Fox May Revive 'Futurama'

[LeHah]

There's a pretty large ethical difference between killing someone who has already committed a crime and the assasination of someone you believe to be dangerous.

Ethical constraints are unquantifiable abstracts based upon one's social enviroment.

 

[Delance]

Ethical constraints are unquantifiable abstracts based upon one's social enviroment.

Not they are not, as not every single person is obliged to follow such shameless relativism, because relativism can’t be an absolute value, under penalty of self-contradiction. Not that any of this matter to the case in point.

What was described appears to be a classic moral conflict of ends and means. Can Jack Bauer torture the suspect to find important information? This can be played over and over again, but since it is an important question, if it's well done, can be interesting and entertaining. But it's nothing new or bold on itself. The good answer is a balance between ends and means, with the caveat that intrinsically evil means are never acceptable. A good dilemma would be were such evil mean is the only available solution, or the more convenient one.

 

[Halman]

Yeah, it's crazy edgey to have a good guy do something bad to a bad guy for a good reason. It has quite literally never ever been done in the history of television, radio or theater.

 

[Edfilho]

I like burritos.
And The last season of buffy sucks. And SG-1 sucks soooooooooooooo bad.

 

[LeHah]

Not they are not, as not every single person is obliged to follow such shameless relativism, because relativism can’t be an absolute value, under penalty of self-contradiction.

You're confusing yourself. I'm saying that morality of the average joe in the United States is not the same of the average joe in, say, Kuwait. Until very recently, stonings were very common in the Muslim world; we may find that barbaric, but that was acceptable in that country.

Can Jack Bauer torture the suspect to find important information?

Citing a FOX drama is a bad way to make a point.

I like burritos.
And The last season of buffy sucks. And SG-1 sucks soooooooooooooo bad.

Last two seasons of Buffy

 

[Pedro]

SG-1 is great entertainment, its not anything particularly original but its a universe which lends its self perfectly to a bit of weekly entertainment. The stargate network is an idea so suited to TV I wouldn't be surprised if the show sees more seasons of its combined variations than Star Trek.
And all of Buffy was abysmal. Atleast the x-files had the first season or two to its credit. The sad thing is I know why people liked Buffy, I really wish I could say I didn't.

 

[Ptarmigan]

That's odd that a network would revive a show that was cancelled. FOX did to The Family Guy and more than likely Futurama. Futurama was a cool show. I wish CBS could revive Garfield though. FOX has many shows that I would not even watch, that don't even last too long.

 

[LeHah]

I wish CBS could revive Garfield though.

Garfield would've been on for at least another season if not for the death of Lorenzo Music, who provided to voice of the title character.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Garfield would've been on for at least another season if not for the death of Lorenzo Music, who provided to voice of the title character.

The show ended six years before he died.

 

[LeHah]

I believe he was diagnosed during what would be the show's last season and was too weak to continue. Though, yes, what I said was completely different.

I'll shut up now.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Googling for him indicates he was diagnosed only a few months before he died -- he stopped doing voice work in 1995 because Garfield and Darkwing Duck ended, not the other way around.

The goal for most shows is to hit the five season mark and have enough episodes for daily syndication... series' that are profitable enough in first run may go as far as seven before it becomes too expensive to keep them going -- a show has to be extraordinarily popular or important to go beyond that (and even then the reality of contracts generally means lots of recasting... look at a later X-Files or ER episode).

Garfield went for seven years, which is amazing especially for an animated series... but it hit that wall where there's no money being made from new episodes and there's less and less creativity left -- and in 1995 TV was changing and networks just weren't interested in first run childrens programming at all anymore.

 

[Delance]

You're confusing yourself. I'm saying that morality of the average joe in the United States is not the same of the average joe in, say, Kuwait. Until very recently, stonings were very common in the Muslim world; we may find that barbaric, but that was acceptable in that country.

Well, being acceptable in that country doesn't make it right, and we finding it barbaric doesn't make it wrong. Morality is more that what the avarege joe feels, or what's acceptable on a given society, or else there's no morality at all.

Citing a FOX drama is a bad way to make a point.

The point was that it was a conflict commonly used on TV shows, and I don't see how it was hurt by this example.

 

[LeHah]

Googling for him indicates he was diagnosed only a few months before he died -- he stopped doing voice work in 1995 because Garfield and Darkwing Duck ended, not the other way around.

Really now? I stand corrected. I had heard for years that he was struggling due to illness and was more forced to retire than anything else.

The goal for most shows is to hit the five season mark and have enough episodes for daily syndication...

I thought you had said previously that a show doesn't need X number of episodes to go into syndication?

Well, being acceptable in that country doesn't make it right, and we finding it barbaric doesn't make it wrong.

