Originally posted by RCmodeler
You know, if viewers felt "alienated" and/or "got lost" watching B5, you would expect the ratings to gradually decline, because viewers would abandon ship.
Yet the ratings are consistent. From season 2 to season 3 to season 4 the rating for B5 was a constant ~3.0%. In other words, the viewers stayed with the show.
I think we need to stop assuming that American viewers are too dumb to understand/follow a novel for TV. Clearly they understood B5 well enough to stick with it.
You know, if viewers felt "alienated" and/or "got lost" watching B5, you would expect the ratings to gradually decline, because viewers would abandon ship.
Yet the ratings are consistent. From season 2 to season 3 to season 4 the rating for B5 was a constant ~3.0%. In other words, the viewers stayed with the show.
I think we need to stop assuming that American viewers are too dumb to understand/follow a novel for TV. Clearly they understood B5 well enough to stick with it.

Consider this: a TV show starts as almost a "guerilla TV" campaign, given a look by some 3% of the viewers, simply because it is SF. Over time, it wins some of the top awards in the field, gets critical acclaim, some TV guide coverage to die for... and new viewers are barely enough to make up for the loss.
Don't get me wrong. I love the format and wish there were some way to make it work for evry show out there with the writing quality and vision we enjoyed in B5. B5 was simply the best thing on television, ever (for people like me at least), BECAUSE of the five-year format. In fact, I discovered only today what Delenn actually meant when she told Sinclair "I knew you would come for me" in Season 1's Soulhunter - and the secret is a seemingly unrelated story she tells in Season 3's Confessions and Lamentations! Five years after the show went off the air I am still getting new "gotcha" moments!
However, I think people like us are rare, and it is hard to imagine that we make up a "market." Wish I was wrong.
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