Sci-Fi Channel to Pick Up John Doe 203
KrayzieKyd writes "The Sci-Fi Channel will be
showing 'John Doe',
another dead series that premiered with cult hit Firefly. It features a man with no memory of who he is but, but somehow has infinite knowledge. With his gift, he solves crimes which are hinted through his monochromatic sight with color. The show will re-premiere Friday, Jan 20 at 9pm ET." It's raining new shows on Sci-Fi, apparently.
Took a little suspension of disbelief, but not bad (Score:5, Interesting)
The show has an ongoing storyline, which stars off kind of slow but takes a pretty wild turn late in the season. Sadly, we'll never know how it ends, since the season-ending cliffhanger was the last episode. So beware if you start in on it -- you will be left hanging.
I suppose it's possible Sci-Fi could do a movie-of-the-week or two to wrap it up, like the "Alien Nation" movies did for that show. That would be swell. But I'm not holding my breath.
Re:Now (Score:2, Interesting)
I like them and hope they keep up the work.
Now pick up - Threshold (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Now (Score:3, Interesting)
> a new 'oh no monster' craptastic movie each month
Precisely.
I'd rather they spend their money on making maybe one great show per season (and fill the rest of the time with reruns, old movies, independently produced shows by up-and-coming directors, etc) than continue to try and force feed us a steady diet of "Stargate: [$x]" or "[$deadly_animal_name]: The Lost City" or "[$any_show_in_space]".
They're far too conservative (not taking chances with new and interesting material), pour too much money into schlock that appeals to nobody but twelve year old boys, and generally give "Science Fiction" a bad name. There's so much excellent, interesting, literary, smart science fiction out there, it's a crying shame that, for the most part, the best that hollywood seems to be able to do is cough up formulaic pap.
I *do* have to give them credit for carrying BsG, which ranks right up there with the best stuff on TV (I rate it, on my personal scale, in the same neighborhood as the best seasons of BtVS, Showtime's "Weeds", HBO's "Six Feet Under", etc).
you forgot (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Cliffhanger (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Now (Score:3, Interesting)
Most days tend to be 8am-3pm being filled with re-runs of some sort often with only the vaguest sci-fi connection (e.g. Knight Rider). Not re-runs of multiple shows, but re-runs of the same show all day long. Then we get some time for the X-Files, maybe a Stargate SG-1 re-run and a some random crap. They'll usually toss in a movie at night. Sometimes it's something worth seeing (e.g. Stargate, Army of Darkness), but recently it's far more likely to be Dracula 3000 or some piece of dreck that they financed.
The only night of original programming they have is on Fridays when they run 3 shows (currently, though bringing Dr. Who to the US is a smart move): Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, and Battlestar Galactica. I'm not certain if they're still running Firefly re-runs on Fridays as well because I have the DVDs.
Of all the money they have to spend (that they don't spend producing some of the absolute best bumps I've ever seen) they funnel into those 3 shows and some absolutely piss-poor movies. Now, I'm not certain, but I'm pretty sure that almost nobody watches Stargate Atlantis. I can't imagine that anyone watches their movies unless they involve Bruce Campbell in some way (and even then Alien Invasion was beyond me after the first 30 minutes). They need to stop making the crappy movies and instead start seeking some new original programming and not the crappy original shows they've done in the past that nobody watched. While they destroyed Sliders and eventually killed MST3k at least they were trying. Picking up other people's properties seems to be the best they can really do.
That said they are currently working on new shows (at least, according to thefutoncritic.com) including an adaptation of Mike Mignola's Amazing Screw-On Head and a show called Eureka about a town in the Pacific Northwest where the government has been secretly relocating the world's geniuses. Admittedly they have a variety of projects going on, but most are only at the script stage and of the few ordered to pilot most never seem to ever get picked up or even screened. Check the showwatch and devwatch sections at futon critic to see what else they're supposedly working on. At least they're trying.
Re:Cliffhanger (Score:3, Interesting)
However, like Farscape, Carnivale's cliffhanger could have been avoided by skipping the last 2-3 minutes of the last episode. Without those minutes, both shows could have been considered to have half-way decent wrap-ups. Not anywhere near perfect (such as the ending of the Buffy series) but at least average.
Re:Cliffhanger (Score:2, Interesting)
The revelation of the guy at the end (I'm trying not to spoil it.) was not intended to be that guy. They apparently were going to cast and bring in someone, playing that guy, as the villian of the next season.
They literally threw it in at the last minute when they realized the show was canceled, basically to confuse the hell out of people.
Hell, if you've got to go out, go out with a bang, right? Or at least go out with something that will make people go 'Huh?' and watch all the episodes again.
Yes, I know quite a lot of places will claim the show was cancelled after the last episode was filmed. The shows producers, however, claim they knew.
And, unlike
Re:Cliffhanger (Score:2, Interesting)
Basically, when you die, God, or something, tells you everything that happened, every single known thing. Basically, it's nethack's 'Do you you want your possessions identified?'
Somehow, those Phoenix people figured this out (probably someone else in history did it), and figured out a way to get a guy, whoever John Doe was, to this point without him actually being dead, and bring him back. (Or maybe, with him actually being dead.)
This appears to have been quite a bit more involved than 'Flatliners', and seemed to involve him physically reappearing in the world.
Hence, he became 'The Phoenix'.
What is with the memory loss is unknown, as is whether or not he left behind a corpse when he 'died'.
Re:I used to watch it (Score:2, Interesting)
The only secret Jerrod was trying to figure out is who his parents were and what happened to them, and that's completely unrelated to his abilities, which is basically just incredible acting talent combined with very good problem solving.
The two series may look superficially the same, but Jerrod part of The Pretender was actually much more like Quantum Leap. Show up, pretend to be someone, solve problems with your superior skills and knowledge, leave. Although Jerrod focused on crimes and Sam on future problems.
The Center part of the shows, however...I can't offhandedly think of an analog of that, although I'm sure it's existed. Basically, people unravelling the vast web of lies and deception around them. I suspect Twin Peaks would qualify, although I have not seen that, and The Center never even appeared normal.
And, although people rarely caught on, they were two completely seperate TV shows that happened to inhabit the same hour. Seriously, about 1% of the airtime required you actually knowing about both 'shows'. You could have watched just Jarrod, and known some mysterious people were after him, or just watched Ms. Parker and company, and known her overall goal was to catch someone, but she always failed, but the amount of crossover between the plots was almost nothing. An editor could sit down and slice them apart to make 'Jerrod' show or 'The Center' show, and almost no footage would be in both.
I can't think of any TV show that's done that.
As for John Doe, the real analog would be Nowhere Man or, indirectly, The Prisoner, or even something like Strange Luck.