Novel STOLEN!! Fox pays Joe Haldeman Nothing for Virtuality by participant

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Novel STOLEN!! Fox pays Joe Haldeman Nothing for Virtuality

POSTED BY: PARTICIPANT
UPDATED: Sunday, November 22, 2009 10:45
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Sunday, June 28, 2009 1:52 PM

Fox's big budget "Virtuality" will likely remain an unsold pilot after a disastrously low-rated Friday broadcast.

The show was said to have a wide range of characters, including a married gay couple, and had popular actors like Clea DuVall from "Carnivale," Nikolaj Coster-Waldau from "New Amsterdam" and Erik Jensen from "CSI."

Last December, Moore was asked to retool the series in an effort to make it more "mainstream," which some believed included the downplay or outright elimination of the gay married couple. The potential series earned more trouble last September when author Joe Haldeman claimed "Virtuality" resembled his 2005 novel "Old Twentieth" rather closely. Haldeman's novel centered on a ship called the Aspera, which is on a 1,000-year voyage to Beta Hydril. In order for the ship's crew to stay sane, they use a virtual reality system that develops a flaw.

Haldeman said at the time he would likely not seek legal action against Fox over "Virtuality," but it most likely remains a possible legal liability for the network.

Notwithstanding the title attached to my byline, I am the last person to ask why things do or do not happen in the TV business. But I can say with some assurance that decisions are not always based on quality of work. If they were, "Virtuality", a "failed" pilot from Ronald D. Moore and Michael Taylor of "Battlestar Galactica," would be the first episode of a series and not merely the stand-alone "movie" Fox will present it as tonight.

The two-hour movie/backdoor pilot, from one of the creators of "Battlestar Galactica," flatlined Friday with a 0.5 rating/2 share among adults 18-49. Of even more concern: The broadcast kicked off with a 0.7 at 8 p.m and fell to a 0.4 by its final half-hour, indicating those many of those few viewers who decided to check out "Virtuality" weren't impressed with what they saw (or decided to watch the rest later via DVR).

news
http://www.tvweek.com/tvmojoe/2009/06/friday-ratings-virtuality-tanks-
jackson-specials-dominate-as-networks-struggle-to-find-viewers.php

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2009/06/review-virtuality.
html

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Monday, June 29, 2009 4:24 AM

JAYNEZTOWN

Wouldn't be the first time Fox or RDM were involved in screwing someone over

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Monday, June 29, 2009 5:30 AM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

Quote:
The broadcast kicked off with a 0.7 at 8 p.m and fell to a 0.4 by its final half-hour, indicating those many of those few viewers who decided to check out "Virtuality" weren't impressed with what they saw...

...raises hand...

I watched the first 30 minutes or so, found it *exceedingly* boring, and it very much influenced me to go out, which is very rare for me on a Friday night. Good TV can make you stay home, and bad TV can make you go out! :)

On the flipside, I *DID* watch "Mutant Chronicles" on SciFi Saturday night. It wasn't necessarily *good*', but it was certainly more imaginative than Virtuality. Very steam-punk in concept, very "300" or "Sin City" in its style and execution. It was over-the-top, cartoonish, ultra-violent, very bloody - but I was somewhat entertained, especially given that it was SciFi, and it was Saturday night.

Anybody else see it?

Mike

Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day...
Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

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Monday, June 29, 2009 6:41 AM

BYTEMITE

I wonder if maybe Fox as a network just isn't a good platform for Sci-Fi?

The only Sci-Fi show that I can recall doing well on Fox was the X-Files... And even back in the first season, Fox was focused on other series because it didn't consider the X-files commercially promising.

X-Files also struggled with it's ratings for the first season... Which may be a sign of a problem with Fox's demographics, and that only after a Sci-Fi show has established itself as a cult classic with steady viewership will a Sci-Fi show on Fox have decent ratings?

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Monday, June 29, 2009 11:36 AM

WASHNWEAR

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
Quote:
The broadcast kicked off with a 0.7 at 8 p.m and fell to a 0.4 by its final half-hour, indicating those many of those few viewers who decided to check out "Virtuality" weren't impressed with what they saw...

...raises hand...

I watched the first 30 minutes or so, found it *exceedingly* boring, and it very much influenced me to go out, which is very rare for me on a Friday night. Good TV can make you stay home, and bad TV can make you go out! :)

Funny ol' tiny world...that's almost exactly how long I watched it...alnost exactly how bored (and trepidatious, as in "I trepidate that I have seen much of this hash before!") I got...and I was certainly influenced to do something else, the exact nature of which escapes me at the moment (I think it involved random acts of TiVo-ism).

Quote:

On the flipside, I *DID* watch "Mutant Chronicles" on SciFi Saturday night. It wasn't necessarily *good*', but it was certainly more imaginative than Virtuality. Very steam-punk in concept, very "300" or "Sin City" in its style and execution. It was over-the-top, cartoonish, ultra-violent, very bloody - but I was somewhat entertained, especially given that it was SciFi, and it was Saturday night.

And I almost watched Mutant Chronicles, but I succumbed to a wave of defeatism, thinking that, yeah - it sounds good...and yeah, it probably looks good...but it probably looks and sounds just good enough to totally miss being as good as I want it to be...and then the prospect of commercial interruptions...basically I surrendered to the enemy before first contact.

Quote:

Anybody else see it?

Mike

donttalkbackjustdrivethecarshutyourmouthiknowwhatyouaredontsaynothinkeepyourhandsonthewheeldontturnaroundthisisforreal

Still...what would Rorschach do?

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Sunday, November 22, 2009 10:00 AM

PARTICIPANT

The Book

Old Twentieth
http://www.librarything.com/work/47639

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Sunday, November 22, 2009 10:45 AM

LWAVES

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
I wonder if maybe Fox as a network just isn't a good platform for Sci-Fi?

The only Sci-Fi show that I can recall doing well on Fox was the X-Files... And even back in the first season, Fox was focused on other series because it didn't consider the X-files commercially promising.

X-Files also struggled with it's ratings for the first season... Which may be a sign of a problem with Fox's demographics, and that only after a Sci-Fi show has established itself as a cult classic with steady viewership will a Sci-Fi show on Fox have decent ratings?

I can agree with that.
Although whilst the X-Files is classed as scifi (and rightly so) I wouldn't put it in the same scifi areas as say Firefly, TSCC, Stargate etc. It's more of an investigative drama with a scifi/paranormal lean. I would say that it is closer to Bones and maybe the CSI's than the 'standard' or 'typical' scifi shows. Don't really think they're the right words but I can't think of any others right now.

"I don't believe in suicide, but if you'd like to try it it might cheer me up to watch."

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