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Sunday, January 13, 2008

Crazy like a fox? Stupid like FOX

I'm mildly enthused about Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which airs tonight for the first time. (I'm containing my enthusiasm because FOX has burned me before on its sci-fi shows, canceling them way early, and because some recent sci-fi shows, like Bionic Woman, have been disappointing.)

But what concerns/burns me the most is FOX repeating the same stupid, show-killing premiere format as with Drive (another promising genre show, one that FOX drove into the ground). The show's normal timeslot is Monday nights, but they're debuting it Sunday night and following it up with a new episode the night after. It's just dumb--it requires a sudden, strong commitment from a public not used to it yet (it was worse with Drive, where they started it with a two-hour pilot, meaning that if you were intrigued by the show, you had to commit to three hours of viewing within 25 hours if you didn't want to be hopelessly lost). And I just don't get the sense of putting it on for the first time in a time slot you aren't going to have it occupy. It's not a good way to get people in the habit of viewing it and it's a piss-poor way to test out how it's going to work in its target slot.

1 comment:

Spork Boy said...

Did you watch the show? What did you think? It seemed okay. Nothing helps to capture the male viewing audience than a hot, teenage, cyborg girl, eh?

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