This week has been a bit of a rough and depressing week on the old blog, with the news that Battlestar Galactica will probably be entering its last season,the appearance of annoying conspiracy theorists in new posts and trolls in old posts, really irritating technical difficulties the ScienceBlogs site, and the need to debunk two particularly bad commentaries about the state of cancer research in this country. Worse, I see a further need to revisit at least one rather depressing topic from the past next week. To top it all off, I was on call last week. Given this, I think I need a dose of cute puppies:
There, that's better. I'm refreshed and ready to face the week now.
Don't worry though. This site will not be turning into Cute Overload.
FWIW, I read somewhere that it wasn't true that BG was entering its final season.
hehehe Thanks! I needed the cute puppy videos, too.
I just got home from running to a corner Walgreens for milk-- 15 minute trip. In that 15 minutes, my not-so-cute-right-now puppy devoured my phylogenetic tree construction textbook and pooped in the corner.
*sigh*
Much as I love [i]Galactica[/i], I'm happy overall that they've decided to come to a definite end. I think it's a program that needs to come to a conclusion, and I wish more of them were like that. I think it's part of the whole American "death is optional" zeitgeist. Our comic book characters never age, and we think our television programs should go on forever. But life isn't like that.
Kevin W. Parker -
This is not a uniquely American concept and thank goodness, I love Dr.Who. . .Though I do agree with you and actually wish American teevee could learn from the BBC about how to run programs.
Well, yes, there is Doctor Who, which was brilliantly designed to be episodic and capable of going on forever. On the other hand, there's Blake's Seven, To the Manor Born, and a host of other programs that ended with a logical climax and conclusion, rather than when interest died out. How often does that happen on American television? Has that ever happened on American television?
I've also grown to love Dr. Who with the recent revival. (Sometime I need to watch the early ones.) They've got enough style to keep going, and they can shuffle into temporary story arcs. Before I really watched, I thought Daleks were cute and campy. Now they creep me out.
As for other TV series: After watching a fair bit of good anime, I've come to the conclusion that 26 episodes is about ideal. With a limited number like that, the creators have to really think about what storylines they're going to resolve, and what they'll leave up to our imaginations.
Not even 26 episodes. The excellent Life on Mars planned for 2 UK seasons of 8 episodes each before stopping it (to be honest I don't think they could have stretched the ongoing, background story much more without serious shoehorning). Last I heard some US TV network brought the concept and signed off for 50 episodes...
sorry to chime in late, but the American SF TV show Babylon 5 was intended from its inception to run for five years.