NBC 9 years old SC FI series -- pity it was never finished

Hi there.

Just found some old DVD's of an 9 year old Sci Fi series - SURFACE from NBC -- Thought it was quite amazing - but cancelled after first season - so I'll never know how it ended !!!!

Compared to a lot of RUBBISH on TV these days it's a pity some of these old series aren't revived and rounded off so the story line completes properly !! - I suppose decent story lines and acting is much harder to do than Boring old Reality TV shows -- how is it people are STILL watching those --who cares whether XXXX loses a passport at airport YYY or California Highway patrol agues with a woman for using a mobile phone on a Freeway.

I'm hoping that Covert affairs comes back for another run - otherwise all the good stuff (or stuff I seem to like) doesn't last long on TV these days.

One of my favourite old timers was Roy Thinnes in "The Invaders" --had a sensible story line and great acting.

Another great series was a Canadian TV series Dark Skies -- I managed to find all 6 DVD's in a Junk store -- we had a Nato base at Keflavik (closed in 2006 and now the International Airport) so there's still quite a bit of ex US / Canadian stuff still to be found.

I'd love that series to be re-done and expanded. So far this year Live TV is even worse than last years and that was an all time LOW by anybody's standards - probably in ANY country -- I'd bet even N.Korea's stuff would be more exciting -- at least the fiction content would be enjoyable !!!!

Cheers
jimbo

One series I found interesting was Nowhere Man with Bruce Greenwood. I had the DVD boxed set. It was kind of strange in that the whole show wrapped itself up in the first season. 13 episodes and done. I always had the feeling that wasn't the original intention.

In any case it was very different for Cloak and Dagger stuff. A hallmark of the show was The Distraction(tm.) A waiter would drop a tray. The hero would look to the noise. When he turned back around a second later, his wife was gone from the table not to be seen again for months. Plus it had a "Village" aspect similar to The Prisoner.

Another similar series was the old Secret Agent Man, or Danger Man as they called it over in the UK. I didn't like it when I originally saw it as a kid because naturally I wanted to see shooting and gadgets and stuff like on Man From U.N.C.L.E.. But later on I learned to appreciate the plot lines of the Danger Man episodes were much more realistic. Shoot outs with people getting killed were pretty rare. What was in evidence was that Danger Man had to do whatever it took to accomplish the task. Sort of an anti-hero.

Nowhere man was GREAT! Bruce Greenwood and Megan Gallagher who I think is great - It was during UPN's first "Dramatically Different" season, which has a LOT of good shows - Marker, Deadly Games, all poof Gone.

The 2nd year of UPN made it into the "Network of BAD Ethnic Comedies" and it stayed that way until the cancelled the last Trek show, which action killed the network. It also put several thousand people out of work, and took control of Trek OUT of the hands of the people Gene Roddenberry authorised to handle it. They had to recoup their cash by AUCTIONING off all those Trek Props of almost 50 years- Which was the biggest mistake ever, cos only the richest people in the world were able to buy it all.

But the latest mistake was Fox has cancelled Almost Human, which was practically he best show of this year.

At least they gave Sleepy Hollow a 2nd season, I didn't think I would like it but they added John Noble as The Sin Eater and he works well in that show.

The X Files was an anomaly that lasted 9 whole seasons, even has a season that had almost 26 episodes, which is highly unusual - The Trek shows Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, all had 26 eps per season save for their first seasons (and trek's Second - The Writer's Strike). Voyager I think had 23 per season, maybe more for a few seasons, but Entershite only got 22 per season, plus they chopped the time from 45 minutes to 40 minutes, which sucks. The first season of Fringe had that 60's 50-minute episode thing going, remember the original Star Trek? 50 minute episodes, baby, gives you a lotta time to tell a story. Enterprise always seemed so rushed, in Deep Space Nine, those space battles used up a lot of TIME cos the eps were longer. They had to abbreviate that for Enterprise.

One of My favourites was "MllenniuM" with a main character named after the guy from the Pixies heh. Speaking of "after" Chris Carter;s new show "The After" is REALLY good - I cant wait for the episodes to start, they just green lighted the pilot ep!

Too Bad Almost Human won't be joining us next fall, that sucks, screw Foxuck.

Brain dead reality shows like The Kardashians rule now. Don't have to pay real actors, no script.....easy money.

They cancelled Almost Human and Revolution, two great shows that require more than one brain cell to watch. I now watch Continuum from Canada TV. They actually seem to support real acting, plots and intelligent viewers.

They booted Fringe from it's slot just for a SECOND night of American Idle, and stuck it at Friday night to die. Screw Faux, especially their NONews.

popeye said:

Brain dead reality shows like The Kardashians rule now. Don't have to pay real actors, no script.....easy money.

They cancelled Almost Human and Revolution, two great shows that require more than one brain cell to watch. I now watch Continuum from Canada TV. They actually seem to support real acting, plots and intelligent viewers.