I don't see how you can judge anyone or any particular group.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

I thought you had said previously that a show doesn't need X number of episodes to go into syndication?

The internet made up something about how shows need exactly 100 episodes to be syndicated and that {their favorite show} will beat 'the man' by only making *98* episodes by the end of their season. That part isn't true -- but shows need about five seasons (~70-120 episodes) to be of interest to people buying daily syndication packages (so episodes don't repeat too often).

(Edit: and, despite what the internet thinks, it's not some kind of law -- people can and do sell their thirteen episode shows into syndication when there's interest...)

 

[LeHah]

I know Im going to get hasseled for making this point given the items Im about to cite - but how do you explain stuff like The Prisoner or Twin Peaks going into syndication? I understand Star Trek, because it gained major popularlity as the series progressed but TP and Prisoner were very... "limited" in their audience.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Neither of them were syndicated in the way a show wants to be syndicated -- that is, daily airings on a popular network.

The Prisoner was one of a dozen or so syndication packages that the Sci Fi channel bought in its infancy. Things like The Prisoner, Space: 1999, Planet of the Apes and the like were bought because they were cheap (and they were cheap because they never had enough episodes to be purchased by anyone but a niche channel like Sci Fi). They didn't sit around and say "gee, this Star Trek show is popular, but lets go with the short lived V spinoff series instead...".

Twin Peaks is a pretty famous example of the exact situation we're discussing, though. It was popular enough that it could have been syndicated...but because it only ran for two seasons it wasn't. It gets sold to random cable channels (Bravo and such) on occasion instead -- and when that happens it's run weekly instead of daily because they don't have enough episodes.

 

[Ptarmigan]

Garfield would've been on for at least another season if not for the death of Lorenzo Music, who provided to voice of the title character.

I read that in some Garfield reruns from season 7, they replaced it with that obscure rap theme song, which is the holy grail. I do remember the rap theme song. It had the word cat in big red letters and it was mostly black and white. The last volume of Garfield uses the Latin/Caribbean theme in all episodes, even at the end of the episode. I suspect that Garfield would run for another season or two. Writing a new theme song is an investment. I think the rap theme song was going to be used for the next Garfield season had it not been cancelled. I read Garfield ceased production because CBS asked them if they can do it with less money, which they said they could not. Another weird thing is, some episodes and season 6 and 7 of Garfield are not syndicated. Garfield is probably the longest running Saturday morning cartoon. Most Saturday morning cartoons last a few episode or a season or two. Garfield is one of the longest running cartoons besides The Simpsons, King of the Hill, and South Park.

 

[Ptarmigan]

The internet made up something about how shows need exactly 100 episodes to be syndicated and that {their favorite show} will beat 'the man' by only making *98* episodes by the end of their season. That part isn't true -- but shows need about five seasons (~70-120 episodes) to be of interest to people buying daily syndication packages (so episodes don't repeat too often).

(Edit: and, despite what the internet thinks, it's not some kind of law -- people can and do sell their thirteen episode shows into syndication when there's interest...)

24 is in syndication and there is 96 episodes as of right now. I have learned in RTF, that usually around 100 episodes is when shows become syndicated.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Another weird thing is, some episodes and season 6 and 7 of Garfield are not syndicated.

My guess would be that they weren't included in the original syndication package... and there's no real impetus for anyone to renegotiate to purchase them.

Garfield is probably the longest running Saturday morning cartoon. Most Saturday morning cartoons last a few episode or a season or two. Garfield is one of the longest running cartoons besides The Simpsons, King of the Hill, and South Park.

I don't think that's true... for one thing, Pokemon outscores all these shows -- its 380th episode in the US airs on Saturday. There's certainly even good old American shows that utrank Garfield -- the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ran for ten seasons (and produced 193 episode).

(In terms of how the ordinary Saturday morning cartoon runs, the general idea is that the first season is a small number of episodes because of the expense involved... and then if that's profitable, a second season with a large number of episodes is made with the aim of having enough to be able to rerun the show daily.)

 

[Ptarmigan]

My guess would be that they weren't included in the original syndication package... and there's no real impetus for anyone to renegotiate to purchase them.

I don't think that's true... for one thing, Pokemon outscores all these shows -- its 380th episode in the US airs on Saturday. There's certainly even good old American shows that utrank Garfield -- the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ran for ten seasons (and produced 193 episode).

(In terms of how the ordinary Saturday morning cartoon runs, the general idea is that the first season is a small number of episodes because of the expense involved... and then if that's profitable, a second season with a large number of episodes is made with the aim of having enough to be able to rerun the show daily.)

I never knew Pokemon had that many episodes. Never paid attention to it. Saturday morning cartoons are not that profitable. They have declined in the 1990s because not profitable, kids do other things, and cable channels like The Cartoon Network.