Author Topic: Annoying Series endin.............. (Read 2795 times)

Cunobelin · « **on:** 19 May, 2018, 09:39:32 am »

I have quite enjoyed "Lucifer" on Amazon, and watched the last episode inteh current series, which was quite a climactic ending

Leaves lots of questions, as a good series ending should

Yet apparently there is no Season 4 which is annoying to say the least

They could have ended in far better way

LEE · « **Reply #1 on:** 21 May, 2018, 01:24:08 pm »

Almost every US TV series ends because they bled it dry, the audience got bored and the execs pulled funding.

You can see how it goes wrong.

1) One episode pilot goes well

2) 12 episodes commissioned. The 12th episode is where the hero or villain is killed and there's a superb dramatic ending.

3) The show proves wildly popular

4) Execs tell the writers that the hero and villain can't be killed because there's going to be a 2nd...3rd...4th series

5) Dramatic ending is dropped for a stupid non-ending where nothing is resolved because it will get resolved in some future unspecified series....except the series gets canned before that point.

I'm sick of saying, "You've got to be kidding me" at the end of a series now.

Mind you there are so many of them now I have a hard time remembering which one is which. Are there any that don't start off with a woman's body in the woods, filmed in a cold Scandi-Blue-Hue ?

Kim · « **Reply #2 on:** 21 May, 2018, 02:11:26 pm »

The alternative of course is where some Good Idea is commissioned, an intricate and fulfilling 5-season story arc is written, and they cancel it after n<5 seasons (often due to the USAnian networks scheduling it to broadcast when the core audience demographic are in the pub or watching sportsball or whatever). Sometimes it gets left dangling, which is frustrating, but worse is when they try to wrap it all up over the course of the last three episodes.

Sometimes it gets un-cancelled after key actors have moved on to other things, leading to the Tracey Scoggins effect

ian · « **Reply #3 on:** 21 May, 2018, 09:01:00 pm »

I think the worse one was The 4400, which managed to drag me into four series and then, the end. The fifth and final series never happened. That's 64 hours of my life I'll never get back. That and the infamous Firefly, which must count as one of the worst ever broadcasting decisions ever (I mean, whether or not you liked the programme, how fucking much would they have made out of sales and eternal syndication). Sadly, like estate agents and STDs, US network execs seem curiously resistant to modern life and persist, along with their obsession for 22-episode series when there's enough material for six and then somehow being puzzled when the audience drifts off. Combined with utter thrall to ratings and retaining advertisers, even when it's obvious they'd stand to make a lot more from non-advertising revenue. Which is, of course, why Netflix is belatedly ascendent.

citoyen · « **Reply #4 on:** 23 May, 2018, 10:50:55 am »

Was the 4400 as bad as Heroes? The first series was superb with the whole 'save the cheerleader, save the world' thing, but then it went completely off the rails when they started bringing back characters who had been killed off and rewriting the timeline. I never found out how it ended because I lost interest.

Kim · « **Reply #5 on:** 23 May, 2018, 12:30:14 pm »

Heroes was brilliant - not least stylistically^[1] - but suffered from being a series of origin stories. There's only so far you can go with those.

I watched a couple of seasons of The 4400, but nothing happened.

The major premature cancellation of recent times was the awesome Sense8 (another one of those JMS 5-season arcs). By all accounts it was doing rather well when they cancelled it after the second season, but the different-teams-in-different-locations production style was as expensive as it was innovative, and they simply couldn't keep it on budget.

_{[1] I really liked the comicbook-style approach to captioning. There was a HDDVD release of at least the first season, and they'd given all the language and hearing impaired subtitles tracks the same loving treatment. I don't think blu-ray lets you do that, unfortunately.}

ian · « **Reply #6 on:** 23 May, 2018, 12:40:27 pm »

Quote from: citoyen on 23 May, 2018, 10:50:55 am

Was the 4400 as bad as Heroes? The first series was superb with the whole 'save the cheerleader, save the world' thing, but then it went completely off the rails when they started bringing back characters who had been killed off and rewriting the timeline. I never found out how it ended because I lost interest.

It was OK, but as ever a bit slow. It was the sort of material that would justify a 12 episode miniseries stretched over what should have been five seasons. But there was an actual arc and conclusion and enough to keep me watching. After a while you've invested enough to put up with the odd dull episode or three. Plus I'd bought the DVDs. In the Netflixian era, of course, I can dump a programme. It's not me, it's definitely you.

Or there should have been a conclusion, but it ended on a vertiginous season four cliffhanger never to be resolved. It's based on a book but I've never got around to reading it. My mistake, of course, was not googling before buying the boxset, in which case I've have known there was no conclusion other than a frustrating WTF?

citoyen · « **Reply #7 on:** 23 May, 2018, 12:47:42 pm »

Quote from: Kim on 23 May, 2018, 12:30:14 pm

Heroes was brilliant - not least stylistically^[1] - but suffered from being a series of origin stories. There's only so far you can go with those.

Precisely why they should have ended it after the first series.

I'd forgotten about the captions.

Kim · « **Reply #8 on:** 23 May, 2018, 01:06:50 pm »

I reckon that inspired the use of pop-up captioning of electronic devices that we see in more recent series. (Sherlock, for example.) Prior to that, either writers would avoid text-based communications, or they'd have to resort to clunky close-ups of MovieOS displays (or worse), which meant we couldn't see the character's reaction.

woollypigs · « **Reply #9 on:** 23 May, 2018, 07:19:41 pm »

Lost- first two episodes build up to a fantastic show and then it died.

