...or the bad news?
BBC, you suck big drannit arse.Because blatantly, alienating the fanbase with crappy scheduling and bad editing and no promotion whatsoever isn't good enough for you, no, no, no. You don't even fight for it? Well, frell you, BBC. Just shows how much you 'appreciate' your geeky little Sci Fi audience, doesn't it? And honestly, I still contest that Sky One should've bought the rights in the first place, because it would've gotten a Hell of a lot more advertising. The ratings'll be higher for that, at least; the only bad things are the fact that it'll have breaks in, and the fact that most newcomers won't really know what it is, as they didn't have the series before it.
Wait. A memory stirs. The BBC couldn't bloody get rid of it fast enough. When it was time for the final four episodes of season 4, BBC2 showed them twice-weekly and got the whole thing over with as quickly as possible. Rather than extending our viewing for the allocated time (longer, in fact, because of the usual Christmas schedule/random annoying sports event cancellation fiasco), it was cut short by two weeks. Cliffhangers are way more effective when you actually have to wait the allocated seven days for the frelling conclusion, morons.
On the plus side, at least if it's on Sky One, it'll be on at a reasonable time (albeit apparently in two bits rather than four), and won't be edited to nothingness to Pwotect the Innocent Childwen, and we might actually get to see it as Kemper&Co. intended. That's a blessing, at least, albeit a disguised one. So, this means I have until January to catch up on everything. And obviously, I will be taping it religiously, so anyone who wants it can borrow it gladly.
But, of course, for those people who don't have satellite television or Freeview, this is bad news, especially as SciFi UK still have the repeat rights. So, on the plus side,
Amazon are very, very nice people.
It begs the question, however: why are we to be condemned for loving something, for fighting, for wanting justice? Why are we surrounded by automatons who do their master's bidding? Why does
everything have to boil down to who has the bigger bank balance? Why is passion never enough? Why is it that those of us who truly appreciate the beauty and intelligence in this world get voted out by an idiotic, senseless majority, and why is it that no matter how loud you shout, there aren't enough people out there listening?
Those with Sky, I implore you: watch
Farscape. Even if you don't know what it is. Just tune to Sky One on January 16th and watch it. If you're a fan who doesn't have Sky, but you know someone who does, invade their house, hold their remote control to ranson, bribe them, buy them dinner, do whatever it takes to get that channel on. The ratings of this miniseries will dictate whether or not we get a full-length, big-screen movie, and I imagine the same'll go for the sale of the DVDs when they're released. Do it. Do it for the minority, the underdog, the persecuted. Do it for Pilot, for Rygel, for DRD Pike, so they're not condemned to eternity in a darkened box stuck on a shelf. Do it for Ben. Do it for Claudia. Do it for Anthony and Raelee and Wayne and Virginia and Gigi and Lani and Paul, and all the others. Do it for Kemper, for O'Bannon, for their amazing team of writers and directors and editors and art supervisors and musicians and composers. Do it for Moya, and Talyn; for John and Aeryn and their future; for D'Argo, for Chiana, for Scorpius, for Sikozu; Hell, do it for Harvey. Just do it.
And if you won't do it for them, do it for me. Do it for
all of these lovely people,
too, and more besides. Do it for the fans who might've been, who
could be still. You might know a closet 'Scaper, too afraid to reveal their terrible, awful secret - that they watch an intelligent show which has muppets in it, and made-up words. Out them; drag them kicking and screaming to the fore of their geekdom, and tell them to do it, too.
You know you want to.
Edit, after some searching: Okay.
Wonderful. It turns out that Sci Fi UK don't actually have the repeat rights for the mini. Instead - as I believe I feared before - it's been jointly bought by both Sky One and Channel Five. Channel.
Frelling. Five. Excuse me if I find the fact that the BBC, the longest-established and furthest-reaching television institution in Britain, if not the world, bowed down to Channel Five, just
slightly pathetic. If it'd just been Sky One, fair enough. Sky One and Channel Four, fair enough. But
Five? Jesus. And I pay my license money for this? What, pray, is my money actualy buying? Another fifteen series of
Changing Rooms and seven more 'reality' shows making 'celebrities' out of annoying people who shouldn't even be contributing to the gene pool?
The answer to that question, obviously, is 'yes'. But at least Sky One will treat our mini-series with the respect and love it deserves, commercial breaks aside. I'm condoling myself with that, if nothing else.
On the other end of the 'passion' scale, the
Phantom movie is almost upon us, and so far I've managed to avoid the trailers except for fleeting glances, and will be seeing it on the 10th, if all goes to plan. I'm dreading it far less. From what I've seen, it
does look very 'movie-ish', and I do think it could work well, though this obviously does remain to be seen. The Phantom is far too young, because Joel Schumacher didn't want to make a "middle-aged" film - obviously, he hasn't encountered the armies of phangirls that prevail in the phandom - but it has some good names in it in the form of Miranda Richardson, Simon Callow, and a couple of others I've forgotten... I thought this day would never come, and still somewhat wish it hadn't, but my main fear in all of this was that the movie would become the 'definitive' version and the stage show would disappear into the limelight. Andrew Lloyd Webber has, however, reassured people that the show is still going strong and will continue to do so... so my fear on that side of things is waning a little. I suppose as long as he's getting bums on seats booking months in advance, it'll stay open.
Wow. Fandom is exhausting.
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