 October 23, 2014 - 5:19pm | http://io9.com/the-10-most-expensive-flops-in-television-history-1649881502 The title of the list is in the body. Funny thing how many of the shows are Sci-Fi. Take it for what its worth and put down an opinion. Or if you even saw some of these. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
 October 23, 2014 - 6:05pm | OK: LOVED Battlestar Galactica as a kid, loved it! didn't have the cylon raider toy but badly wanted one as well as the Colonial Viper- mind you that would have been th early edition release of these toys before they were redesigned so that the little red missle part no longer fired out of the toy. Loved Terra Nova- i think I saw every episode. it was intriguing. loved the season finalle too with the T Rex being sent forward in time to screw with the bad guys- that was cool along with the promise of mysteries to be unravelled in future seasons. Saw a few episodes of Bionic Woman but quickly lost interest. Saw Kings advertised but never watched it. never saw or heard of any of the others- especially Super Train which actually sounds intriguing enough for me to look up the pilot episode, purely out of curiousity. Thanks Rat T for posting this list, it was interesting. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 October 24, 2014 - 6:46am | I liked Battlestar Galactica and Terra Nova. The Cylon Raider was the BEST! |
 October 24, 2014 - 8:26am | They have to revise their definition of a flop. Being cancelled is not the same as flopping. Several of those shows were cancelled for industry politics, (Bionic Woman was a runaway hit, but it was cancelled during the writer's strike that season.) not because no one watched them. While others, such as Battlestar and Terra Nova were cancelled because their budgets were too ambitious. [By the way, I said that before I even read the article. Makes me rather proud of my memory. :)] View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
 October 24, 2014 - 12:10pm | I didn't know the original BSG only ran one season. ----------------------------------------------- |
 October 24, 2014 - 12:39pm | OK: LOVED Battlestar Galactica as a kid, loved it! didn't have the cylon raider toy but badly wanted one as well as the Colonial Viper- mind you that would have been th early edition release of these toys before they were redesigned so that the little red missle part no longer fired out of the toy. I have both the Viper and Raider in a box in my garage. Alas they were the second releases (the missile actually popped forward and stopped, it wasn't a stationay affair), but I took them apart and filed down the safety tabs so the missiles would fire. Sadly I lost the one for the Viper. I didn't know the original BSG only ran one season.
It didn't, it was followed by Galactica 1980. IIRC Lorne Green was the only surviving cast member although there were flashback scenes including others from the original cast, along with a full episode featuring Dirk Benedict explaining the history of how one of the newer cast characters came to be. Which I say was the best episode of the series --- Starbuck crash lands and reprograms a Cylon to asist with the camp, finds a mate, and produces offspring. He builds a ship from the remains of his Viper and the crashed Raider to send the baby back to Galactica. I wonder if that list takes into consideration the big screen movie that preceded the series (featuring an opening cameo of Rick Springfield as Zack). I seem to recall it was quite popular in the theater back then, it was crowded both times I saw it. The only other series I've seen from that list was Camelot. |
October 24, 2014 - 3:12pm | BG1980 was a miniseries/movie. View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
 October 24, 2014 - 4:46pm | I agree with Ascent. They need to rethink their definition of a flop. BSG should not be on that list. And what's with the line, "it eventually got rebooted as one of the most beloved sci-fi shows of all time"? The original 1978-79 version IS one of the most beloved sci-fi shows of all time! Hardly a flop, by anyone's definition. I suppose they think Firefly was a flop, or the original Star Trek. I do remember Supertrain quite well. I even have the pilot episode on tape. At the time, my friends and I thought the futuristic train was pretty cool. The plots were the usual stuff you saw on every drama of the day, and the comparison to the Love Boat was accurate... but it was a futuristic Love Boat, with gun fights & bombs & spies. Kind of like one of the old Airport disaster movies, but as a series. It was cool, especially for its time! I had not seen any of the other shows on the list. I liked the original Bionic Woman, and noticed that they were making a new version, but never managed to catch it. |
October 24, 2014 - 5:21pm | I dont think we need to rethink our deffinition of a flop as the "flops" having people calling for a rethink would, for the most part, not be considered a flop by this community. The compiler of that list or the execs that did the cutting might need to rethink what a flop is. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
October 24, 2014 - 8:03pm | BG1980 was a miniseries/movie.
