Mork and Mindy.
At the end of the first season, producer Bruce Lansbury departed and
was replaced by Gunsmoke‰菄s John Mantley, a talent who enacted major
alterations.
Dr. Huer (Tim O‰菄Connor), Dr. Theopolis, the Earth Defense
Directorate, and the Draconians were dropped from the format
entirely, and Buck became a crew member aboard a starship called the
Searcher, instead. The Searcher had been assigned to find the ‰裉lost
tribes‰ￜ of Earth; people who had departed their home planet after
the nuclear holocaust of the 1980s.
And yes, that description sounds an awful lot like the premise of
Battlestar Galactica (1978-1979).
Buck‰菄s second season introduced a new resident alien, a bird-man
called Hawk (Thom Christopher), while Wilma Deering became less
assertive and much less central to the action. The second season
also the introduction of an irritating new robot called Crichton,
and saw Mel Blanc leave the series as the voice of Twiki.
Although Thom Christopher was always impressive as Hawk, and made
the alien a compelling character (much as Catherine Schell had done
with Maya on Space:1999), the shift in story-telling and tenor was
the real problem. The stories on the new Buck Rogers became wannabe
Star Trek episodes about new ‰裉civilizations of the week.‰ￜ One
especially dire episode saw Buck and Wilma dealing with a golden
alien who aged backwards (like Jonathan Winters‰菄 Mearth on Mork and
Mindy), while another involved mischievous dwarves run amok on the
Searcher.
Series star Gil Gerard was not pleased, and reportedly felt that the
season was a rip off of both Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica.
The re-vamped Buck Rogers was canceled after half-a-season.
War of the Worlds (1988 ‰芗 1990)
The premise of this late-1980s syndicated series was that Martian
invaders had attempted to invade Mother Earth in 1953, in the events
depicted by the George Pal movie. However, ‰裉common bacteria‰ￜ
stopped the alien assault. But when scientists discovered later that
the aliens were hibernating, not dead, the U.S. government
suppressed the news, fearing a panic.
Instead, the U.S. army sealed up the alien bodies in black drums and
stored them at remote military installation called ‰裉Jericho.‰ￜ
Meanwhile, the world at large seemed to forget entirely about the
alien invasion.
By the year 1988, however, armed terrorists found the barrels, and
the aliens awoke, stealing human form and launching a new, stealth
war (of the worlds) against humanity.
Dr. Harrison Blackwood (Jared Martin) led a team against the Martian
sleeper cell, known as ‰裉The Advocacy.‰ￜ And protecting the team from
danger was the series‰菄 most popular character, Lt. Colonel Ironhorse
(Richard Chaves), formerly a member of ‰裉Delta Squad.‰ￜ
Shot in Canada and produced on the cheap, War of the Worlds
nonetheless drew a large and supportive fan base throughout its
first season, in part due to the fact that series often highlighted
over-the-top gore, and showcased some quirky humor.
But you know where this is headed, right? Everything changed for
the second season. In the re-booted War of the Worlds, Earth was no
longer the planet we know, but a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Now,
the heroes of the series were suddenly on the run from the aliens,
and without a home base.
The bad guys ‰觝 The Advocacy ‰觝 were also dispatched and new aliens,
the Morthren, replaced them.
The greatest offense, however, was that the series‰菄 most beloved
character, Ironhorse, was killed off during the first episode of
season two and replaced with Adrian Paul‰菄s John Kincaid. Paul was
absolutely fine in the role, but it made zero sense to replace a
popular character with a new character of similar type.
In short, the second season of War of the Worlds completely
destroyed the world of the first season, killed the most popular
character, and replaced one alien invasion with another. The
changes were so radical and sweeping that the series was virtually
unrecognizable, and it was canceled by the end of its sophomore
season.
SeaQuest DSV (1993 ‰芗 1995)
This Steven Spielberg ‰芗produced series from the mid-1990s began its
TV life as a serious, scientific, and futuristic exploration of the
Earth‰菄s sea. The meme was displayed ably in SeaQuest‰菄s opening
voice-over narration: ‰裉The 21st century: mankind has colonized the
last unexplored region on Earth; the ocean. As captain of the
seaQuest and its crew, we are its guardians, for beneath the surface
lies the future‰ￜ›‰œ
The series involved the voyages of a state of the art sub, SeaQuest,
which operated under the aegis of the UEO (United Earth Oceans).
SeaQuest was ‰裉the largest deep sea exploration vehicle ever,‰ￜ and
outfitted with a crew of 124 scientists and 88 military personnel.
Playing the captain, Bridger, was the late Roy Scheider.
Among the other crew members on SeaQuest were the headstrong
executive officer, Jonathan Ford (Don Franklin), head of science and
medicine, Dr. Kristin Westphalen (Stephanie Beacham), Chief Engineer
Katherine Hitchcock (Stacy Haiduk) and communications officer Tim
O‰菄Neill (Ted Raimi).
Other notable crew members and passengers on the first season of
SeaQuest DSV included the teenage genius and computer whiz, Lucas
Wolenczak (Jonathan Brandis) and Darwin, a dolphin who could
communicate verbally with Bridger and the others using an instrument
called a ‰裉vocorder.‰ￜ
During the first season there was a dedicated attempt every week on
SeaQuest to marry a hard-science concept or mission with some small
but fantastical aspect of the sci-fi genre. In ‰裉Treasure of the
Mind,‰ￜ for instance, the SeaQuest discovered the lost Great Library
of Alexandria intact at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. Another
story (‰裉Games‰ￜ) saw the sub exploring the polar ice caps.
Finally, each episode of the first season ended with a brief
epilogue featuring the series‰菄 science adviser, oceanographer Dr.
Robert Ballard. His monologues would always point out how specific
aspects of the episode were based on fact; and then encourage
viewers to learn more about the subject.
But reality and science went out the window in the dramatically re-
vamped second season.
Fully half the cast was axed from the show, including Stacy Haiduk,
John D‰菄Aquino, Stephanie Beacham. Worse, their replacement
characters were obvious rejects from the Star Trek universe. The
new doctor had Counselor Troi-like empathic powers, for instance,
and other characters were genetically-engineered ‰裉resident‰ￜ aliens
called ‰裉Daggers.‰ￜ
Once more, the real problem, however, was not the cast-changes, but
the shift in storytelling style. The second season found the
SeaQuest encountering giant sea monsters and on one wretched
occasion, the Greek God, Poseidon/Neptune.
In a notorious with the Orlando Sentinel on September 13, 1994 star
Roy Scheider lambasted the new direction of Sea Quest. He said he
was ‰裉ashamed‰ￜ of the series, and noted that the new stories were
‰裉junk.‰ￜ He also said that the series was ‰裉not even good fantasy. I
mean Star Trek does this stuff much better than we can do it. To me
the show is now 21 Jump Street meets Star Dreck.‰ￜ
Dark Angel (2000 ‰芗 2002)
Long before Avatar, James Cameron produced this sci-fi series with
writing partner Charles Eglee, and Jessica Alba starred as ‰裉Max,‰ￜ a
genetically-enhanced woman born of Project Manticore.‰ￜ Max, a
‰裉transgen‰ￜ lived in an economically depressed and EMG-ravaged
Seattle of the year 2020.
In this dystopian future, the United States had become a third-world
country with its treasures sold off to the highest bidders. The
series also anticipated the use of automated military drones in
combat, and featured a Seattle run by a ‰裉protectorate‰ￜ of corrupt
agencies.
The first season of Dark Angel was extremely grounded in gritty
reality, and saw Max working with a resourceful journalist/crusader,
Logan Cale (Michael Weatherly) known as ‰裉Eyes Only.‰ￜ He called
himself ‰裉the only free voice left in‰ￜ Seattle, and made it his
business to expose the corrupt. Cale ran a version of WikiLeaks
before such a thing existed.
Although initial ratings were strong ‰觝 in the realm of 17 million
viewers for the premiere episode ‰觝 Dark Angel was barely renewed by
Fox for a second season. And that second season was quite different
in style and feel from the first, a veritable dumbing down or
lobotomy of the premise.
Suddenly, Max became surrounded by other genetic mutations ‰觝 the
equivalent of ‰裉resident aliens‰ￜ ‰芗 and had to care for a chimera
creature called Joshua (Kevin Durand), a dog-boy of sorts. This
dreadful character offered lame comic relief and in one terrible
episode (‰裉Medium is the Message‰ￜ) ate a tube of paint.
In just one season, the show went from being a smart exploration of
dystopia, military rule, and economic depression to a partially-
comedic effort that ramped up the romantic angles, and featured a
love triangle between Logan, Max, and future Supernatural star
Jensen Ackles, as a transgen named Alec. Similarly, many supporting
cast members from the first season were either axed or given
substantially less screen-time than before.
Today, history might remember Space:1999, Buck Rogers in the 25th
Century, War of the Worlds, SeaQuest DSV, and Dark Angel quite
differently if their second season re-vamps had not so radically
altered the very qualities that made the programs successes in the
first place.
These series ‰觝 trees cut down in winter, as it were ‰觝 weren‰菄t broken
to begin with, and history now records that many of these efforts to
‰裉fix them‰ￜ were misguided‰ￜ›or worse, the very reason they were
cancelled.

