I still don't understand today why Dark Skies was cancelled so early in the production.
Personally I found it to be a great show. Futhermore with Fox TV X-Files being such a great succes at the time Dark Skies could have functioned as sort of a prequal to The X-Files.
/Fred
Its the circle of life. Ratings = Money. No viewers... no money. I don;t remebr if this show got the usual treatment of canceled shows, (i.e. Freaks and geeks, Undeclaired, Freaky Links, ect.) Usually they show it, move it, show it, go a period of time without showing anythign at all, show it a few more times move it, and thats the end (Pretty much what they are doing to Scrubs). I don't remebr a lot about the show, but I do remeber it being enjoyable. Some people picked it apart for the inconsistancies like "this doesn't beling here, this wasnt around for a few more years.. blah blah blah." The thing is, its a COMPLETE work of fiction, not a documentary. Anyway, back to my main point. Its all about the money.
shareThe same reason most good shows are cancelled; it was too good for tv.
shareThey got too close to the truth...
True...
shareI heard it was cancelled bacause they wanted to use the challenger shuttle disaster for one of the stories through time. like tey did with charles manson and others.
sharethey may have done but they were decades from that, they did one series starting in 61 and were only in about 62 or 63 by the end of it....no way they'd reach the 80's anytime soon
They're here. They're hostile. Powerful people don't want you to know...
You can't palm off a second-rater on me. You gotta remember I was in the pink!
it had a chance to come back, I'm not sure where this aired in the US originally but I know it got good ratings here ni the UK and Channel 4 here was trying to encourage the makers to make more, the Sci-Fi channel had also stepped in to get more made as well from what I understand. Last thing I heard at the time was that the network said they would make more but only if they found a plausable was to being JT Walsh back into it. The production team started working on scripts and had sent a draft to the network when JT Walsh died in real life and the whole thing fell appart.
Okay thanks that clears up a lot about Dark Skies.
One thing they could have done is the following:
How about they had done a series on how JT Walsh character got involved with MJ-12.
By the way why would they have needed JT Walsh to do more episodes, because if I remember correctly Albano killed him in the last episode ?
/Fred
John lost the chance (he could had) to save his girlfriend, twice, plain stupid.
And the people are just losing fate to themselves and going to join the enemy.
Even MJ12 is losing.
At the beginning, I like the series. But as it goes, the story is getting darker and darker. It's just getting scary. And very dislike the ending.
I don't see why keeping the series, unless giving a satisfactory solution to all mankind.
Why does the series have to have a rosy outlook for mankind?
Wouldn't it atleast be interesting to see how it could work when we lose for once?
Rather than always being the plucky underdogs who are technically inferior but always have more spirit.
That is why I liked SAAB, the show worked it self up to a point where every one thought the human race would prevail, then bam just like that everything went upside down and we ended up loosing.
shareYeah Walsh was intended to be killed off. He was shot but IIRC we never saw him get shot in the head or anyone find his body or confirm he was dead....we only saw the shooting. the writers intention and walsh' intention was for that character to die. When trying to get the show renewed one of the conditions was that Walsh came back....one suggestion I read online (so it must be true) was that Hive-Albano shot him not to kill him but to get him out of Majestic so that the Hive could kidnap him.
shareSorry if this may already being said but I thought I'd tell ya anyway.
Dark skies was cancelled because of lack of ratings. The reason being is that it couldn't compete with the x files at that moment in time.
If you remember at the time the x files could do no wrong and they kept comparing DK with XF all the time.
Plus they kept changing the time slot which was annoying they also did this with american gothic which also got cancelled but i think that got cancelled because it was getting to violent crazy!! they don't know good shows when they see them.
If you wanna copy of the series do what I did and buy them of ebay the qualitys not to bad they are watchable
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American Gothic was stupid enough to start showing the episodes out of order, which was a big mistake, since it was a 21 episode story.
I can remember the creator of Dark Skies saying if the show was a success, he would like to go through the 70s, 80s and so on, right up to the present time.
I thought it was a very clever series, very well written, taking established, famous events and putting a great unseen spin on them. Conspiracy central, really, I'm amazed it didn't succeed.
BTW American Gothic is coming out on DVD, but I hear they've screwed the episode order up again. What, are they asleep? Also, somebody was complaining they were double sided, I think.
I didn't realise American Gothic was out of order.
This will expain why I used to get confused with the storyline.
I just put it down to being tired at the time because they put it on so late sometimes and I was up early with having to go school plus I used to stay up late the night before watching other series that got cancelled can't for the life of me remember what it was nevermind.
I didn't know they was planning to go that far with Dark Skies (70s, 80s and so on, right up to the present time)It's a shame it got cancelled!
I wasn't really amazed because they always did it to good shows in the past. Fingers crossed they wont cancel any more! I wont hold my breath because you know what the tptb are like!
