Is the SF media ignoring RANGERS?

[Chris Springob]

I'm continually amazed by the lack of coverage of Rangers by SF news sites. General SF news sites that I frequent include Cinescape, Ain't It Cool News, and SFC's Sci Fi Wire. Cinescape has always ignored B5, and I'm not sure why. AICN covered Crusade pretty thoroughly, but has nothing on Rangers (yet there's an Enterprise story practically every day. Sci Fi Wire has been pretty good (it is their show), but they haven't said anything about the release date that was announced this week.

Rangers has got a trailer, a cast picture, a cast description from JMS, some sketchy plot information, and a release date. But you never read about any of that stuff anywhere but here (and a few other B5 exclusive sites. Read SF message boards, and you'll see that, while B5 has nowhere near the kind of recognition of Star Trek among the general public, it is pretty popular among online SF fans. And yet Enterprise gets something like ten times the coverage of Rangers on general SF sites. Why?

Isn't a possible spinoff to a show that won two Hugo awards something that should make the folks at AICN and elsewhere get really excited? So why do they not seem to care?


------------------

 

[**DONOTDELETE**]

I think that something very fishy is going on with the fact that the publicity for "Legend of the Rangers" has been very minimal! I noticed that there are not alot of press on this particuliar show...much anticipated show too! In the begining, the hype that surrounded this project was quite big, and now that the Sci Fi Channel has officially announced a January 2002 airing date, things just started to really die down! Strange! Are people losing confidence in the project or something. The teaser of the show looks awesome!
Even with the Television Critics Association Press Conference held in Pasedena on Tuesday didn't really report much on "Legend of the Rangers" other than the announcement of the January 2002 airing date! What...wasn't there anything else revealed at this conference? Wasn't there any of the typical questions that would be asked at a press conference like the possiblility of the show going to series...the odds of the show getting a greenlight if the ratings are satisfactory...whatever that level of comfort is to give a go-oder to series! What about all those questions! I find this whole thing very strange. Everything seems to be downplayed all of a sudden! Cold feet perhaps? But why!?

------------------

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

AICN's former "Coaxial News" editor, Glen, as a B5 fan and had good contacts at Warner Bros. and Babylonian. (Which is how he was able to get some much inside info and get into a screening of the rough cuts of the first couple of episodes.) Glen is also the guy who broke the story of the infamous "TNT Crusade Memo." When I still had a contact of my own inside the DVD department of one of the studios, I used to be one of Glen's sources.

His replacement, "Hercules the Strong", actively dislikes B5 is a rabid Trek fanboy, and probably wouldn't be allowed onto the Warner Bros. lot if he paid for a ticket as part of a tour group.

(I once sent him an e-mail asking why he hadn't printed anything about an upcoming event on a major Warner Bros. series. I overheard two production execs talking about it while I was on the lot with a tour group. It was obviously something that had been in the works for awhile, and which would be of great interest to the show's fans. He didn't know what I was talking about, never followed up - or wasn't able to - and never ran a story on it.)

"Herc" did do one brief article on Rangers (referring to JMS as "Babylon Boy") but that's been about it.

As for the rest: Dreamwatch magazine has an article in the current issue, and Sandy Bruckner says that there will be a number of others in the coming months in both SF and mainstream publications. And Cinescape - at least the on-line verison - has carried mentions of the new movie more than once. They even ran a correction to one story when I wrote them after spotting an error.

Look at it this way. It's July. The movie doesn't air until next January. Rangers is a TV movie based on a series that isn't one one-hundredth as well known as Star Trek. Everybody's at least heard of Star Trek. Most SF fans haven't heard of B5. How much press do you really expect to see at this point?

Enterprise will be on the air in just a couple of months. It has a definite series commitment. It has a known star who is not only a genre favorite, but a recognizable face and name to millions of non-Geeks thanks to Murphy Brown. And it is part of the never-ending Trek franchise.

Talk about apples and oranges.

There is simply no way that a B5 project is going to get remotely the same press attention as anything associated with Trek. Magazines do not see their newstand sales double when they put Pat Talman on the cover. That happens when they use Jeri Ryan.

That goes for "mainstream" titles as well.

Hell, there are a couple of magazines out there that are essentially press agents for Paramount, Lucasfilm or both - featuring endless stories about the two Star franchises and (not incidentaly) featuring endless pages of advertising for licensed Star Wars and Star Trek merchandise.