I think I can offer an example of a show that got BETTER after a revamp.
I have only dim recollections at this point but Lost in Space had a
major revamp too in Season 2. As I recall, Season 1 found them on the
planet they had landed in the pilot (or second episode) for the entire
season. I remember being disappointed that they weren't seeing any other
planets. But then, in Season 2, starting very early on, they started
travelling to other stars and planets and hardly ever spent more than
one episode on a given planet. At the time, I thought that was a big
improvement. Lost in Space ran three seasons didn't it? If so, that is
one longer than the other examples listed.
Mind you, I was only a kid when all this took place and had different
sensibilities than I do today. If I were watching the show for the first
time as an adult, I might be more distressed than pleased that they'd
started gallivanting around the universe instead of staying put on tthe
original planet. Or not.

OMG, Rhino, not to be unkind, but you're as 'wrong as Ian' here.

Uh oh. I was prepared to be wrong - I can't remember what I had for
lunch yesterday so remembering TV shows from 50 years ago is a dicey
proposition at best - but I hadn't expected to be *that* wrong....

Post by anim8rfsk
LOST IN SPACE is one of the very few examples of a show that cratered in
and then got better. Season 2 is universally considered the low point,
what with the space vikings and god help us the Questing Beast and such.
While it's true they have a much welcome lift off in season 2 (leaving
all their friends on the planet to die horribly), by the 4th (IIRC) ep
they're settled back in on a planet that looks suspiciously like their
old one.
Now, in season 3, they lift off again, and actually have several
episodes with space adventures and a lack of silliness until they
finally settle down and let Smith ruin the show again with space hippies
and the like.

You either have a much better memory than me or you've seen it more
recently, perhaps in syndication somewhere or maybe it's out on DVD. I
bow to your obviously superior recollection of the show :-)

I have the whole thing on the Blu-ray. :\

[Rhino]

