You'll never see them again
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Yes, it was a guaranteed paycheck... until the show ended. And doing a movie in the off months basically only worked for a Clooney level talent where anyone who ever interacted with him realized he was a generational talent that guys and gals would swoon for. Everyone else MAYBE could get a bit part if they knew the production crew (see: The Schwim on Band of Brothers). And then, if you were lucky, you were basically typecast by the time the show ended and stuck either playing the same character or needing to find a company that wanted to take a chance on you reinventing yourself... which lined up with the weinsteins of the world.
And all of that assumes that you aren't in a role that requires you to spend most of your off time staying in shape and having more or less the same appearance in case pick-ups are required. Otherwise you have entire VFX teams working to... remove a mustache.
That is why there is increasing pushback to Marvel Movie contracts from a lot of actors. Yes, it is a guaranteed paycheck (although those get smaller and smaller with each geneartion) but it is also the only thing you can really do for however many years in case you get called up that you just got one of your appearances added to a TV show everyone will hate.
Which is more or less where we are at. Sure you sometimes have something like a Zendaya where the Disney Channel actress you got for your lead suddenly becomes the most popular actress on the planet and you have to work around her schedule AND all the supporting actors who became high B listers. But mostly you are just dealing with talent who care more about their careers than making sure they are available for the one episode you want them to come back next year.
Its why so much of the Game of Thrones fandom (and original creator...) clearly don't have much production experience. Yes, it would have been cool to have arcs like Lady Stoneheart. But the chances of Michelle Fairley being interested in coming back four years later for two episodes is nigh zero AND would have given her way more negotiating power than studios want. Same for all the other one off characters who come back two books later.
Its why so much of the Game of Thrones fandom (and original creator...) clearly don't have much production experience. Yes, it would have been cool to have arcs like Lady Stoneheart. But the chances of Michelle Fairley being interested in coming back four years later for two episodes is nigh zero AND would have given her way more negotiating power than studios want. Same for all the other one off characters who come back two books later.
I always wondered how they planned to pull that off with the Wheel of Time show. I know it's a moot point now, but there's a big one that left and came back way later. There are also some smaller examples, but I feel like with the bit parts you could probably get someone that looks similar enough.
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Also TV now: This show/movie did well 40 years ago so we rebooted it with people who never saw it, a shitload of special effects, and totally missed why it was popular in the first place.
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Twin peaks?
Twin Peaks started out good and stayed good. I didn't get around to watching it until the late 2000s. I had heard that it started to fall apart after the killer was revealed, but it just kept getting better.
It isn't for everybody, though, and it probably just got too weird for a mainstream audience.
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Firefly still hurts though.
With age comes wisdom. I realized some time ago that we get to love Firefly because it never lived long enough to be bad. No one talks about famous actor James Dean becoming an ultraconservative asshole, being closeted racist, or a serial abuser of women. He died before anything like that could happen. Firefly is the same way. It lives in our hearts with all of the potential it could have been. Contrast that to Game of Thrones which had a wonderful start and a dreadful and forgettable end.
How many people today would say "Lets binge watch all of Firefly from beginning to end!" vs "Lets binge watch all of Game of Thrones from beginning to end!"?
If you want to know how the series would've been if it had stayed on, you can read the comics.
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Part of the problem is that modern shows have far smaller audience than two decades ago in absolute numbers. The most watched shows today have horrific numbers compared to previous decades.
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Yes, it was a guaranteed paycheck... until the show ended. And doing a movie in the off months basically only worked for a Clooney level talent where anyone who ever interacted with him realized he was a generational talent that guys and gals would swoon for. Everyone else MAYBE could get a bit part if they knew the production crew (see: The Schwim on Band of Brothers). And then, if you were lucky, you were basically typecast by the time the show ended and stuck either playing the same character or needing to find a company that wanted to take a chance on you reinventing yourself... which lined up with the weinsteins of the world.
And all of that assumes that you aren't in a role that requires you to spend most of your off time staying in shape and having more or less the same appearance in case pick-ups are required. Otherwise you have entire VFX teams working to... remove a mustache.
That is why there is increasing pushback to Marvel Movie contracts from a lot of actors. Yes, it is a guaranteed paycheck (although those get smaller and smaller with each geneartion) but it is also the only thing you can really do for however many years in case you get called up that you just got one of your appearances added to a TV show everyone will hate.
Which is more or less where we are at. Sure you sometimes have something like a Zendaya where the Disney Channel actress you got for your lead suddenly becomes the most popular actress on the planet and you have to work around her schedule AND all the supporting actors who became high B listers. But mostly you are just dealing with talent who care more about their careers than making sure they are available for the one episode you want them to come back next year.
Its why so much of the Game of Thrones fandom (and original creator...) clearly don't have much production experience. Yes, it would have been cool to have arcs like Lady Stoneheart. But the chances of Michelle Fairley being interested in coming back four years later for two episodes is nigh zero AND would have given her way more negotiating power than studios want. Same for all the other one off characters who come back two books later.