Firefly - just ended why!?! (I know but I would have watched this for as many series as there has been Babylon 5 and StarTeck combined.

But then again shouldn't we add annoying soaps? Like eastenders, that should have ended years ago.

Kim · « **Reply #10 on:** 23 May, 2018, 07:22:04 pm »

Did anyone actually make it to the end of Lost? Had they all died in the crash, or was it something that made even less sense?

spesh · « **Reply #11 on:** 23 May, 2018, 07:28:39 pm »

Quote from: woollypigs on 23 May, 2018, 07:19:41 pm

Lost- first two episodes build up to a fantastic show and then it died.

Firefly - just ended why!?! (I know but I would have watched this for as many series as there has been Babylon 5 and StarTeck combined.

But then again shouldn't we add annoying soaps? Like eastenders, that should have ended years ago.

<tinfoil>

Soap operas serve as state-sanctioned mood-altering drug. Your life may be a shitnado, but there's guaranteed to be a fictional character in one of the soapverses who's got it worse than you.

</tinfoil>

woollypigs · « **Reply #12 on:** 23 May, 2018, 07:29:00 pm »

Quote from: Kim on 23 May, 2018, 07:22:04 pm

Did anyone actually make it to the end of Lost? Had they all died in the crash, or was it something that made even less sense?

I watched it to the end but I can't remember it (it was that good)

ian · « **Reply #13 on:** 23 May, 2018, 07:38:14 pm »

Quote from: Kim on 23 May, 2018, 07:22:04 pm

Did anyone actually make it to the end of Lost? Had they all died in the crash, or was it something that made even less sense?

I did. I don't think they were dead, it was all literal, except the bits that weren't. I confess I quite enjoyed Lost, the writers were evidently just making it up as they went along. Unfortunately, they then had to try and bring it all back together, which turned out to be the equivalent teaching a litter of kittens ballroom dancing. Just less fun to watch. It might have been better if had been cancelled at the end of the penultimate season.

Firefly was cancelled because it just didn't bring in the ratings and advertising dollars, and that why the US networks commission. For some reason it didn't occur to them that the entirely predictable revenue from sales and syndication would be a significant multiple of what they made from ads during the initial run. As such a shame it wasn't produced by Showtime or HBO.

lastant · « **Reply #14 on:** 24 May, 2018, 09:41:47 pm »

I finished Lost, one of the biggest ‘eurgh...what?!’ moments I can remember watching telly...

The big bosses explain more here.

They hit some interesting buffers along the way though; got funded for longer than initially planned so had to change the story arc, Michelle Rodriguez’s real life DUI case caused a re-write and the character who played Walt had an unexpected growth spurt which messed up filming and meant they had to write him out.

Mrs Pingu · « **Reply #15 on:** 24 May, 2018, 10:14:45 pm »

American Gods.
I assumed they were going to do the whole book in one series and was quite annoyed when it finished where it did. Seems to be some doubt as to when/if S2 will be made, and Gillian Anderson has already said she's not coming back as Media.

pcolbeck · « **Reply #16 on:** 25 May, 2018, 08:20:20 am »

Quote from: Mrs Pingu on 24 May, 2018, 10:14:45 pm

American Gods.
I assumed they were going to do the whole book in one series and was quite annoyed when it finished where it did. Seems to be some doubt as to when/if S2 will be made, and Gillian Anderson has already said she's not coming back as Media.

I saw a tweet last week saying filming had started on series 2.

Jakob W · « **Reply #17 on:** 25 May, 2018, 09:27:50 am »

Quote from: Mrs Pingu on 24 May, 2018, 10:14:45 pm

[...] Gillian Anderson has already said she's not coming back as Media.

Whaaaa? Why would you book actors like this for a series you knew was going to be split over multiple seasons and not option them for the later ones?!

ian · « **Reply #18 on:** 25 May, 2018, 10:04:10 am »

Money.

Torslanda · « **Reply #19 on:** 25 May, 2018, 11:08:54 am »

Never watched Lost, did watch Life On Mars & Ashes To Ashes. Very disappointed to get to the end and realise they were all dead.

Funny how they finished together, in the same way. There must have been almost a collective sigh of disappointment . . .

Kim · « **Reply #20 on:** 25 May, 2018, 04:18:19 pm »

You know what's worse than the ending of Life On Mars? The ending of the USAnian version of Life On Mars.

(click to show/hide)

andrewc · « **Reply #21 on:** 26 May, 2018, 09:47:22 pm »

Series that I've enjoyed that ended too soon:

Dark Skies. ...history is a lie....
Prey. Good ending though with the the friendly homo dominant locked in a cage.
Ultraviolet. Jack Davenport & Idris Elba as modern vampire hunters.

On the good news side it looks like Amazon have picked up "The Expense" for Season 4

Torslanda · « **Reply #22 on:** 27 May, 2018, 12:35:25 am »

Quote from: Kim on 25 May, 2018, 04:18:19 pm

You know what's worse than the ending of Life On Mars? The ending of the USAnian version of Life On Mars.

(click to show/hide)
They were all in suspended animation, and woke up on a spaceship about to land on Mars. Can't beat USAnians for taking things literally.

So glad I never watched that one . . .

Mr Larrington · « **Reply #23 on:** 27 May, 2018, 02:00:04 am »

The Killin'. Sarah Lund just bogs off to Iceland in a flying Maestro and that's it? Get tae fck!