Hacker Cinema
John Doe
2002 · TV series · 60 min episodes · 1 season
Created by Mike Thompson, Brandon Camp
DramaMysteryScience FictionFantasy
John Doe tell the story of a man who wakes up naked on an island off the coast of Seattle, knowing everything in the world there is to know—except for who he is and how and why he ended up there.
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2 comments on Hacker News
Interesting that all those you specifically named aired on Fox, which is where Firefly aired.
Other science fiction shows Fox killed after not more than one season were The Lone Gunman, Harsh Realm, Minority Report, Second Chance, and John Doe.
Others did make it past the first season but not past the second, such as Dark Angel and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
Even shows that make it longer often have trouble on Fox. Futurama for example was put in terrible time slots that often got preempted by sports which made it hard to grow its audience, and most of the time the creators had no idea if the current season was going to be their last. They had to keep trying to write season finales that would also be good series finales if they got cancelled between seasons.
They also do this to shows in other genres. Lucifer for example got cancelled after 3 seasons, with season 3 having ended on the biggest possible cliffhanger there could be for that show. That was very annoying.
My rule has now been for a long time that I will not watch any new scripted series on Fox that has any kind of ongoing story. If there are enough good reviews and word of mouth to make me want to watch it I'll wait until complete seasons are available on streaming, and then only if there exists some N such that if I watch to episode N and stop there won't be any cliffhangers or important ongoing story arcs open.
On your last point; now we have another study, from a somewhat biased organization that believes strongly in, relies on, and supports, the "long tail" version of the music industry to support the long tail theory.
You're absolutely right. I don't think the facts have quite come out yet. I do think it has a lot to do with the models of the businesses doing the research. I bet you'd find that Hulu has a pretty interesting long tail (and plenty of blockbusters, as well), because I go there a couple of times a week, and I'm sometimes surprised by what has bubbled to the top 50 results--quite a lot of back catalog stuff. Even stuff that has been out of regular syndication for years, like the original Battlestar Galactica, and other old, somewhat forgotten shows, and shows that didn't make it very long on TV, like Firefly and John Doe.
I don't know, as I haven't studied things very closely--I saw Anderson give his long tail talk a few years ago, and I've read the article when it was published, but I haven't paid it too much mind. I do know that my tastes are squarely in the long tail. I don't watch blockbuster movies, I don't buy blockbuster records, and I don't read blockbuster books, in general. But, I also know that I'm not "normal" or "average" in my tastes, so I am and outlier and not a reliable predictor of anything the average consumer is going to do. I will point out, though, that there are more independent records being made, more independent films being produced, and more independent literature being produced than at any time in history. That has to be explainable somehow, though I don't know if the long tail is the right way to explain it. Maybe it's just bigger populations plus the Internet equals "everybody gets to makes records/movies/literature" now.