Don't worry. As the DVDs hit store shelves and the movie debut date approaches we'll see more press on Rangers.

Regards,

Joe

------------------
Joseph DeMartino
Sigh Corps
Pat Tallman Division
joseph-demartino@att.net

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Even with the Television Critics Association Press Conference held in Pasedena on Tuesday didn't really report much on "Legend of the Rangers" other than the announcement of the January 2002 airing date!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Of all the things that The Sci-Fi Channel has on the schedule for 2001/2002 they chose do do three panels for the TV Critics:

Taken: A Steven Spielberg project that they've been trying to get off the ground for two years and which is virtually guaranteed to draw huge press attention. A huge mini-series spanning 50 years and dealing with the still hot topic of alien abductions.

Firestarter: Rekindled: A Stephen King project, a sequel to one of his monster best sellers and a (financially) successful feature film. Also a mini-series which will attract lots of press, as everything with the King name attached to it always does. (Though the critics are more likely to review King's contract than the actual work - as they always do.

)

B5: The Legend of the Rangers.

Huh ????

Speilberg, King, - and - Straczynski???

Even though the Sci-Fi Channel has other high-profile projects on tap, including Children of Dune, the follow-up to their single highest-rated show of all time, they devoted their limited time in front of the TV Critics to Speilberg, King, and - yes - Straczynski. This doesn't sound like a lack of confidence to me. This sounds more like, "Let's give the industry a heads-up, but, hey! This thing won't be on the air until January; let's not drive it into the ground and start promos now that everyone'll be sick of seeing by December."

Regards,

Joe

------------------
Joseph DeMartino
Sigh Corps
Pat Tallman Division
joseph-demartino@att.net

 

[Mondo Londo]

There are probably a few things we should consider.

1. Is there a daily torrent of information for B5LR that can match the Enterprise and Star Trek X machines?

2. The publicity machines have to play to the crowd, what ever we think of story quality, etc. B5 managed to last 4 years on a rag tag collection of affiliates, and then 1 year on TNT. The one spinoff B5 series, for whatever series of reasons, crashed and burned. Again, for whatever series of reasons, B5 novels 1-9 are out of print with no immediate plans to relaunch them (at least, not that I know of, though somebody else might).

3. Compare that to the shelf after shelf of Star Wars and Star Trek books you can find at just about any book store. While TOS died, it came to life in syndication and has had three spinoffs that lasted seven years each -- to say nothing of nine(?) motion pictures (not TV movies), with another one coming.

Then of course, there's the Star Wars franchise -- 4 record-breaking films, Saturday morning cartoons, computer games, best-selling hard cover novels, etc. How many people buy $125 joysticks to play B5 computer games?

4. The only way we as B5 fans can change this momentum is to continually tell SCIFI channel, etc. how much we love B5, buy the new books, etc. If the time comes when the B5 franchise can not be ignored, it won't be. We have to prove to marketing people that there are eyeballs for B5 shows, books, etc. If they think they can make ad money, they will cater to us.

Sorry to rant.

------------------
"What's up, Drakh?"

Michael Garibaldi

 

[BlackStar]

Good points. It doesn't matter how much quality we believe B5 has. None of that matters if it doesn't have a large enough audience. Star Trek, on the other hand, has a huge audience that will even go as far as to put up with Voyager.

The only way we are going to win is to try to draw more of our friends into B5, and then they convince their friends, and so on.
Hopefully, with the new series airing on SciFi, it will have more stability than B5 or Crusade ever had. Also with a new series, it means it is our chance to bring in new fans who won't feel like they're lost because it will be a new series, even though it is in the same universe.

------------------
"Oh, Londo, you are a fool. You walk away from the greatest power I have ever seen, and now you expect me to do the same. They are the key to my eventual rise to the throne. Why would I abandon them?"

"Because I have asked you. And because your loyalty to our people should be greater than your ambition. And because I have poisoned your drink."
Lord Refa and Londo, Ceremonies of Light and Dark

 

[gkarfan]

As much as I would love B5 to get the kind of publicity Trek gets, I know that we don't have the amount of fans Trek has. Even Farscape doesn't get that kind of attention (& I'd love to see that change, too). Hopefully, B5 will end up being more of a phenomenon one day, but until then, we will have to put up with being mostly ignored.

