"the legend of the rangers"

[vacantlook]

...fanboys who couldn't run a table at a Sci-Fi con.... those with poor reading comprehension skills and an aversion to checking their facts....

And it sure seems Joe's condecension and arrogance is still running full-steam these days.

[Radhil]

And it sure seems Joe's condecension and arrogance is still running full-steam these days.

It may be, but he's also completely and utterly bullseye-dead-on. The backlash against Bonnie in those days (on several SciFi channel issues) was of such vulgar mob-mentality that it gave every sci-fi fan a bad look. It was utterly ridiculous, and whatever decent points were ever brought to light were squashed.

Joe's attitude might be over the top, but his wording is actually perfectly right.

[vacantlook]

...but his wording is actually perfectly right.

Points he sought out to make might be right, but his wording was blatantly condecending in his typical manner, especially with its being subtextually directed at someone in this thread.

[Jan]

Points he sought out to make might be right, but his wording was blatantly condecending in his typical manner, especially with its being subtextually directed at someone in this thread.

Not necessarily. The whole "Bonnie Hammer won't allow any space-based stuff on the Sci-Fi Channel" has been bandied about too often and too long. Sure, Joe might have worded it more politely but I don't blame him for getting impatient with people who insist on perpetuating false information.

Fans have a bad habit (in my opinion, of course) of too often simply not considering legitimate business aspects when they're being passionate and that can be annoying to those who understand that it's called show *business*, not show 'art'. If we're very lucky, art may be committed by the people involved in making shows but networks don't base decisions on programming on artistic merits. As President Luchenko put it, "I know it sucks, but that's the way it is."

Jan

[AaronB]

I'm glad Joe was calm in his reply. He should really stop internalliazing these things. I wonder how he really feels...

[Night Marshal]

For those interested, this post from JMS has actual ratings figures from areas of the country both where Rangers was aired opposite the football game and those where it wasn't.

Jan

honestly I have seen this and knew you would bring this up and still think it is a cop out.

I just don't think the fan would have supported this show reguardless of when it aired. I mean how many people here seen LotR when it aired. I know it didn't and most of the other Hard core B5er's I know didn't and there weren't watching that football game Ither.

[AmyG]

That's just crazy talk, Night Marshal. Every Babylon 5 fan that I know, who was not watching that football game, was tuned into "Legend of the Rangers." And the ones who were watching the blasted football game taped the program. I mean, really. What B5 fans do you think weren't watching it, and why not? No one knew much of anything about the story, or the characters, or the Hand, or the much-maligned weapons system beforehand, so why do you think that any B5 fans would have scorned new Babylon 5 material??

Not only did all the fans I know watch it; I know many people went repeatedly to the movies just to catch the trailer on the big screen (all these years later it escapes me what movie it was showing with, but I remember traveling quite a few miles away to see it with another local fan on the afternoon of New Year's Eve that year).

[Jan]

I just don't think the fan would have supported this show reguardless of when it aired. I mean how many people here seen LotR when it aired. I know it didn't and most of the other Hard core B5er's I know didn't and there weren't watching that football game Ither.

That doesn't make any sense at all. Now you're saying that you think that the fans already knew they wouldn't like it before it ever even aired? On what do you base that opinion? For instance, why didn't *you* want to see it?

EDIT: That was Lord of the Rings the trailer was shown with, Amy.

Jan

[Joe Nazzaro]

Just to clarify something I said earlier about Sci-Fi moving away from space shows, I never said it was Bonnie Hammer who made those comments, and I certainly didn't mean to infer that. But I've had at conversations with at least two people at producer level, one of whom was talking off the record, who was told by Sci-Fi that they were moving away from 'space shows.' Obviously that attitude changed a bit with the success of Battlestar Galactica, but I think Joe M is right, that if the ratings on 'Rangers' were impressive enough, they certainly would have taken another look. But frankly, I'm not sure they were interested in signing on for a show that they didn't own, which had less-than-impressive ratings in its initial outing. Seems sensible to me. If the Battlestar Galactica mini-series tanked in the ratings, I'm sure we wouldn't be watching season two right now.

[Laiden]

Hi!!! Little ol' Laiden here just wanting to say how WONDERFUL it is to see that everyone can still debate over things that don't matter anymore

Don't Forget to purchase your Copy of Legend of the Rangers on DVD!!

Reading all the posts in this thread since Jan's link to JMS comments on the Ratings has made me a bit tired. I may not care for the movie, but it is still Babylon 5 and I will add it to my collection and watch it with the rest thank you and goodnight!!

EDIT: TVShowsonDVD.com has a review of The Legend of the Rangers DVD. Just kind of gives you a heads up on what to expect.

[Night Marshal]

That doesn't make any sense at all. Now you're saying that you think that the fans already knew they wouldn't like it before it ever even aired? On what do you base that opinion? For instance, why didn't *you* want to see it?

EDIT: That was Lord of the Rings the trailer was shown with, Amy.

Jan

YES, people make judgments on things before they air. The reason I didn't see is two fold first didn't have Sci-Fi in my dorm at the time, but more than that I just didn't care about it, because if I cared would have found a way to watch it. At the time LotR was just another show thrown against the wall to see if it would stick.

Like I said earlier I like it the more I watch it. It takes me a while to grow into a show wouldn't touch BSG until was in it second season. My friends when we have talked about LotR Tell me they mostly gave up on Babylon 5 after Crusade. It a simple matter of after seeing something you care about die youÆre a lot less likely to care again.

Is LotR a good show? yes and no. would have it gotten better? Without a doubt in my mind. But take me back four year and give me a change to watch it and I'm still not going to do it.

