Speak Up Saturday

[feurioo]

Welcome to the weekly roundup post! What are you watching this week? What are you excited about?

Comments

Murderbot and Northern Exposure

[shadowkat]

So it is closely following the book? Good to know. I thought it was but wasn't certain. Thanks.

Northern Exposure kind of ended before Buffy aired? It ended in 1995-96, and started in 1990. It didn't last as long - ran into writer and actor issues, happens a lot with television shows. Per Wiki: The lead of Northern Exposure wanted a raise around the fifth season, and the producers and studio refused and decided they could do the show without him. So he got written out in the middle of the fifth season. (It didn't work and the show died, shortly there after, although it had other problems. Very few shows can survive without the lead.) The other problem - was the network/studio took an idea another writer pitched to them, changed the location and pitched it to a different writing team. The original writer got annoyed and sued them, and when the writing team of the series found out that it was a stolen idea or changed idea, they bolted and a new show-runner was hired, and that new show-runner hated everything about the series and kept undercutting it until the network finally gave up and cancelled it. (Television is a really tough and frustrating medium to work in.)

That's why it went off the rails in the latter seasons and got cancelled.

Northern Exposure was the opposite of Buffy in that it was great to start, then...floundered. Buffy took a while to take off - then got better as it went, and the writers/crew/etc did as well. Probably helped by the fact that the lead didn't leave nor did the writers until the series ended.

Re: Murderbot and Northern Exposure

[tinny]

So it is closely following the book? Good to know. I thought it was but wasn't certain. Thanks.

So far, yes. I have seen the first three eps.

The lead of Northern Exposure wanted a raise around the fifth season

Oh yeah, NX was a mess from start to finish. Afair, he already wanted a raise after the first season, but didn't get it. But his contract was such that he also couldn't quit (yet), so he had to come back anyway. So even after the first season already there must have been major cracks between him and the rest of the cast. And one of the other actors also kept away from the rest. I remember that he didn't participate in the Q&As that were organized for the fans, for example.

I didn't know about the writers/showrunner conflict, it seems to have been an even bigger mess than I thought. O_O For all that, it was really well written, especially the first season.

Television is a really tough and frustrating medium to work in.

Ugh, yes. I'm very frustrated with what went on with Doctor Odyssey this season, too (and I suspect so was Ryan Murphy).

Re: Murderbot and Northern Exposure

[shadowkat]

After trying the rewatch, and failing after six episodes of NX (shame I remember loving it back in the day and I wanted to see the episodes Marsters was in), I decided to look it up. I couldn't remember when Grant Goodeve's character left or how. (Satellite Dish fell on him and sometime in the second or third season?).

Yeah, there was a lot of hostility on set. And various actors didn't get along. The actor playing Joel Fleischman wanted out, and asked for a raise early on, and was repeatedly denied. He went on to play in Numbers, and various films. It was not a happy set, from what I've read, although no where near as bad as Ally McBeal or Sleepy Hollow or Moonlighting.