I've attended 3 AgamemCons & have met most of the B5 cast-members, & I think we have one advantage over the Trekkers--I think the B5 people are more accessible. I doubt that the Trek-actors are as accessible to us as the B5 actors are, & that's because Trek is so darned *big*!

Tammy

------------------

 

[Quagmire]

When it doesn't interfere with getting and keeping a show on the air or getting DVDs/books I think I actually like the cult status. Since the network doesn't take notice they are left alone to do good stories. Of course I'm not directly involved with the show and I'm sure they would all prefer it to be a bigger hit.

------------------
Bus
"The pink ones keep ya from screamin'." Grandpa

 

[WombatControl]

I can say this: there is 110% support for Babylon 5 and SciFi. There are a lot of people excited about Rangers over there, and they're not about to be stingy with the promotion - they just want to do everything in the right time.

When the dust settles from Enterprise then we'll start seeing more from SciFi.

Joe's right, they would have never devoted a panel to Rangers unless they knew they had something. Spielberg, King, and Straczynski... about time JMS got the credit he deserves...

------------------
WombatControl
http://www.flarn.com/wombatcontrol/
"Who let the spoo out? Sigh sigh sigh sigh sigh..."

 

[bakana]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>
If the time comes when the B5 franchise can not be ignored, it won't be.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>


<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR> JMS:
I'm being very careful not to let B5 turn into a *franchise*. It's a story, created in X-parts, for television. This thing will turn into an industry over my dead body.

Ivanova's line:
"This isn't some kind of Deep Space franchise, this place is ABOUT something."
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I think that about sums it up.

------------------
Yes, I like cats too.
Shall we exchange Recipes?

 

[smpayne]

Scifi actually ran a commercial for LOR tonight during Farscape. There wasn't much more than a second or two of footage and the name. It was a run with a montage of other shows scifi is scheduling for "This summer and beyond"

------------------

 

[Mondo Londo]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by bakana:


JMS:
I'm being very careful not to let B5 turn into a *franchise*. It's a story, created in X-parts, for television. This thing will turn into an industry over my dead body.
Ivanova's line:
"This isn't some kind of Deep Space franchise, this place is ABOUT something."

I think that about sums it up.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, maybe this is a matter of nomenclature, semantics, etc., but B5 has become a lot more than a TV show in X parts.

There have been three TV movies; a spinoff TV series; a new TV movie in the works with the hope of another spinoff series; 9 Dell paperbacks; 8 DelRay paperbacks with another due in Novemeber; novelizations of the 5 TV seasons; Garibaldi's B5 Security Guide; a B5 Cookbook; tapes and DVDs (so they say); the banner ad above tells us we can get G'Kar's head for a mere $160; etc.

Now, I'm willing to agree that B5 is not a "franchise." And under no circumstances am I saying that JMS is lining his pockets. But given this non-exhaustive list of examples I've listed, what do you call it? Can we really argue that a $160 bust of G'Kar is necessary to the understanding of the TV shows?

------------------
"What's up, Drakh?"

Michael Garibaldi

[This message has been edited by Mondo Londo (edited July 15, 2001).]

 

[Kribu]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Mondo Londo:
Can we really argue that a $160 bust of G'Kar is necessary to the understanding of the TV shows?

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Of course it is. Without the existence of it, we wouldn't have the slightest chance of ever understanding the series.

Seriously though, what exactly is considered a "franchise"? How much "stuff" and spin-offs and sequels and whatnot do you need to call something a franchise?

------------------
"What would you say if I told you that Councilor Du'Rog had hired someone to kill me? Someone close to me?"
'Ambassador, with all due respect, if it *were* me, you wouldn't be here for us to have this conversation.'
-- G'Kar and Na'Toth, "The Parliament of Dreams"

[This message has been edited by Kribu (edited July 15, 2001).]

 

[Mondo Londo]

Myself, I don't know.

The whole thing kinda reminds me of Macinstosh users (I have two myself). On the one hand, we want accessories, software, etc. for us to be as available and as inexpensive as stuff for PCs. At the same time, so many of us like to maintain a boutique or clique atmosphere.

I do want lots more stories in the B5 universe. If "not being a franchise" means that the stories will be great, and won't contradict each other the way they do in the Star Trek universe, that's more than fine with me.

------------------
"What's up, Drakh?"