And in the end I guess I feel that there is still a lot of love of B5, but I doubt the fans or Joe care enough to make it happen again. Joe is happy with what he did with Babylon 5 and JMS is moving on with his life. And I guess it bother me that there is always an excuse for why it didn't happen the network, the writer, the sets, the combat system. From everything I understand TV is hard getting to get right, even with the right people who know what they are doing itÆs hard. LotR just didn't get in right and thatÆs why there are only two hours of it. End of story at least in my mind.

ps. http://www.scifi.com/b5rangers/ and those crappy banner ads didn't help sell the show either.

[Jan]

EDIT: TVShowsonDVD.com has a review of The Legend of the Rangers DVD. Just kind of gives you a heads up on what to expect.

So not a single extra. Bummer. Even worse bummer about the sound. At least the entire thing will be on DVD now, though.

Jan

[frulad]

2. Bonnie Hammer gets bashed by a lot of ill-informed fanboys who couldn't run a table at a Sci-Fi con, much less a successful cable TV channel. Despite the half-digested gossip that the ignorant share among themselves Bonnie Hammer NEVER SAID "Sci-Fi doesn't want to do outer space shows." Let's repeat that so it really sinks in: Bonnie Hammer NEVER SAID "Sci-Fi doesn't want to do outer space shows." What she did say, in an interview whose only reader appears to be me, was that she wanted to expand the SF audience, especially to attract more women, and to get across the message that Sci-Fi "isn't only about spaceships and ray-guns." No "policy" of not doing space shows was ever announced, or contemplated, or ever existed outside the minds of those with poor reading comprehension skills and an aversion to checking their facts. (Sci-Fi, in fact, announced a couple of big budget mini-series and TV movies set in outerspace at around the same time.)

Wow. In what aisle of Home Depot did you get that particularly wide paint brush?

Admittedly, my use if the word ôSlimyö may be a bit overboard and glib. ôCluelessö may have been more apt. However, my opinion of HammerÆs overall track-record being uneven at best and only now making an upswing is not as unfounded as certain people would like to disparage them as. (And I realize that while I never said anything about an alleged "No spaceships at Sci-Fi" programming policy, it certainly looks like I've been lumped into that crowd.)

To say that there is no evidence that Sci-Fi mandated there will be no new programming set in space is a rather thin arguement.

A quick trip through Google kicks back numerous references to a November 10, 2003 issue of MediaWeek article about Sci-Fi and HammerÆs reign. Quote-

Hammer has been hard at work humanizing Sci Fi since she arrived at the network in 1998 by mixing original series-set on Earth as well as among the stars-with a balance of B-movie mutant insects and high-budget epics like Steven Spielberg's Taken

And-

As more cable networks like FX and Spike TV seek to capture the male audience that is Sci Fi's primary life source, there is increasing pressure to keep the viewers it has while attracting newer, younger and more feminine species to the channel. This will be achieved, executives hope, by appealing to all viewers with more relatable, Earth-bound stories that still deal in fantasy and the unknown. "We picked apart where we needed to go and found that there is a huge audience to bring in by developing pockets of audience: the science fiction traditionalist, the entertainment seeker and those who like epics, no matter where they are set," explains Hammer. "We realized with Taken that there were women who would come to us if we aired event programming that dealt more with the human psyche and emotions."

(Emphasis mine)

Have you ever played "Telephone"? I'm sure we all know that fandom is often no more than a giant game of "telephone" with stories getting garbled almost immediately. It's concievable that the above story could easily be transmutated in its telling to be a statement that Sci-Fi was shunning spaceships for Earth-based series.

Leaving aside those quotes, it's easy to see that there had been a shift away from more esoteric, space-based fare at the network by simply looking at a number of shows the channel commissioned- The Chronicle, First Wave, Invisible Man, The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne (anyone else remember this pile of crap?), Tremors, etc. (LetÆs leave aside, for the moment, whether these shows actually ædealt more with the human psyche and emotionsÆà)

Also, there seemed to be a sudden upswing in the Earth-based stories on Stargate after it transplanted from Showtime to Sci-Fi.

Sci-Fi has reportedly been developing a revival of Quantum Leap, though since I havenÆt seen much reported lately I fear it may be a dead project.

Even JMSÆs proposed series Polaris was shot down by the network, according to JMS himself because ôSFC decided that the premise of Polaris was a little too science fictiony, when they were looking to go for ideas that had more immediate mainstream appeal.ö

And what can be said for the rash of reality-programming that sprang up on the channel a few years back- Crossing Over, Scare Tactics, Mad, Mad House, etc.?

Setting aside the MediaWeek article, with all such anecdotal evidence, one would be hard pressed to conclude that there wasnÆt a shift in programming philosophy on behalf of Mz. Hammer and the network.

However, all this is beside the point. While I feel that HammerÆs ôEarth-based programmingö philosophy was a factor in LotRÆs non-pickup, I think we can all agree that the primary forces were a playoff football game that weakened the East CoastÆs ratings and Warners refusal to let Sci-Fi own a piece of the show.

To be sure, Hammer has made some good decisions recently, most notably building their strong Friday night block. However, these decisions came at the end of a long period of trial and error, with many errors that alienated (perhaps temporarily, perhaps permanently) many hardcore viewers.

[Laiden]

So not a single extra. Bummer. Even worse bummer about the sound. At least the entire thing will be on DVD now, though.

Jan

yeah, that was my only concern was to have it on DVD the sound would have been nice since all the others are in 5.1

[Night Marshal]

I'm happy just to get it=) now I can say I have the complete work of Babylon 5.

*Shakes fist in air* No good WB making JMS mad with the Crusade DVD commentary.