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Reboots

vchimpanzee said:
With "Designated Survivor" still on the air?

Now that's a good president. Not quite Martin Sheen, but I'd vote for him.
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Have you begun to note the similarities between Designated Survivor and the old "24"?

Last episode of DS brought us the all too familiar "WHERE'S THE BOMB!".
 
landtuna said:
Have you begun to note the similarities between Designated Survivor and the old "24"?

Last episode of DS brought us the all too familiar "WHERE'S THE BOMB!".
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I never watched "24".

"Where's the Bomb?" is exciting but I would like for things to calm down sometimes.
 
RadioPatrol said:
http://tvline.com/2018/05/03/last-man-standing-revival-fox-season-7-tim-allen/

Fox in talks to reboot Tim Allen's "Last Man Standing" on Fox Primetime.
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LMS was the best sitcom on TV despite ABC's best efforts to kill it by putting it on Friday evenings. Their cancellation made absolutely no sense whatever.

LMS was a lot like the old "All In The Family" where a conservative father of the house is surrounded by much more liberal people. It never seemed to me that LMS ever came close to the bigotry that was Archie Bunker though. The Baxter's had Black neighbors (who were very funny in their own right) and a Canadian son-in-law who got picked on much more than any political figure on the show. While Archie Bunker was extreme in his personal outlook Mike Baxter was much more a middle of the road figure despite his obvious conservative leanings (that, after all, was the main conflict of the show which was the basis for the comedy). Archie versus Meathead was just nasty. Mike versus his family not nearly so.

At any rate, it would be great if this show could return to broadcast TV. I would hope they can get the original cast together but hope that Fox doesn't make it a politically based show like AITF. We don't need more politics on TV right now. We do need humor.
 
Networks need to fill in the time slots. That includes someone having to be on Friday nights, where they gave it a nice run by the standards of most shows. That's not trying to kill something, it's running a business.
 
AbrahamJSimpson said:
Networks need to fill in the time slots. That includes someone having to be on Friday nights, where they gave it a nice run by the standards of most shows. That's not trying to kill something, it's running a business.
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Friday nights have long been recognized as the place shows go to die. I didn't make that up, the networks did. If you are a network programmer you do not put one of your best performing shows on when nobody is watching then kill it with the lame excuse that "we are taking all our comedies off Friday nights".

Others have noted that it was the cost of the show that was the culprit, combined with the fact that ABC did not actually own the show. That may be closer to the truth although Tim Allen has said there were no discussions prior to the cancellation and nothing which would indicate they were even thinking of doing so. If cost was the big issue ABC could have at least opened discussions on how to reduce it prior to getting out their cancellation gun.

In any case it takes huge ju ju bee's to kill one of your best performing shows and give a presidential level lie for doing so.
 
landtuna said:
Friday nights have long been recognized as the place shows go to die. I didn't make that up, the networks did. If you are a network programmer you do not put one of your best performing shows on when nobody is watching then kill it with the lame excuse that "we are taking all our comedies off Friday nights".
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Nonetheless, you have some stellar performers on Fridays (within the context of lower viewership) such as MacGuyver, Hawaii Five-0 and Blue Bloods.

Blue Bloods and Hawaii Five-0 are going into season 9, and MacGuyver is headed into a season 3 renewal.

Friday shows are expected to garner similar shares of viewing as shows on Monday to Thursday do; we don't see shares in the press release TV ratings data... we see rating. Shows that get appropriate performance against weaker total viewership get renewed but the standard is different.
 
If memory serves, they moved it to Friday after one season. So they gave it five seasons on Friday. That’s a pretty long time to be deliberately trying to kill something. Especially in a fairly cutthroat business where lots of shows meet their demise a heck of a lot sooner.

And this is a network that renewed Roseanne after one episode of the new season. The nonsense about ulterior motives around not wanting shows espousing conservative viewpoints is nonsense.

Like (virtually) all businesses, it’s about economics. When they don’t work, you make a change.
 
AbrahamJSimpson said:
Like (virtually) all businesses, it’s about economics. When they don’t work, you make a change.
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If you remember, following the first season they had some cast changes which were not well received. Hard to tell if this affected the decision to move it to Fridays.