Post by anim8rfsk

Post by Rhino

Post by anim8rfsk

Post by Rhino

Post by Ubiquitous
WE might accept as axiomatic the belief that patience is a virtue.
However, over the decades, several notable and even celebrated
science fiction TV series have failed to live up to this ideal.
Instead of demonstrating patience and prudence, their makers have
instead demonstrated radical impatience, and ‰觝 after promising first
season sorties ‰觝 instituted sweeping changes that, in some cases,
threw away the baby with the bath water.
Below is a list of five science fiction programs that ‰觝 had they
adhered more closely to their original format ‰觝 might have survived
the turbulent air-waves for several additional seasons.
In other words, these science fiction TV series were not broke, and
simply didn‰菄t require the kind of dramatic format ‰裉fixing‰� they
endured.
Space: 1999 (1975 ‰覗 1977)
During its first season on the air, Gerry and Sylvia Anderson‰菄s
1970s-era space adventure drew ‰裉amazing ratings‰� in the U.S
according to Dick Adler at The Los Angeles Times (January 7, 1976).
Although prominent critics such as Isaac Asimov complained about the
series‰菄 scientifically-challenged premise, which involved the moon
blasted out of Earth‰菄s orbit and visiting other worlds, the series
was nonetheless incredibly impressive in terms of production design,
miniature effects, and philosophical storylines.
The Wall Street Journal termed Space:1999 ‰裉the most flashy,
gorgeous sci-fi trip ever to appear on TV,‰� (‰裉Sailing Along on a
Moonbase Way,‰� Fall 1975) while Newsweek‰菄s Harry Waters enthused
that not since Stanley Kubrick‰菄s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) had ‰裉
sci-fi freaks had the chance to trip out on so much surrealistic
gimmickry‰�(‰裉Spaced Out,‰� October 1975).
Meanwhile, the same paper that had printed Asimov‰菄s negative review
‰觝 The New York Times ‰觝 suggested that Space: 1999 featured ‰裉what no
other TV science-fiction program except Star Trek had ‰覗 good stories
and good special effects.‰� (October 19, 1975).
But at the end of Space:1999‰菄s first year, however, the series stood
on the chopping block of cancellation and American producer Fred
Freiberger replaced Sylvia Anderson. In an effort to save the
series, Mr. Freiberger ‰裉Americanized‰� Space:1999 to a substantial
degree.
One major change was largely successful. Space:1999 Year Two
introduced the shape-shifting metamorph named Maya, played by the
charming and lovely Catherine Schell. Although Maya was a
delightful alien character, the series simultaneously jettisoned
familiar old hands such as Barry Morse‰菄s Victor Bergman and Prentis
Hancock‰菄s controller, Paul Morrow.
Just as troubling, perhaps, Space: 1999‰菄s singular sense of
atmospheric, philosophical terror ‰觝 in which all of space was an
unsolvable mystery that the Alphans were psychologically unprepared
to contend with ‰觝 was overturned. That vision of the universe was
replaced with a one more consistent with the tenets of the then-
popular Star Trek. In other words, the marooned denizens of
Moonbase Alpha suddenly found themselves battling sentient plants,
silicon life-forms, and amazon women in cat-suits, as well as a
Harry Mudd like trader/rogue called ‰裉The Taybor.‰� Space:1999 Year
Two featured a lot of action, but much of it involved bad monster
suits too, a far cry from the terrifying monster of the first season
triumph, ‰裉Dragon‰菄s Domain.‰�
In an effort to rival the popular Star Trek, the makers of
Space:1999 thus made their series more like its competitor, a
change which ultimately doomed the series. Instead of growing an
audience based on their notable first season successes, the series
producers fixed the things that, simply, weren‰菄t broken.
Perhaps series star Martin Landau said it best. He told Starlog in
July of 1986 (Lee Goldberg: ‰裉Martin Landau: Space Age Hero,‰� page
45.): ‰裉They changed it because a bunch of American minds got into
the act and they decided to do many thing they felt were more
commercial. I think the show‰菄s beauty was that it wasn‰菄t commercial,
it had its own rhythm. I felt the episodes we started with in the
first season were much more along the lines I wanted to go. To some
extent, that was corrupted.‰�
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979 ‰覗 1981)
Like Space:1999 before it, NBC‰菄s post-Star Wars outer space series
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century(1979 ‰覗 1981) endured a dramatic
change from first season to second.
The first year of the Glen Larson series had been a swashbuckling,
tongue-in-cheek adventure that featured Buck Rogers (Gil Gerard) and
Wilma Deering (Erin Gray) essentially acting as secret agents in the
far-flung 25th century. In this capacity, they subverted space
dictators, battled despots like the Draconians and vanquished cult-
leaders such as Kaleel (Jack Palance). They even rescued a
‰裉defector‰� from a communist-styled planet during the ‰裉space
Olympics‰� episode, ‰裉Olympiad.‰�
Accordingly, the first season of Buck Rogers felt a lot like an
outer-space variation on Mission: Impossible, only cheekier, and
with less information to keep track of.
Although expensive to produce, Buck Rogers had found a distinctive
groove, and proved popular with viewers. It even made the Nielson
Ratings top forty, all while battling the Robin Williams juggernaut
on ABC: Mork and Mindy.
At the end of the first season, producer Bruce Lansbury departed and
was replaced by Gunsmoke‰菄s John Mantley, a talent who enacted major
alterations.
Dr. Huer (Tim O‰菄Connor), Dr. Theopolis, the Earth Defense
Directorate, and the Draconians were dropped from the format
entirely, and Buck became a crew member aboard a starship called the
Searcher, instead. The Searcher had been assigned to find the ‰裉lost
tribes‰� of Earth; people who had departed their home planet after
the nuclear holocaust of the 1980s.
And yes, that description sounds an awful lot like the premise of
Battlestar Galactica (1978-1979).
Buck‰菄s second season introduced a new resident alien, a bird-man
called Hawk (Thom Christopher), while Wilma Deering became less
assertive and much less central to the action. The second season
also the introduction of an irritating new robot called Crichton,
and saw Mel Blanc leave the series as the voice of Twiki.
Although Thom Christopher was always impressive as Hawk, and made
the alien a compelling character (much as Catherine Schell had done
with Maya on Space:1999), the shift in story-telling and tenor was
the real problem. The stories on the new Buck Rogers became wannabe
Star Trek episodes about new ‰裉civilizations of the week.‰� One
especially dire episode saw Buck and Wilma dealing with a golden
alien who aged backwards (like Jonathan Winters‰菄 Mearth on Mork and
Mindy), while another involved mischievous dwarves run amok on the
Searcher.
Series star Gil Gerard was not pleased, and reportedly felt that the
season was a rip off of both Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica.
The re-vamped Buck Rogers was canceled after half-a-season.
War of the Worlds (1988 ‰覗 1990)
The premise of this late-1980s syndicated series was that Martian
invaders had attempted to invade Mother Earth in 1953, in the events
depicted by the George Pal movie. However, ‰裉common bacteria‰�
stopped the alien assault. But when scientists discovered later that
the aliens were hibernating, not dead, the U.S. government
suppressed the news, fearing a panic.
Instead, the U.S. army sealed up the alien bodies in black drums and
stored them at remote military installation called ‰裉Jericho.‰�
Meanwhile, the world at large seemed to forget entirely about the
alien invasion.
By the year 1988, however, armed terrorists found the barrels, and
the aliens awoke, stealing human form and launching a new, stealth
war (of the worlds) against humanity.
Dr. Harrison Blackwood (Jared Martin) led a team against the Martian
sleeper cell, known as ‰裉The Advocacy.‰� And protecting the team from
danger was the series‰菄 most popular character, Lt. Colonel Ironhorse
(Richard Chaves), formerly a member of ‰裉Delta Squad.‰�
Shot in Canada and produced on the cheap, War of the Worlds
nonetheless drew a large and supportive fan base throughout its
first season, in part due to the fact that series often highlighted
over-the-top gore, and showcased some quirky humor.
But you know where this is headed, right? Everything changed for
the second season. In the re-booted War of the Worlds, Earth was no
longer the planet we know, but a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Now,
the heroes of the series were suddenly on the run from the aliens,
and without a home base.
The bad guys ‰觝 The Advocacy ‰觝 were also dispatched and new aliens,
the Morthren, replaced them.
The greatest offense, however, was that the series‰菄 most beloved
character, Ironhorse, was killed off during the first episode of
season two and replaced with Adrian Paul‰菄s John Kincaid. Paul was
absolutely fine in the role, but it made zero sense to replace a
popular character with a new character of similar type.
In short, the second season of War of the Worlds completely
destroyed the world of the first season, killed the most popular
character, and replaced one alien invasion with another. The
changes were so radical and sweeping that the series was virtually
unrecognizable, and it was canceled by the end of its sophomore
season.
SeaQuest DSV (1993 ‰覗 1995)
This Steven Spielberg ‰覗produced series from the mid-1990s began its
TV life as a serious, scientific, and futuristic exploration of the
Earth‰菄s sea. The meme was displayed ably in SeaQuest‰菄s opening
voice-over narration: ‰裉The 21st century: mankind has colonized the
last unexplored region on Earth; the ocean. As captain of the
seaQuest and its crew, we are its guardians, for beneath the surface
lies the future‰�›‰œ
The series involved the voyages of a state of the art sub, SeaQuest,
which operated under the aegis of the UEO (United Earth Oceans).
SeaQuest was ‰裉the largest deep sea exploration vehicle ever,‰� and
outfitted with a crew of 124 scientists and 88 military personnel.
Playing the captain, Bridger, was the late Roy Scheider.
Among the other crew members on SeaQuest were the headstrong
executive officer, Jonathan Ford (Don Franklin), head of science and
medicine, Dr. Kristin Westphalen (Stephanie Beacham), Chief Engineer
Katherine Hitchcock (Stacy Haiduk) and communications officer Tim
O‰菄Neill (Ted Raimi).
Other notable crew members and passengers on the first season of
SeaQuest DSV included the teenage genius and computer whiz, Lucas
Wolenczak (Jonathan Brandis) and Darwin, a dolphin who could
communicate verbally with Bridger and the others using an instrument
called a ‰裉vocorder.‰�
During the first season there was a dedicated attempt every week on
SeaQuest to marry a hard-science concept or mission with some small
but fantastical aspect of the sci-fi genre. In ‰裉Treasure of the
Mind,‰� for instance, the SeaQuest discovered the lost Great Library
of Alexandria intact at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. Another
story (‰裉Games‰�) saw the sub exploring the polar ice caps.
Finally, each episode of the first season ended with a brief
epilogue featuring the series‰菄 science adviser, oceanographer Dr.
Robert Ballard. His monologues would always point out how specific
aspects of the episode were based on fact; and then encourage
viewers to learn more about the subject.
But reality and science went out the window in the dramatically re-
vamped second season.
Fully half the cast was axed from the show, including Stacy Haiduk,
John D‰菄Aquino, Stephanie Beacham. Worse, their replacement
characters were obvious rejects from the Star Trek universe. The
new doctor had Counselor Troi-like empathic powers, for instance,
and other characters were genetically-engineered ‰裉resident‰� aliens
called ‰裉Daggers.‰�
Once more, the real problem, however, was not the cast-changes, but
the shift in storytelling style. The second season found the
SeaQuest encountering giant sea monsters and on one wretched
occasion, the Greek God, Poseidon/Neptune.
In a notorious with the Orlando Sentinel on September 13, 1994 star
Roy Scheider lambasted the new direction of Sea Quest. He said he
was ‰裉ashamed‰� of the series, and noted that the new stories were
‰裉junk.‰� He also said that the series was ‰裉not even good fantasy. I
mean Star Trek does this stuff much better than we can do it. To me
the show is now 21 Jump Street meets Star Dreck.‰�
Dark Angel (2000 ‰覗 2002)
Long before Avatar, James Cameron produced this sci-fi series with
writing partner Charles Eglee, and Jessica Alba starred as ‰裉Max,‰� a
genetically-enhanced woman born of Project Manticore.‰� Max, a
‰裉transgen‰� lived in an economically depressed and EMG-ravaged
Seattle of the year 2020.
In this dystopian future, the United States had become a third-world
country with its treasures sold off to the highest bidders. The
series also anticipated the use of automated military drones in
combat, and featured a Seattle run by a ‰裉protectorate‰� of corrupt
agencies.
The first season of Dark Angel was extremely grounded in gritty
reality, and saw Max working with a resourceful journalist/crusader,
Logan Cale (Michael Weatherly) known as ‰裉Eyes Only.‰� He called
himself ‰裉the only free voice left in‰� Seattle, and made it his
business to expose the corrupt. Cale ran a version of WikiLeaks
before such a thing existed.
Although initial ratings were strong ‰觝 in the realm of 17 million
viewers for the premiere episode ‰觝 Dark Angel was barely renewed by
Fox for a second season. And that second season was quite different
in style and feel from the first, a veritable dumbing down or
lobotomy of the premise.
Suddenly, Max became surrounded by other genetic mutations ‰觝 the
equivalent of ‰裉resident aliens‰� ‰覗 and had to care for a chimera
creature called Joshua (Kevin Durand), a dog-boy of sorts. This
dreadful character offered lame comic relief and in one terrible
episode (‰裉Medium is the Message‰�) ate a tube of paint.
In just one season, the show went from being a smart exploration of
dystopia, military rule, and economic depression to a partially-
comedic effort that ramped up the romantic angles, and featured a
love triangle between Logan, Max, and future Supernatural star
Jensen Ackles, as a transgen named Alec. Similarly, many supporting
cast members from the first season were either axed or given
substantially less screen-time than before.
Today, history might remember Space:1999, Buck Rogers in the 25th
Century, War of the Worlds, SeaQuest DSV, and Dark Angel quite
differently if their second season re-vamps had not so radically
altered the very qualities that made the programs successes in the
first place.
These series ‰觝 trees cut down in winter, as it were ‰觝 weren‰菄t broken
to begin with, and history now records that many of these efforts to
‰裉fix them‰� were misguided‰�›or worse, the very reason they were
cancelled.