Michael Garibaldi

[This message has been edited by Mondo Londo (edited July 15, 2001).]

 

[Quagmire]

Leave it to Joe to express what I meant succinctly.

What I meant to say is that in some ways not being noticed is a blessing in disguise.

------------------
Bus
"The pink ones keep ya from screamin'." Grandpa

 

[bakana]

Trek has become what the world of Economics refers to as a Cash Cow. It can be "milked" regularly and endlessly for guaranteed streams of Money. All you have to do is keep feeding it Grass. Or the television equivalent of grass.

Grass is bland, green, cheap to grow and kinda boring, but it keeps the cow alive.

I'm sure there's a metaphore in there somewhere.

------------------
Yes, I like cats too.
Shall we exchange Recipes?

 

[Quagmire]

Also you only get three things out of a living cow: cud, crap(I'm including both 1 and 2), and whole unprocessed mild. None of which are particularly interesting or healty for the average person.

Enterprise reminds me most of cud. You had it before, it's just the same thing regurgitated(spit up) and given to you to chew again. Voyager reused and bastardized enough trek stories enough I can't imagine how bad the next one will be.

No I never lived on a farm but live close enough to rural people to know a fact or two about cows. I just like to play with other peoples' metaphors.

------------------
Bus
"The pink ones keep ya from screamin'." Grandpa

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>But given this non-exhaustive list of examples I've listed, what do you call it? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The difference between a "cult hit" and a "franchise" is ultimately how much money they make and the at what point the marketing starts driving the show instead of the other way around. JMS was resisted most of the product licensing deals they were offered early on, and would rather approve a high-quality, high-price item like the pewter station or the G'Kar bust than a lot of cheap plastic gee-gaws. It is precisely because he wasn't happy with the quality of the Dell novels that he wrote the outlines for the Del Rey books.

In the case of Trek it has become virtually the single most important and reliable cash-generator that Paramount owns. The reason we're getting Enterprise this year instead of giving the whole thing a rest for a couple of years (which the producers were inclined to do) is because the studio insisted on it. The reason Voyager was so bland is that the studio wouldn't allow the writers to take any chances or do anything interesting that might "hurt the franchise." Paramount sees Trek as a property, not a dramatic TV series.

JMS would be just as happy to keep B5 below Warner Bros. radar. And the nature of the series is such that he'll probably manage it. WB is happy to collect modest licensing fees from things like the G'Kar bust, because it is found money. Why not take it? B5 is to Warner Bros. a little bit like Woody Allen's films were to United Artists. They bring a certain prestige and class to the studio, they don't cost a lot of money and they always return a modest profit. So they're worth doing, and they're worth leaving the creative types in charge of.

But when a "franchise" starts bringing in huge amounts of money - when a Paramount figures out that they can sell almost anything with a Trek symbol or logo on it - the suits take over. Do you know why the uniforms changed between TNG and DS9? Because toy sales were starting to level off. Change the uniforms and you can sell a whole new set of "action figures." That's the kind of thing that JMS is trying to avoid.

Not being a franchise does not mean you can never do a sequel or a spin-off, or that there can't be books or videos. It means that the show remains the show, and not a hour-long commercial for the ancillary products. (Don't forget, JMS worked in the wonderful world of Saturday morning cartoons, where half the shows were nothing more than toy ads - usually for toys that were developed first followed by a show written around the product.)

Regards,

Joe

------------------
Joseph DeMartino
Sigh Corps
Pat Tallman Division
joseph-demartino@att.net

[This message has been edited by Joseph DeMartino (edited July 15, 2001).]

 

[gkarfan]

There are advantages to B5 being a cult show, sure, but I still hate it when I go into the bookstore & see all those Trek & Star Wars books, even if a lot of them probably aren't that great.

I want more B5 books!

Tammy

------------------

 

[**DONOTDELETE**]

I agree, there hasn't been much news, but It is only July. When the movie is availablbe for reviewers to watch, then I'm sure some of those sites will have a news story on it.

Of course on some of those sites, they have a "submit a news story" link, you could e-mail them mentioning that the movie will be on Sci-Fi in January.

I believe that with the DVD sales and Sci-Fi's own promotion. that the movie and potential series will get more coverage.

I think B5 franchise is a sleeping giant, just waiting to be reawakened.

------------------
"Let's split up"
"Good Idea"
"Yea we can do more damage that way."