My personal opinion is that, since ABC did not own the show their eventual syndication money was not going to be a game changer. So, paying the bills up front without the prospect of syndication money made the difference. LMS is currently in syndication but we are getting the dubbed version created for Spanish speaking audiences. The show's language is in English but the credits indicate the people who dub the voices in Spanish. I haven't seen that situation before.

But like virtually every other business of which I am aware you try a variety of solutions before tossing the baby out with the bathwater.
 
landtuna said:
It never seemed to me that LMS ever came close to the bigotry that was Archie Bunker though.
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Some of that would be a function of who produced the show and who acted in it. Producer Norman Lear was a noted liberal; Carroll O'Connor was liberal as well. It should come as no surprise that the Archie Bunker character was an intentional stereotype of a conservative, and as is the case with stereotypes, was not accurate. Tim Allen, on the other hand, as the lead actor and an executive producer of the show, is himself conservative, so while his character is also a stereotype, and Allen himself refers to Mike Baxter as "an educated Archie Bunker", you're not going to see the writers, whom Allen describes as "left-wing", take potshots at conservatives, trying to make them look bad.. Allen would never allow that.
 
landtuna said:
But like virtually every other business of which I am aware you try a variety of solutions before tossing the baby out with the bathwater.
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I'm pretty sure there's been lots of proverbial babies tossed out with the bathwater in TV. The major tinkering with a program tends to be more exception than rule. This was a six season old sitcom, for which ABC would have had to absorb the production costs moving forward. That hardly screams out for a need to try extraordinary measures to keep it going. It met the same fate of plenty of shows. Including, as the "it's because it was conservative" argument seems to ignore, plenty with a so-called "liberal" voice, many of which never see six seasons. Heck, some don't see six episodes.
 
dhett said:
Tim Allen, on the other hand, as the lead actor and an executive producer of the show, is himself conservative, so while his character is also a stereotype, and Allen himself refers to Mike Baxter as "an educated Archie Bunker", you're not going to see the writers, whom Allen describes as "left-wing", take potshots at conservatives, trying to make them look bad.. Allen would never allow that.
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I have probably watched the entire 6 seasons of LMS at least 3 times and in that time I have seen Allen make fun of "Liberals" (Obama and H. Clinton) most of the time but at the same time the other cast members tend to offset his conservative views so I would rate the politics of the show somewhat of a draw. AITF was nothing like LMS. Archie was a mean, vindictive racist ultra conservative bordering on National Socialism. His arguments with Edith and Meathead and his daughter were mostly very unfunny which was the reason I quit watching it.

Allen also portends to be a devout Christian but makes fun of sleeping in church, buying his way into the Church's good graces and eventually coming to terms with other cast members differing religious beliefs. None of these convince me he acts out his deep personal beliefs. He is simply a comedian going for the laughs.

I would have no way of determining how much of the writing is done or influenced by Allen but he seems not to be the ultra conservative that the media likes to paint.
 
AbrahamJSimpson said:
I'm pretty sure there's been lots of proverbial babies tossed out with the bathwater in TV. The major tinkering with a program tends to be more exception than rule. This was a six season old sitcom, for which ABC would have had to absorb the production costs moving forward. That hardly screams out for a need to try extraordinary measures to keep it going. It met the same fate of plenty of shows. Including, as the "it's because it was conservative" argument seems to ignore, plenty with a so-called "liberal" voice, many of which never see six seasons. Heck, some don't see six episodes.
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Were I a network suit I would have considered the cancellation of a highly rated show the last on a list of things to try before pulling the plug. The fact that Allen was reportedly not consulted by ABC at any time before the cancellation news was released tells me the suits didn't try to address the high production costs (one of which was the money Allen was paid). I would have thought that the long-running association between Disney/ABC and Allen would have at least earned him the consideration of addressing the issues before the ship was torpedoed.
 
landtuna said:
I would have no way of determining how much of the writing is done or influenced by Allen but he seems not to be the ultra conservative that the media likes to paint.
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And it's partly for that reason that I don't see the ABC decision to be mainly political. ABC & Disney are not what I'd call bastions of liberalism.
 
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