I think I can offer an example of a show that got BETTER after a revamp.
I have only dim recollections at this point but Lost in Space had a
major revamp too in Season 2. As I recall, Season 1 found them on the
planet they had landed in the pilot (or second episode) for the entire
season. I remember being disappointed that they weren't seeing any other
planets. But then, in Season 2, starting very early on, they started
travelling to other stars and planets and hardly ever spent more than
one episode on a given planet. At the time, I thought that was a big
improvement. Lost in Space ran three seasons didn't it? If so, that is
one longer than the other examples listed.
Mind you, I was only a kid when all this took place and had different
sensibilities than I do today. If I were watching the show for the first
time as an adult, I might be more distressed than pleased that they'd
started gallivanting around the universe instead of staying put on tthe
original planet. Or not.

OMG, Rhino, not to be unkind, but you're as 'wrong as Ian' here.

Uh oh. I was prepared to be wrong - I can't remember what I had for
lunch yesterday so remembering TV shows from 50 years ago is a dicey
proposition at best - but I hadn't expected to be *that* wrong....

Post by anim8rfsk
LOST IN SPACE is one of the very few examples of a show that cratered in
and then got better. Season 2 is universally considered the low point,
what with the space vikings and god help us the Questing Beast and such.
While it's true they have a much welcome lift off in season 2 (leaving
all their friends on the planet to die horribly), by the 4th (IIRC) ep
they're settled back in on a planet that looks suspiciously like their
old one.
Now, in season 3, they lift off again, and actually have several
episodes with space adventures and a lack of silliness until they
finally settle down and let Smith ruin the show again with space hippies
and the like.

You either have a much better memory than me or you've seen it more
recently, perhaps in syndication somewhere or maybe it's out on DVD. I
bow to your obviously superior recollection of the show :-)

I have the whole thing on the Blu-ray. :\

No wonder you have a clearer recollection of Space Family Robinson ;-)

[anim8rfsk]