You didn't have to be a huge talent on A level movies. There was always work for minor actors doing documentaries, B, C, and family movies, dozens of TV channels desperate for shows to put on the air, and other opportunities. Acting has never been an easy gig, but it's getting harder and harder to find good work these days.
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You didn't have to be a huge talent on A level movies. There was always work for minor actors doing documentaries, B, C, and family movies, dozens of TV channels desperate for shows to put on the air, and other opportunities. Acting has never been an easy gig, but it's getting harder and harder to find good work these days.
But it gets back to "what am I going to do when this show is over?".
Which is why I referenced David Schwimmer and Band of Brothers. His portrayal of Sobol was spectacular (and wildly disrespectful but that is what happens when you make a miniseries based off someone's memoirs). But he was basically in 3 episodes and was arguably more background than not in 2 of those. But there is a reason that every few months you have a "Holy shit, So and So was in Band of Brothers?". That was basically a production where anyone whose agent knew the right people could get a bit part.
But it gets back to the "problem" with the old TV model. Signing up for a TV show was basically admitting you were going to "cap out" at that unless you got INCREDIBLY lucky. Versus staying flexible and potentially becoming a great.
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Conversely
Producers find a new show idea that looks interesting and could be popular .....
Writers: yeah we got this idea that could be turned into an hour and a half hour long film ... it's very interesting, great plot dialogue, and there's a great twist
Producers, executives: Great idea! I love it! But it would give us more content if you could turn it into a series instead. Take the whole film and stretch it out across seven one hour episodes.
Writers: how?
Producers, executives: just cut it up into seven parts, slow everything down and make a dramatic cliff hanger at the end of every episode.
It depends. I really like the ability to flesh something out into a longer format - especially book adaptations. Not that there isn't space for 2 hours and under films, but the rise of high production TV series that aren't meant to go on forever IMO has been net positive.
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the one thing i do appreciate is them dropping filler episodes
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the one thing i do appreciate is them dropping filler episodes
wrote on last edited by [email protected]Community has the best "big round number" episode.
And also the best bottle episode.
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Community has the best "big round number" episode.
And also the best bottle episode.
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Yeah, but half a season?
If memory serves, the DVD set had 3 extra unaired episode, plus the follow-on movie. So all told, closer to a full season.
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If memory serves, the DVD set had 3 extra unaired episode, plus the follow-on movie. So all told, closer to a full season.
But those didn't air prior to it being shitcanned.
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If you want to know how the series would've been if it had stayed on, you can read the comics.
They just make me miss Ron Glass
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a major drop off of people dropping off the show
Uhh.. what? So more people kept watching?
Yeah. That first season was really good! And Kate Mara!
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My guess is that if you didn't like the dog scene, you wouldn't like the rest of the show. The tone is the same.
Nailed it. Kevin Spacey, in the show, does whatever he needs to get what he wants. Just like in real life.
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Also TV now: This show/movie did well 40 years ago so we rebooted it with people who never saw it, a shitload of special effects, and totally missed why it was popular in the first place.
Curious - do you feel a lot of reboots have missed the mark?
I'm starting to feel the opposite, where a lot of reboots are way better than the original.
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I know the 26 ep a season shooting schedule was hell on actors, but it really allowed for more variety in episodic shows. There could be good eps and stinkers in a season without it impacting the overall show. Plus it gave you more time to weave in on-going plots while also giving room to explore specific characters more thoroughly.
I was thrilled by the BBC Sherlock that I wanted more. It was like 9 episodes across three seasons.
I think CBS had a Sherlock show with Lucy Lawless, which had like a couple seasons and 20 episodes each. And yikes. The story went nowhere, with their monster-of-the-week storytelling.
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Between that and how much cheaper everything was
I mean, here's an article from 1992 complaining that TV costs too much to produce.
I'm sure a proper Marxist could say something about the stead decline of profit. But if TV studios are strapped for cash, you'd never know from that validations of their parent companies.
it’s no wonder no film actors would be caught dead in a TV show until prestige television broke out of that mold.
There was definitely a jump from TV to Movies that people didn't want to come back from. But there's also only so many hours in the day, and half of making a movie was the market you did after filming was completed.
But at the end of the day... People remember Cheers and Cosby Show much more vividly than The Critic or Joey.
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Between that and how much cheaper everything was
I mean, here's an article from 1992 complaining that TV costs too much to produce.
I'm sure a proper Marxist could say something about the stead decline of profit. But if TV studios are strapped for cash, you'd never know from that validations of their parent companies.
it’s no wonder no film actors would be caught dead in a TV show until prestige television broke out of that mold.
There was definitely a jump from TV to Movies that people didn't want to come back from. But there's also only so many hours in the day, and half of making a movie was the market you did after filming was completed.
But at the end of the day... People remember Cheers and Cosby Show much more vividly than The Critic or Joey.
Hah. That's a fun time capsule. They're whining about 1.4 million per episode, which just seems so quaint now. the figures going around are 6 mill per episode in season 1 of Stranger Things and 30 mill per episode in season four. Even adjusted for inflation Quantum Leap wouldn't know what to do with that much money.
