'Bred Crumbs
09.14.02
Signs suggest the Save Farscape campaign is having an impact after just one very busy week. The fruits of its labors have included coverage by Headline News and reports of genuine interest in picking up the show by UPN and Showtime. Now the Sydney Daily Telegraph (Farscape is filmed in Australia) claims that the Sci Fi Channel – which surreptitiously canceled the show last weekend but had its cover blown when the show's executive producers and star leaked the news to the 'Net – has already decided to reverse its call and continue the series in some manner, cowed by a fan revolt that didn't falter quickly as the execs expected. Chat-group moderator and campaign leader "Barbarella" said today that the Sci Fi suits are meeting Monday, and she is hatching a plan of some sort that she wants to clear with Farscape's ringleaders before announcing it on IRC tonight (#Farscape) at 9 p.m. Eastern. Intriguing.
[Update afterward: Turns out the plan change isn't all that revolutionary: just admonition to keep bombarding Sci Fi and the show's owners via all possible communication means before the meeting Monday, and suggested new messages. Still, it's so cool to watch the fed-up viewer peasants as they huddle up about how to finish crashing the corporate gates.]
09.12.02
My thoughts on yesterday's remembrance and the year up to it are elsewhere if you want to read them. But I do want to point out here the excellent New York Times article (registration required, no charge for a short time) on New York one year later, especially this perfect passage:
There are people who are angry that more people are not still angry, and people who are angry that people are still angry.
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Only six shopping days left before Talk Like a Pirate Day. Yes, it's Dave Berry, but it's amusing nonetheless. (Thanks to Dana, who will soon have a fabulous Web home, for passing it on.)
[WARNING: VAGUE PRO RASSLIN' SPOILER AHEAD]
If you were planning to watch the "gay wedding" tonight on Smackdown!, hoping for some kind of blue-collar homesexual-union-accepting miracle, forget it. You can read what happens on Pro Wrestling Torch or in the Washington Post, and predictably enough the WWE wusses out on actually having gay heroes.
09.10.02
McSweeney's chews the fat about the Niagara Falls Seventy-Ounce Steak Challenge (Part 1 and Part 2):
"So is rhythm the trick to finishing the challenge?"
"Absolutely. ..."
"So, with the pacing, it's somewhat like, say, running a marathon?"
"Right, except there's no burst of energy at the end."
09.09.02
NEW YORK -- The Sci Fi Channel today finally got around to announcing that it is bailing on Farscape, its one truly original series, instead reconfirming the network's commitment to awful movies, reruns, network leftovers and cheap Vancouver-filmed "original" trifles.
Two days after a probably unconvincing attempt to be resigned and reasoned about Farscape's sorry fate, I'm more willing now to acknowledge continued frustration and to get excited about the possibility of saving the show, now that fans have crashed Sci Fi's faxes and rapidly coordinated an increasingly sophisticated campaign. And especially now that those kick-ass folks at TeeVee have chimed in to declare Farscape one of the two Best Hour Shows of the past season. (Huge thanks to Jack for the heads-up.)
In a week in which the mass media and government will pummel us with their notions of how we are supposed to feel about the horrible events of a year ago, how very refreshing that Salon has gathered and published "Forbidden Thoughts About 9/11."
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