Post by Rhino

Post by anim8rfsk

Post by Rhino

Post by anim8rfsk

Post by Rhino

Post by Ubiquitous
WE might accept as axiomatic the belief that patience is a virtue.
However, over the decades, several notable and even celebrated
science fiction TV series have failed to live up to this ideal.
Instead of demonstrating patience and prudence, their makers have
instead demonstrated radical impatience, and 槌ￜ after promising
first
season sorties 槌ￜ instituted sweeping changes that, in some cases,
threw away the baby with the bath water.
Below is a list of five science fiction programs that 槌ￜ had they
adhered more closely to their original format 槌ￜ might have
survived
the turbulent air-waves for several additional seasons.
In other words, these science fiction TV series were not broke, and
simply didn槌綟 require the kind of dramatic format
槌ￜfixing槌•ￜ1ï¿œ2ￜ they
endured.
Space: 1999 (1975 槌›ￜ 1977)
During its first season on the air, Gerry and Sylvia Anderson槌綌
1970s-era space adventure drew 槌ￜamazing ratings槌•ￜ1ï¿œ2ￜ in the U.S
according to Dick Adler at The Los Angeles Times (January 7, 1976).
Although prominent critics such as Isaac Asimov complained about the
series槌ￜ scientifically-challenged premise, which involved the moon
blasted out of Earth槌綌 orbit and visiting other worlds, the series
was nonetheless incredibly impressive in terms of production design,
miniature effects, and philosophical storylines.
The Wall Street Journal termed Space:1999 槌ￜthe most flashy,
gorgeous sci-fi trip ever to appear on TV,槌•ￜ1ï¿œ2ￜ (槌ￜSailing Along
on a
Moonbase Way,槌•ￜ1ï¿œ2ￜ Fall 1975) while Newsweek槌綌 Harry Waters
enthused
that not since Stanley Kubrick槌綌 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) had
槌ￜ
sci-fi freaks had the chance to trip out on so much surrealistic
gimmickry槌•ￜ1ï¿œ2ￜ(槌ￜSpaced Out,槌•ￜ1ï¿œ2ￜ October 1975).
Meanwhile, the same paper that had printed Asimov槌綌 negative review
槌ￜ The New York Times 槌ￜ suggested that Space: 1999 featured
槌ￜwhat no
other TV science-fiction program except Star Trek had 槌›ￜ good
stories
and good special effects.槌•ￜ1ï¿œ2ￜ (October 19, 1975).
But at the end of Space:1999槌綌 first year, however, the series
stood
on the chopping block of cancellation and American producer Fred
Freiberger replaced Sylvia Anderson. In an effort to save the
series, Mr. Freiberger 槌ￜAmericanized槌•ￜ1ï¿œ2ￜ Space:1999 to a
substantial
degree.
One major change was largely successful. Space:1999 Year Two
introduced the shape-shifting metamorph named Maya, played by the
charming and lovely Catherine Schell. Although Maya was a
delightful alien character, the series simultaneously jettisoned
familiar old hands such as Barry Morse槌綌 Victor Bergman and Prentis
Hancock槌綌 controller, Paul Morrow.
Just as troubling, perhaps, Space: 1999槌綌 singular sense of
atmospheric, philosophical terror 槌ￜ in which all of space was an
unsolvable mystery that the Alphans were psychologically unprepared
to contend with 槌ￜ was overturned. That vision of the universe was
replaced with a one more consistent with the tenets of the then-
popular Star Trek. In other words, the marooned denizens of
Moonbase Alpha suddenly found themselves battling sentient plants,
silicon life-forms, and amazon women in cat-suits, as well as a
Harry Mudd like trader/rogue called 槌ￜThe Taybor.槌•ￜ1ï¿œ2ￜ
Space:1999 Year
Two featured a lot of action, but much of it involved bad monster
suits too, a far cry from the terrifying monster of the first season
triumph, 槌ￜDragon槌綌 Domain.槌•ￜ1ï¿œ2ￜ
In an effort to rival the popular Star Trek, the makers of
Space:1999 thus made their series more like its competitor, a
change which ultimately doomed the series. Instead of growing an
audience based on their notable first season successes, the series
producers fixed the things that, simply, weren槌綟 broken.
Perhaps series star Martin Landau said it best. He told Starlog in
July of 1986 (Lee Goldberg: 槌ￜMartin Landau: Space Age
Hero,槌•ￜ1ï¿œ2ￜ page
45.): 槌ￜThey changed it because a bunch of American minds got into
the act and they decided to do many thing they felt were more
commercial. I think the show槌綌 beauty was that it wasn槌綟
commercial,
it had its own rhythm. I felt the episodes we started with in the
first season were much more along the lines I wanted to go. To some
extent, that was corrupted.槌•ￜ1ï¿œ2ￜ
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979 槌›ￜ 1981)
Like Space:1999 before it, NBC槌綌 post-Star Wars outer space series
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century(1979 槌›ￜ 1981) endured a dramatic
change from first season to second.
The first year of the Glen Larson series had been a swashbuckling,
tongue-in-cheek adventure that featured Buck Rogers (Gil Gerard) and
Wilma Deering (Erin Gray) essentially acting as secret agents in the
far-flung 25th century. In this capacity, they subverted space
dictators, battled despots like the Draconians and vanquished cult-
leaders such as Kaleel (Jack Palance). They even rescued a
槌ￜdefector槌•ￜ1ï¿œ2ￜ from a communist-styled planet during the
槌ￜspace
Olympics槌•ￜ1ï¿œ2ￜ episode, 槌ￜOlympiad.槌•ￜ1ï¿œ2ￜ
Accordingly, the first season of Buck Rogers felt a lot like an
outer-space variation on Mission: Impossible, only cheekier, and
with less information to keep track of.
Although expensive to produce, Buck Rogers had found a distinctive
groove, and proved popular with viewers. It even made the Nielson
Ratings top forty, all while battling the Robin Williams juggernaut
on ABC: Mork and Mindy.
At the end of the first season, producer Bruce Lansbury departed and
was replaced by Gunsmoke槌綌 John Mantley, a talent who enacted major
alterations.
Dr. Huer (Tim O槌犐onnor), Dr. Theopolis, the Earth Defense
Directorate, and the Draconians were dropped from the format
entirely, and Buck became a crew member aboard a starship called the
Searcher, instead. The Searcher had been assigned to find the
槌ￜlost
tribes槌•ￜ1ï¿œ2ￜ of Earth; people who had departed their home planet
after
the nuclear holocaust of the 1980s.
And yes, that description sounds an awful lot like the premise of
Battlestar Galactica (1978-1979).
Buck槌綌 second season introduced a new resident alien, a bird-man
called Hawk (Thom Christopher), while Wilma Deering became less
assertive and much less central to the action. The second season
also the introduction of an irritating new robot called Crichton,
and saw Mel Blanc leave the series as the voice of Twiki.
Although Thom Christopher was always impressive as Hawk, and made
the alien a compelling character (much as Catherine Schell had done
with Maya on Space:1999), the shift in story-telling and tenor was
the real problem. The stories on the new Buck Rogers became wannabe
Star Trek episodes about new 槌ￜcivilizations of the week.槌•ￜ1ï¿œ2ￜ
One
especially dire episode saw Buck and Wilma dealing with a golden
alien who aged backwards (like Jonathan Winters槌ￜ Mearth on Mork and
Mindy), while another involved mischievous dwarves run amok on the
Searcher.
Series star Gil Gerard was not pleased, and reportedly felt that the
season was a rip off of both Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica.
The re-vamped Buck Rogers was canceled after half-a-season.
War of the Worlds (1988 槌›ￜ 1990)
The premise of this late-1980s syndicated series was that Martian
invaders had attempted to invade Mother Earth in 1953, in the events
depicted by the George Pal movie. However, 槌ￜcommon
bacteria槌•ￜ1ï¿œ2ￜ
stopped the alien assault. But when scientists discovered later that
the aliens were hibernating, not dead, the U.S. government
suppressed the news, fearing a panic.
Instead, the U.S. army sealed up the alien bodies in black drums and