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As I remember it Reality Shows(tm) were pretty much limited to MTV until the writers strike. I tried to watch a few that had attractive women but all everyone did was babble. Then an argument would start to cover the fact that nobody said anything for the last 40 minutes worth hearing. At least on SyFy there were some shows with scripts and plots. I haven't watched any TV to speak of in the last 15 months or so. I don't even know what shows are on these days.

I wish I could access Canadian TV. I liked some of the off beat scifi stuff.

MilesAhead said:

popeye said:

Brain dead reality shows like The Kardashians rule now. Don't have to pay real actors, no script.....easy money.

They cancelled Almost Human and Revolution, two great shows that require more than one brain cell to watch. I now watch Continuum from Canada TV. They actually seem to support real acting, plots and intelligent viewers.

Click to expand...

As I remember it Reality Shows(tm) were pretty much limited to MTV until the writers strike. I tried to watch a few that had attractive women but all everyone did was babble. Then an argument would start to cover the fact that nobody said anything for the last 40 minutes worth hearing. At least on SyFy there were some shows with scripts and plots. I haven't watched any TV to speak of in the last 15 months or so. I don't even know what shows are on these days.

I wish I could access Canadian TV. I liked some of the off beat scifi stuff.

Click to expand...

Continuum can be found in different ways. I think even on Amazon video. The main premise is about corporations becoming the government which seems to be happening. It is also about time travel. One of the kind of shows you have to watch every second and listen to every word to keep up.

Anyone remember Odyssey 5? It was a Sci-fi show that came out around 2002 that dealt with Earth's destruction. Great show that was ended way to soon. Also would have liked to seen Terra Nova continue for a 2nd season. Why do all the good shows' get canned while the crappy one's continue for a while longer? Doesn't seem to make sense.

Hi there.

The best TV is now OFF the standard US networks -- NETFLIX IMO did an amazing job with both ist and second season of House of Cards - hopefully there will be a SERIES 3 -- second series (Spoiler if you haven't seen it) - ended with the most ruthless scheming politician becoming VP -- so a 3rd series to see him come crashing down would be great.

(Netflix though doesn't make it easy in some jurisdictions to get access to its content -- even for those quite willing and able to pay the fee / subscription. If only these people could understand that there are so many "non standard" ways of accessing content whatever the Courts say in any particular country about blocking sites I'm sure they would immediately release worldwide and let individual countries themselves decide - probably only N.Korea would ban it !!!. The shareholders would gain, piracy be reduced etc etc. --Win Win - so what's stopping it).

I tend to watch most of my video now offline so I hope also that these streaming service also allow download and watch later.

The Football (Real Football played with a ROUND ball) World cup in Brazil this summer is probably the only Live TV I'll be watching for a while now. Nothing else seems any good at the moment -- I think even the UK local Council election results will be more interesting than about 99% of TV content from ANYWHERE !!!! -- and who cares about this --so you can see just how BAD TV has become. BBC TV though is probably the best of a bad bunch - I don't seem to have any trouble accessing their 4 domestic Channels plus BBC WORLD and BBC PRIME (now BBC ENTERTAINMENT) even in Iceland.

Cheers
jimbo

Star Trek, Babylon 5 and Deep Space Nine.....

Now those were real Sci-Fi. A lot of that other stuff is just Si-Fi wannabees.
There's too much fiction and too little Science. Eh?

As a true TechnoMage, I really enjoyed those shows and likewise miss them now.

Cheers Mates!
TechnoMage

Redneck Hermit said:

Anyone remember Odyssey 5? It was a Sci-fi show that came out around 2002 that dealt with Earth's destruction. Great show that was ended way to soon. Also would have liked to seen Terra Nova continue for a 2nd season. Why do all the good shows' get canned while the crappy one's continue for a while longer? Doesn't seem to make sense.

Click to expand...

I watched Odyssey 5. I'm a sucker for Time Travel stuff. When I was a kid my favorite movie was The Time Machine with Rod Taylor. One thing I find annoying though is the tendency for these shows to shoot the people into the past. I guess it's too challenging to go into the future because then you have to guess what technology and fashion will look like by then.

But the trouble with most shows is adherence to formula. Each episode each character does his or her schtick. One of the most refreshing shows was the Summer replacement Baretta. Later on it sucked. But that first Summer it was brilliant. Later on a talk show I saw Robert Blake and the reason was made clear. On the Summer replacement episodes they hadn't settled on a formula yet. So they tried something different each episode. Once they settled on a formula the show instantly sucked.

For once I'd like to see a SciFi show start out with the Earth destroyed in the first episode. All the characters say to the effect "That planet sucked anyway. Now it's on to better places." From there the series goes to better planets where there aren't several hundred simultaneous bloody conflicts extant at any one time. But I guess the advertisers wouldn't go for it.