American Gothic is coming out on DVD COOL! I hope they bring it out on region 2 dvds.
I wonder if they'll ever bring Dark Skies out on dvd as well. That would be cool
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Dark Skies will see a DVD release, sooner or later. It's happened to American Gothic and Space Above and Beyond, it *will* happen to Dark Skies.
Oh I didn't know they have American Gothic and Space above and beyond on DVD. I hope they will do region 2 DVD's for these and wish they'd put Dark skies on DVD
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Dark Skies imo was a poor show.
It was clearly an X-files rip off and it just could not compete.
It was clearly an X-files rip off and it just could not compete.
Only way this show will get on DVD is if they edit out the music and replace it with some public domain stuff - this will kill it though. They did the same with "Cheers".
"Dark Skies" was and is still a great show. I suggest you learn to download and get it from any number of torrent sites, you won't be disapointed.
I believe it could be resurrected, even today some 12 years on but the biggest stmbling block is getting those tight arsed TV Studios to invest good money into quality TV Shows instead of poor money into low quality reality crap!!!
The sad thing is that the series lost its premise (UFO lore across 20th century history) because they killed it off so early, covering only '61 to '63 or something similar.
I believe it could be resurrected, even today some 12 years on but the biggest stmbling block is getting those tight arsed TV Studios to invest good money into quality TV Shows instead of poor money into low quality reality crap!!!
Sony are too busy investing into their Blu-Ray boondoggle to care about their back catalogue of old TV shows, they've got good music left on the scrapheap as well...
And The X-Files is still in print: http://www.amazon.com/X-Files-DVDs/lm/2FZZUFX1DXDZ8
Thanks, gregforttmags.
Regarding the X-Files, I didn't mean it wasn't available any more, but that it wasn't current. I think just about anyone who's ever going to buy The X-Files has already done so, though I notice Fox keeps packaging bits of the show in different ways (e.g. The X-Files Essentials), apparently in hopes of snagging a few extra bucks. (That latest re-serve was very deceptively put together in my country, where the blurb never said up-front anywhere on the packaging that they were episodes from the show. To be fair, it didn't actually claim they weren't, either, but it did seem to be trying to give the impression they were never-before-seen stories. Tsk-tsk.)
But the reason I mentioned X-Files was that there's always room for other products in the market to capture the DVD-buying dollars of people who have already bought TX-F. (It's like publishing companies are all desperate to find the kids' book that's going to be "the next Harry Potter" and fill that marketing niche.)
You might very well think that. I couldn't possibly comment.
All I got to say is BattleStar Galactica and four seasons......
http://jameslang-world.com
Sorry to be dumb, James, but I've never seen Battlestar Galactica, either the new or the old, so I don't understand what you're meaning.
You might very well think that. I couldn't possibly comment.
Well it is ok just saying the the old one lasted about two seasons if you want to call it two seasons. They made a remake of a show that lasted more seasons then the first one. They can do the same thing with this show..
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The show was canceled because of bad ratings. I identify two points that the show needed to fix:
1. Stronger female lead. "Kim" was not a strong character, not by a long shot. She was not the kind of person I would expect as a female hero beside a male hero. She needed attitude, not that "all-American good girl" boringness. And since the show does not use an ensemble cast, there was no other strong female in the show, until Jerri Ryan came on board. Ryan's appearance was not a coincidence. The writers saw the said weakness and tried to fix it. But at episode 12, it was already too late.
2. The plot device was too old fashioned. The show really felt like a '90s production. X-Files didn't. Twin Peaks (1st season) didn't. Basically, Dark Skies needed a bit more innovation in its story-telling techniques, more intensity too.
Good points about the female lead and the plot device.
The early and mid-'90s had a lot of shows that fell in the shadow of "Twin Peaks" (which I really wish had lasted longer) and "The X-Files" (which I think went on way too long): "Dark Skies," "Picket Fences," "Wild Palms." There just wasn't enough to distinguish this one from the pack. I really wish now I had watched more of it at the time, but now I have the chance with the DVD release.
I found this series to be more like what I thought The X-files was going to be like when I watched the original X-files Pilot and wasn't. I preferred how this one stuck more closer to real UFO lore. Seeing the real Betty and Barney Hill interviewed on tv as a very young child left a huge impression on me. There was an interview I heard about why this series was cancelled. It was with one of the real life Kennedy children. The makers of the series never sought permission from the family. Apparently they've had to endure a lot from Kennedy assination conspiracy theorists bothering them over the decades,and when this series hit the airwaves,the inquirers went from mildly annoying to really really weird and became too much for them. The family threatened the makers with legal action,and that was the end of it.
shareI loved this show when it was on. Eric Close and JT Walsh were great in the roles and I was fascinated by the storylines. It still bugs me now after all these years that it was cancelled after one series
share