stored them at remote military installation called
槌ￜJericho.槌•ￜ1ï¿œ2ￜ
Meanwhile, the world at large seemed to forget entirely about the
alien invasion.
By the year 1988, however, armed terrorists found the barrels, and
the aliens awoke, stealing human form and launching a new, stealth
war (of the worlds) against humanity.
Dr. Harrison Blackwood (Jared Martin) led a team against the Martian
sleeper cell, known as 槌ￜThe Advocacy.槌•ￜ1ï¿œ2ￜ And protecting the
team from
danger was the series槌ￜ most popular character, Lt. Colonel
Ironhorse
(Richard Chaves), formerly a member of 槌ￜDelta Squad.槌•ￜ1ï¿œ2ￜ
Shot in Canada and produced on the cheap, War of the Worlds
nonetheless drew a large and supportive fan base throughout its
first season, in part due to the fact that series often highlighted
over-the-top gore, and showcased some quirky humor.
But you know where this is headed, right? Everything changed for
the second season. In the re-booted War of the Worlds, Earth was no
longer the planet we know, but a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Now,
the heroes of the series were suddenly on the run from the aliens,
and without a home base.
The bad guys 槌ￜ The Advocacy 槌ￜ were also dispatched and new
aliens,
the Morthren, replaced them.
The greatest offense, however, was that the series槌ￜ most beloved
character, Ironhorse, was killed off during the first episode of
season two and replaced with Adrian Paul槌綌 John Kincaid. Paul was
absolutely fine in the role, but it made zero sense to replace a
popular character with a new character of similar type.
In short, the second season of War of the Worlds completely
destroyed the world of the first season, killed the most popular
character, and replaced one alien invasion with another. The
changes were so radical and sweeping that the series was virtually
unrecognizable, and it was canceled by the end of its sophomore
season.
SeaQuest DSV (1993 槌›ￜ 1995)
This Steven Spielberg 槌›峷roduced series from the mid-1990s began its
TV life as a serious, scientific, and futuristic exploration of the
Earth槌綌 sea. The meme was displayed ably in SeaQuest槌綌 opening
voice-over narration: 槌ￜThe 21st century: mankind has colonized the
last unexplored region on Earth; the ocean. As captain of the
seaQuest and its crew, we are its guardians, for beneath the surface
lies the future槌•ￜ1ï¿œ2槷槌暕ￜ
The series involved the voyages of a state of the art sub, SeaQuest,
which operated under the aegis of the UEO (United Earth Oceans).
SeaQuest was 槌ￜthe largest deep sea exploration vehicle
ever,槌•ￜ1ï¿œ2ￜ and
outfitted with a crew of 124 scientists and 88 military personnel.
Playing the captain, Bridger, was the late Roy Scheider.
Among the other crew members on SeaQuest were the headstrong
executive officer, Jonathan Ford (Don Franklin), head of science and
medicine, Dr. Kristin Westphalen (Stephanie Beacham), Chief Engineer
Katherine Hitchcock (Stacy Haiduk) and communications officer Tim
O槌箈eill (Ted Raimi).
Other notable crew members and passengers on the first season of
SeaQuest DSV included the teenage genius and computer whiz, Lucas
Wolenczak (Jonathan Brandis) and Darwin, a dolphin who could
communicate verbally with Bridger and the others using an instrument
called a 槌ￜvocorder.槌•ￜ1ï¿œ2ￜ
During the first season there was a dedicated attempt every week on
SeaQuest to marry a hard-science concept or mission with some small
but fantastical aspect of the sci-fi genre. In 槌ￜTreasure of the
Mind,槌•ￜ1ï¿œ2ￜ for instance, the SeaQuest discovered the lost Great
Library
of Alexandria intact at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. Another
story (槌ￜGames槌•ￜ1ï¿œ2ￜ) saw the sub exploring the polar ice caps.
Finally, each episode of the first season ended with a brief
epilogue featuring the series槌ￜ science adviser, oceanographer Dr.
Robert Ballard. His monologues would always point out how specific
aspects of the episode were based on fact; and then encourage
viewers to learn more about the subject.
But reality and science went out the window in the dramatically re-
vamped second season.
Fully half the cast was axed from the show, including Stacy Haiduk,
John D槌犈quino, Stephanie Beacham. Worse, their replacement
characters were obvious rejects from the Star Trek universe. The
new doctor had Counselor Troi-like empathic powers, for instance,
and other characters were genetically-engineered 槌ￜresident槌•ￜ1ï¿œ2ￜ
aliens
called 槌ￜDaggers.槌•ￜ1ï¿œ2ￜ
Once more, the real problem, however, was not the cast-changes, but
the shift in storytelling style. The second season found the
SeaQuest encountering giant sea monsters and on one wretched
occasion, the Greek God, Poseidon/Neptune.
In a notorious with the Orlando Sentinel on September 13, 1994 star
Roy Scheider lambasted the new direction of Sea Quest. He said he
was 槌ￜashamed槌•ￜ1ï¿œ2ￜ of the series, and noted that the new stories
were
槌ￜjunk.槌•ￜ1ï¿œ2ￜ He also said that the series was 槌ￜnot even
good fantasy. I
mean Star Trek does this stuff much better than we can do it. To me
the show is now 21 Jump Street meets Star Dreck.槌•ￜ1ï¿œ2ￜ
Dark Angel (2000 槌›ￜ 2002)
Long before Avatar, James Cameron produced this sci-fi series with
writing partner Charles Eglee, and Jessica Alba starred as
槌ￜMax,槌•ￜ1ï¿œ2ￜ a
genetically-enhanced woman born of Project Manticore.槌•ￜ1ï¿œ2ￜ Max, a
槌ￜtransgen槌•ￜ1ï¿œ2ￜ lived in an economically depressed and
EMG-ravaged
Seattle of the year 2020.
In this dystopian future, the United States had become a third-world
country with its treasures sold off to the highest bidders. The
series also anticipated the use of automated military drones in
combat, and featured a Seattle run by a 槌ￜprotectorate槌•ￜ1ï¿œ2ￜ of
corrupt
agencies.
The first season of Dark Angel was extremely grounded in gritty
reality, and saw Max working with a resourceful journalist/crusader,
Logan Cale (Michael Weatherly) known as 槌ￜEyes Only.槌•ￜ1ï¿œ2ￜ He
called
himself 槌ￜthe only free voice left in槌•ￜ1ï¿œ2ￜ Seattle, and made it
his
business to expose the corrupt. Cale ran a version of WikiLeaks
before such a thing existed.
Although initial ratings were strong 槌ￜ in the realm of 17 million
viewers for the premiere episode 槌ￜ Dark Angel was barely renewed by
Fox for a second season. And that second season was quite different
in style and feel from the first, a veritable dumbing down or
lobotomy of the premise.
Suddenly, Max became surrounded by other genetic mutations 槌ￜ the
equivalent of 槌ￜresident aliens槌•ￜ1ï¿œ2ￜ 槌›ￜ and had to care for a
chimera
creature called Joshua (Kevin Durand), a dog-boy of sorts. This
dreadful character offered lame comic relief and in one terrible
episode (槌ￜMedium is the Message槌•ￜ1ï¿œ2ￜ) ate a tube of paint.
In just one season, the show went from being a smart exploration of
dystopia, military rule, and economic depression to a partially-
comedic effort that ramped up the romantic angles, and featured a
love triangle between Logan, Max, and future Supernatural star
Jensen Ackles, as a transgen named Alec. Similarly, many supporting
cast members from the first season were either axed or given
substantially less screen-time than before.
Today, history might remember Space:1999, Buck Rogers in the 25th
Century, War of the Worlds, SeaQuest DSV, and Dark Angel quite
differently if their second season re-vamps had not so radically
altered the very qualities that made the programs successes in the
first place.
These series 槌ￜ trees cut down in winter, as it were 槌ￜ
weren槌綟 broken
to begin with, and history now records that many of these efforts to
槌ￜfix them槌•ￜ1ï¿œ2ￜ were misguided槌•ￜ1ï¿œ2槷or worse, the very reason
they were
cancelled.

