DS9's life or death

[B5JMS Poster]

Subject: DS9's life or death
+  1: Oct 14, 1995: bjg at primenet.com (Brad Grossman)
   2: Oct 14, 1995: st1tr at Bayou.UH.EDU (Arlene Ogden)
   3: Oct 15, 1995: al669 at torfree.net (Mark A.J. McDonnell)
   4: Oct 15, 1995: brown at psych.Stanford.EDU (Joseph Brown)
   5: Oct 15, 1995: denebeim at deepthot.cary.nc.us (Jay Denebeim)
   6: Oct 16, 1995: kennedy@   (John W Kennedy)
   7: Oct 17, 1995: jfarmer at smartnet.net (Jeff Farmer)
   8: Oct 19, 1995: Daniel Ward <d00ward at engr.iupui.edu>
   9: Oct 19, 1995: dstinson at ix.netcom.com (David Stinson)
  10: Oct 19, 1995: Samuel Kessler <sakessler1 at msn.com>
  11: Oct 19, 1995: kingpin at primenet.com (Michael J. King Sr.)
+ 12: Oct 20, 1995: dmbrouwe at undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca (Dale Brouwer)
* 13: Oct 27, 1995: straczynski at genie.geis.com

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From: bjg at primenet.com (Brad Grossman)
Lines: 21

Jasen V Edralin (jasen at uhunix.its.Hawaii.Edu) wrote:
: ORDOVER (ordover at aol.com) wrote:
: : It seems to me that if Paramount were going to kill DS9, they wouldn't
: : have 1) spent three times the usual budget on the WAY OF THE WARRIOR
: : premiere, and 2) coughed up a lot of money and bent over backwards to get
: : Michael Dorn to play Worf every week.  And considering the overwhelmingly
: : positive reaction to WARRIOR, DS9 will be here to stay.

: Actually, the first post-opener episode was probably the only "Temporal 
: Anomaly"-genre Trek ep I ever liked, and had as guest star the incredible 
: character actor Tony Todd, from "Night of the Living Dead" (Patricia 
: Tallman version), "Candyman", and the X-Files.
: This season looks like DS9's writers finally got off autopilot. Now about 
: Voyager's writers...if any.
: -Marc

....I thought that actor looked familiar...he was damn good in this 
episode and in these movies.  Sorta showed by comparison that Cirroc 
Lofton can't act.  But it was a great episode, mainly because of his 
performance...


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From: dmbrouwe at undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca (Dale Brouwer)
Lines: 20

>Something else worth noting is the fact Dorn signed a three-year
>contract to do DS9.  He said so himself.  Therefore DS9 will be
>around for at least three more years.

Can people really be this naive?  Contracts like this would be conditional
on the show still being on.

The guy who plays FBI Chief Skinner on the X-Files signed a SIX year contract
with the X-Files.  There is little chance the X-files can last SIX more 
years.  Some of the stories were getting tiresome in year 2.

Of course Trek fans prove that some people never get tired of endless
rehash! <Grin>


-- 
# Dale Brouwer - Computer Science Student, University of Waterloo #
| - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - | 
| Better the pride that resides in a citizen of the world,        |
| Than the pride that divides when a colourful rag is unfurled.   |

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From: straczynski at genie.geis.com
Lines: 28

     To the inquiry about TV contracts...when an actor gets a contract on
a show, it's not a guarantee of anything; it's all one season at a time.
ALL TV series are like this: you (the producer/studio) have an OPTION on
the actor, by contract.  Meaning you own the actor for that period of time
AT YOUR DISCRETION.  In other words, if you're renewed for a given season,
you have the option of hiring (or not hiring) the actor back for the
next season.  The actor does *not* have the option.  If you then hire the
actor, it's pay-or-play for that season, meaning if you decide to let the
actor go mid-season, you must still pay him for the balance of episodes
committed for.

     So an actor's contract is not a guarantee of *anything*.

     As for the budget on the two-parter...DS9's ratings have been on a
steady decline for the last several seasons, according to the trades and
newspaper articles.  Paramount sells advertising based on the ratings; if
they drop below the promised level, they have to start giving money back
to the advertisers (not a good thing).  So regardless of a series
projected duration, they *must* start improving the ratings...hence you
spend a little more up front, grab some ratings, give the show a boost,
and maybe make it up here and there later in other shows, or simply write
off the additional shooting costs against the benefit of not giving money
back to advertisers.

     No judgment here, no predictions, just answering the questions that
came up about how things work in TV.

                                                                    jms