10 episodes aired once per week. A mini-series is aired on a daily basis. |
October 24, 2014 - 9:07pm | They are measureing based on cost to produce version successfulness (money it can make back) So Sci Fi is more expensive to make, and as the result is more likely on this list. ----------------------------------------------- |
October 25, 2014 - 2:35am | 10 episodes aired once per week. A mini-series is aired on a daily basis. What are you basing your definition on? A mini-series is a limited short-run series, typically 12 episodes or less that takes you from the beginning to the end of the storyline. Period. When those episodes air has no effect on the definition.View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
October 25, 2014 - 3:27am | They didn't call it a miniseries when it was on. |
October 25, 2014 - 5:00am | Definitions A flop is something that did not meet expectations. This is sometimes seen when a stock which has a 100% increase in price is considered a flop because it was supposed to increase 250% by the experts. For another example the movie "It's a Wonderful Life" was a flop when released in theaters originally but later big a huge hit on the small screen.
A mini-series has a planned ending while a series is opened ended so it will hopefully last for years. The original mini-series "The Prisoner" starring Patrick McGoohan was scheduled for 16 episodes and then never to return. More recently "Torchwood" was a series for its first two seasons and then a five episode mini-series airing daily and then a 13 episode mini-series airing weekly. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
October 25, 2014 - 10:57am | I don't recall ever seeing a mini-series that wasn't aired on a daily basis. Shogun, Roots, V: the Final Battle, anything...the episodes were aired back to back on a daily basis. Maybe cable TV changed that, and I've not watched any of those via that medium, but everything I saw on the big three networks was a daily broadcast. The Hand of God (final episode of the original series) had far more closure, whether it was written as such or not it certainly gave the series more of an "ending" than the Starbuck flashback did. TOS "ended" with fewer questions and more answers than Galactica 80 did. "Dude, Starbuck's your Dad" is not an ending, rather like this debate as to what constitutes a series, it's a sidetrack. |
October 25, 2014 - 11:20am | After reviewing information, you are right that it was not a miniseries, but you need to revise your understanding of what a miniseries is. Yes, most do air on consecutive days, but not all. I've seen miniseries air once a week, or two or more days a week for several weeks. Instead of going off of limited experience, here's the definition from several sources: Webster's Encyclopedic Dictionary of the English Language: A program or film broadcast in parts, as the dramatization of a literary work. Google: a television drama shown in a number of episodes. Wikipedia: a television program that tells a story in a predetermined number of episodes. Primetime Emmys: a miniseries [is] more than six hours or in two or more parts. It also must be close-ended. (According to Zab2it.) British Dictionary: a television programme in several parts that is shown on consecutive days or weeks for a short period. TVtropes.com has it wrong. View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
October 25, 2014 - 1:16pm | At this point I could actually care less what the definition is. I don't watch much in the way of TV series or mini series or any other sub-definition therein these days. But for what it's worth, when I made that last post I did go by the Wiki entry you sourced --- along with your prior post stating that a MS has an ending. So once again let's get off this sidetrack discussion, unless you truly feel there's something to prove here. You said it was a mini series, others said it wasn't. You agree now that it wasn't, why carry on with this pointless drivel? It proves nothing. Sheesh, let's just talk about the main topic again. On that note, I rather enjoyed the Camelot run, although I can't say I'm surprised it didn't go any further. It was an interesting re-write but I can see where they might be reaching to continue the story further. |
 October 26, 2014 - 4:33pm | When they say 'television history' they actually mean 'US television history'... |
October 27, 2014 - 10:07am | That is the unfortunate drawback to be the world leader in entertainment. America views itself as the epitome of entertainment and rejects anything that the public would perceive is not as well produced. The rest of the world gets a broad view of entertainment because they watch movies from all over the world and not just American television. So our articles will appear egocentric, when it is simply that we are not exposed to more. The international entertainment we are exposed to on Netflix, Hulu and others is either predomenantly British or else all about sex, (Apparently American entertainment translation companies, and movie distributors like Netflix and Hulu think that's the only international entertainment Americans would be interested in,) which also distorts the American viewpoint of what is commonly viewed in other countries. Thus, we don't mention or consider international movies much. View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
October 27, 2014 - 9:33am | Well, also consider this... other than british TV... .that shit ain't in the lord's english. So American's are not going to watch it enmass. Subtitles turn many people off. ----------------------------------------------- |
October 27, 2014 - 10:56am | What I detest these days is how the American film industry releases films overseas before we can see them. |
 November 5, 2014 - 9:42am | Terra Nova was pretty good IMO. I thought the storyline was going somewhere and there were some great ideas being worked on in the plot. BSG was one of my childhood favorites of all time. The whole concept was like a slice of Star Wars on TV. I know there was a legal issue because of this too, but as a kid I only cared about the entertainment. The Bionoc Woman, Flash FWD, and the Event all had good ideas but I don't think they were executed to their potential. Plus FF and BW both were doomed by the writers strike. The rest I never saw. |