I think I can offer an example of a show that got BETTER after a revamp.
I have only dim recollections at this point but Lost in Space had a
major revamp too in Season 2. As I recall, Season 1 found them on the
planet they had landed in the pilot (or second episode) for the entire
season. I remember being disappointed that they weren't seeing any other
planets. But then, in Season 2, starting very early on, they started
travelling to other stars and planets and hardly ever spent more than
one episode on a given planet. At the time, I thought that was a big
improvement. Lost in Space ran three seasons didn't it? If so, that is
one longer than the other examples listed.
Mind you, I was only a kid when all this took place and had different
sensibilities than I do today. If I were watching the show for the first
time as an adult, I might be more distressed than pleased that they'd
started gallivanting around the universe instead of staying put on tthe
original planet. Or not.

OMG, Rhino, not to be unkind, but you're as 'wrong as Ian' here.

Uh oh. I was prepared to be wrong - I can't remember what I had for
lunch yesterday so remembering TV shows from 50 years ago is a dicey
proposition at best - but I hadn't expected to be *that* wrong....

Post by anim8rfsk
LOST IN SPACE is one of the very few examples of a show that cratered in
and then got better. Season 2 is universally considered the low point,
what with the space vikings and god help us the Questing Beast and such.
While it's true they have a much welcome lift off in season 2 (leaving
all their friends on the planet to die horribly), by the 4th (IIRC) ep
they're settled back in on a planet that looks suspiciously like their
old one.
Now, in season 3, they lift off again, and actually have several
episodes with space adventures and a lack of silliness until they
finally settle down and let Smith ruin the show again with space hippies
and the like.

You either have a much better memory than me or you've seen it more
recently, perhaps in syndication somewhere or maybe it's out on DVD. I
bow to your obviously superior recollection of the show :-)

I have the whole thing on the Blu-ray. :\

No wonder you have a clearer recollection of Space Family Robinson ;-)

I'm also on several Facebook LIS groups and administer a couple of other
Irwin Allen show pages, like THE TIME TUNNEL. :D

[Roger Blake]

Post by Ubiquitous
Below is a list of five science fiction programs that — had they
adhered more closely to their original format — might have survived
the turbulent air-waves for several additional seasons.

It's hard to think of a program that went down the shitter faster than
"Earth: Final Conflict." Amazing that it somehow lasted for 5 seasons,
each worse than the one that preceded it.

[anim8rfsk]

Post by Roger Blake

Below is a list of five science fiction programs that — had they
adhered more closely to their original format — might have survived
the turbulent air-waves for several additional seasons.

It's hard to think of a program that went down the shitter faster than
"Earth: Final Conflict." Amazing that it somehow lasted for 5 seasons,
each worse than the one that preceded it.

Yeah. They went through more than half a dozen formats, each stupider
than the one before. My favorite was the Earth that only had 25,000
people on it, yet there was an exact duplicate of every cast member and
their families.

[Dimensional Traveler]

Post by Roger Blake

Post by Ubiquitous
Below is a list of five science fiction programs that — had they
adhered more closely to their original format — might have survived
the turbulent air-waves for several additional seasons.

It's hard to think of a program that went down the shitter faster than
"Earth: Final Conflict." Amazing that it somehow lasted for 5 seasons,
each worse than the one that preceded it.

'Andromeda'.

[anim8rfsk]

Post by Dimensional Traveler

Post by Roger Blake

Below is a list of five science fiction programs that — had they
adhered more closely to their original format — might have survived
the turbulent air-waves for several additional seasons.

It's hard to think of a program that went down the shitter faster than
"Earth: Final Conflict." Amazing that it somehow lasted for 5 seasons,
each worse than the one that preceded it.

'Andromeda'.

Andromeda didn't totally spiral in until it's final season. They both
fell as far, but EFC fell far faster.

[Dimensional Traveler]

Post by anim8rfsk

Post by Dimensional Traveler

Post by Roger Blake

Below is a list of five science fiction programs that — had they
adhered more closely to their original format — might have survived
the turbulent air-waves for several additional seasons.

It's hard to think of a program that went down the shitter faster than
"Earth: Final Conflict." Amazing that it somehow lasted for 5 seasons,
each worse than the one that preceded it.

'Andromeda'.

Andromeda didn't totally spiral in until it's final season. They both
fell as far, but EFC fell far faster.

Andromeda did do a major retooling between seasons 1 and 2, when Sorbo
took control.

[David Johnston]

Post by Dimensional Traveler

Post by Dimensional Traveler

Post by Roger Blake

Below is a list of five science fiction programs that — had they
adhered more closely to their original format —  might have survived
the turbulent air-waves for several additional seasons.

It's hard to think of a program that went down the shitter faster than
"Earth: Final Conflict." Amazing that it somehow lasted for 5 seasons,
each worse than the one that preceded it.

'Andromeda'.

Andromeda didn't totally spiral in until it's final season.  They both
fell as far, but EFC fell far faster.

Andromeda did do a major retooling between seasons 1 and 2, when Sorbo
took control.

And that was a big change for the worse.

[shawn]

On Tue, 15 May 2018 00:01:24 -0600, David Johnston

Post by David Johnston

Post by Dimensional Traveler

Post by Dimensional Traveler

Post by Roger Blake

Below is a list of five science fiction programs that — had they
adhered more closely to their original format —  might have survived
the turbulent air-waves for several additional seasons.

It's hard to think of a program that went down the shitter faster than
"Earth: Final Conflict." Amazing that it somehow lasted for 5 seasons,
each worse than the one that preceded it.

'Andromeda'.

Andromeda didn't totally spiral in until it's final season.  They both
fell as far, but EFC fell far faster.

Andromeda did do a major retooling between seasons 1 and 2, when Sorbo
took control.

And that was a big change for the worse.

I thought the real problem was that Tribune took more direct control
of the show. I would think Sorbo's influence would be more on the line
of just giving himself more lines.

[anim8rfsk]

Post by shawn
On Tue, 15 May 2018 00:01:24 -0600, David Johnston

Post by David Johnston

Post by Dimensional Traveler

Post by Dimensional Traveler

Post by Roger Blake

Below is a list of five science fiction programs that — had they
adhered more closely to their original format —  might have survived
the turbulent air-waves for several additional seasons.

It's hard to think of a program that went down the shitter faster than
"Earth: Final Conflict." Amazing that it somehow lasted for 5 seasons,
each worse than the one that preceded it.

'Andromeda'.

Andromeda didn't totally spiral in until it's final season.  They both
fell as far, but EFC fell far faster.

Andromeda did do a major retooling between seasons 1 and 2, when Sorbo
took control.

And that was a big change for the worse.

I thought the real problem was that Tribune took more direct control
of the show. I would think Sorbo's influence would be more on the line
of just giving himself more lines.

That's what happened with EFC too; they forced Majel out between seasons.

[anim8rfsk]

Post by Dimensional Traveler

Post by anim8rfsk

Post by Dimensional Traveler

Post by Roger Blake

Below is a list of five science fiction programs that — had they
adhered more closely to their original format — might have survived
the turbulent air-waves for several additional seasons.

It's hard to think of a program that went down the shitter faster than
"Earth: Final Conflict." Amazing that it somehow lasted for 5 seasons,
each worse than the one that preceded it.

'Andromeda'.

Andromeda didn't totally spiral in until it's final season. They both
fell as far, but EFC fell far faster.

Andromeda did do a major retooling between seasons 1 and 2, when Sorbo
took control.

Yeah, but other than Gold Tailless Trance and the lack of Rev Bem and
the new theme, the stories don't really vary that much.

But season five lost Andromeda for God's sake! And all took place in
that stupid system where all the planets were identical with one lousy
western town set. And no Tyr! And Doyle, played by a porn star with no
acting ability of any kind. What's the point of casting porn actresses
who can't act in roles where they aren't going to get nekkid?

[J. Clarke]

Post by anim8rfsk

Post by Dimensional Traveler

Post by anim8rfsk

Post by Dimensional Traveler

Post by Roger Blake

Post by Ubiquitous
Below is a list of five science fiction programs that — had they
adhered more closely to their original format — might have survived
the turbulent air-waves for several additional seasons.

It's hard to think of a program that went down the shitter faster than
"Earth: Final Conflict." Amazing that it somehow lasted for 5 seasons,
each worse than the one that preceded it.

'Andromeda'.

Andromeda didn't totally spiral in until it's final season. They both
fell as far, but EFC fell far faster.

Andromeda did do a major retooling between seasons 1 and 2, when Sorbo
took control.

Yeah, but other than Gold Tailless Trance and the lack of Rev Bem and
the new theme, the stories don't really vary that much.
But season five lost Andromeda for God's sake! And all took place in
that stupid system where all the planets were identical with one lousy
western town set. And no Tyr! And Doyle, played by a porn star with no
acting ability of any kind. What's the point of casting porn actresses
who can't act in roles where they aren't going to get nekkid?

As long as they get nekkid for the producer . . .

[anim8rfsk]

Post by J. Clarke

Post by anim8rfsk

Post by Dimensional Traveler

Post by anim8rfsk

Post by Dimensional Traveler

Post by Roger Blake

Below is a list of five science fiction programs that — had they
adhered more closely to their original format — might have survived
the turbulent air-waves for several additional seasons.

It's hard to think of a program that went down the shitter faster than
"Earth: Final Conflict." Amazing that it somehow lasted for 5 seasons,
each worse than the one that preceded it.

'Andromeda'.

Andromeda didn't totally spiral in until it's final season. They both
fell as far, but EFC fell far faster.

Andromeda did do a major retooling between seasons 1 and 2, when Sorbo
took control.

Yeah, but other than Gold Tailless Trance and the lack of Rev Bem and
the new theme, the stories don't really vary that much.
But season five lost Andromeda for God's sake! And all took place in
that stupid system where all the planets were identical with one lousy
western town set. And no Tyr! And Doyle, played by a porn star with no
acting ability of any kind. What's the point of casting porn actresses
who can't act in roles where they aren't going to get nekkid?

As long as they get nekkid for the producer . . .

Yeah

[Ubiquitous]

Post by Roger Blake

Below is a list of five science fiction programs that — had they
adhered more closely to their original format — might have survived
the turbulent air-waves for several additional seasons.

It's hard to think of a program that went down the shitter faster than
"Earth: Final Conflict." Amazing that it somehow lasted for 5 seasons,
each worse than the one that preceded it.

But E:FC ran for more than two seasons, which was the point of the article.

[kensi]

Post by Ubiquitous
Dark Angel (2000 – 2002)
In this dystopian future, the United States had become a third-world
country with its treasures sold off to the highest bidders. The
series also anticipated the use of automated military drones in
combat, and featured a Seattle run by a “protectorate” of corrupt
agencies.

So, they basically predicted the future accurately, except for
interchanging Detroit with Seattle for some reason. Gotcha.

[Anssi Saari]

Post by Ubiquitous
Although initial ratings were strong — in the realm of 17 million
viewers for the premiere episode — Dark Angel was barely renewed by
Fox for a second season. And that second season was quite different
in style and feel from the first, a veritable dumbing down or
lobotomy of the premise.

I remember I wanted to like Dark Angel but it just wasn't that
good. While the characters and setting were OK, the episode plots were
just mediocre to bad. Not surprised it was barely renewed. Wikipedia
touts the 17.4 million viewers for the pilot but is suspiciously silent
on other episodes for season 1. IMO, dumbing it down on the second
season didn't make it that much worse.

[Ninapenda Jibini]

Post by Anssi Saari

Post by Ubiquitous
Although initial ratings were strong — in the realm of 17
million viewers for the premiere episode — Dark Angel was
barely renewed by Fox for a second season. And that second
season was quite different in style and feel from the first, a
veritable dumbing down or lobotomy of the premise.

I remember I wanted to like Dark Angel but it just wasn't that
good. While the characters and setting were OK, the episode
plots were just mediocre to bad. Not surprised it was barely
renewed. Wikipedia touts the 17.4 million viewers for the pilot
but is suspiciously silent on other episodes for season 1. IMO,
dumbing it down on the second season didn't make it that much
worse.

The *only* thing that show had going for it was Jessica Alba in
bicycle pants.

[Ubiquitous]

Post by Anssi Saari

Post by Ubiquitous
Although initial ratings were strong — in the realm of 17 million
viewers for the premiere episode — Dark Angel was barely renewed by
Fox for a second season. And that second season was quite different
in style and feel from the first, a veritable dumbing down or
lobotomy of the premise.

I remember I wanted to like Dark Angel but it just wasn't that
good. While the characters and setting were OK, the episode plots were
just mediocre to bad. Not surprised it was barely renewed. Wikipedia
touts the 17.4 million viewers for the pilot but is suspiciously silent
on other episodes for season 1. IMO, dumbing it down on the second
season didn't make it that much worse.

I remember Dark Angel being popular at the time, but I never watched it.