Time to vote


Here are the nominated shows in alphabetical order.

Battlestar Galactica (1978)
Better Off Ted
Do Over
Dr. Who: Genesis of the Daleks
Earth 2
Life on Mars (UK)
The Gates
The Sandbaggers
The Unusuals
Twin Peaks


You've got three votes, in order of preference. Please write your votes in green letters (very easy: [green ] + [/green ], no space after green) and nothing else in green, so I can distinguish votes from regular talk. Voting closes on Friday evening, December 18th. Official confirmation of the winning show will be subject to availability. If everybody has voted long before the final deadline, we may consider announcing the winner at an earlier date.

Remember: you can vote and then change your votes any time until the winner is announced, so it makes no difference whether you vote in the beginning or the end of the process. Just remember that, in case you do change your vote, edit your original post and don't leave false votes in this conversation.

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My votes initially are the following ones:

1- Better Off Ted
2- Earth 2
3- Life on Mars

For the time being I choose Better Off Ted as #1 because it is a comedy. Earth 2 is my number 2 because brimfin has nominated it before (I think more than once) and I remember liking it. Life on Mars is another show I recommend.

Even though I really think Twin Peaks is a great choice, I didn't want to vote for two of my nominations, so I'm leaving this one out this round at least.


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I'm a bit surprised you didn't vote for Twin Peaks. Overall some really good nominations by everybody this time.

People should try to list the availability of these shows and where and if we can find them. I know Twin Peaks, Better Off Ted, The Gates, Battlestar Galactaca and Earth 2 are all available with a subscription on Netflix. Life on Mars is free on Hulu so is Battlestar Galactica.

"Do Over" is only available in bits and pieces on some lousy quality You Tube uploads.

I think most or all of "The Unusuals" and "The Sandbaggers" are available on You Tube. Has anybody checked if all the episodes are on Youtube?

I'm not sure exactly what the Doctor Who nomination is or it's availability. Is that part of season 12? or the entire season 12? I didn't think Doctor Who would qualify.

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by JohnQ1127 » I'm a bit surprised you didn't vote for Twin Peaks. Overall some really good nominations by everybody this time.

Well, I didn't vote for Twin Peaks because my priority was choosing a comedy in te first place, and I didn't want to vote for two of my nominations this time. But remember that these votes don't have to be permanent, so if I see Twin Peaks gaining popularity, I might just as well change my mind and my vote by Friday.

People should try to list the availability of these shows and where and if we can find them. I know Twin Peaks, Better Off Ted, The Gates, Battlestar Galactaca and Earth 2 are all available with a subscription on Netflix. Life on Mars is free on Hulu so is Battlestar Galactica.

I think you guys are better equipped to check availability than I am. As I live in Brazil, I have no access to Hulu or American or English Netflix. Brazilian Netflix has different content, I hear. Not that I should know, since I don't subscribe to Netflix. Hell, I don't even own a TV... It's complicated.

I'm not sure exactly what the Doctor Who nomination is or it's availability. Is that part of season 12? or the entire season 12? I didn't think Doctor Who would qualify.

To be honest, I have to admit it wouldn't qualify. But I was trying to accommodate our friend Michael since his first nomination encountered problems and he seems *really* excited about Dr. Who. Besides, I don't want to sound like a stickler for rules, especially when they seem so arbitrary and have been established by people who aren't even among us anymore, and I keep telling myself I should be more flexible. Finally, I asked the group if including Dr. Who was OK just this once and I only got a reply from lorkris, which was favorable. Nobody else manifested himself. However, I want to make it clear that, if it's up to me, this inclusion is an exception, otherwise newcomers might start nominating the first day of 24, or the second half of the third season of Lost and we'll have sheer chaos in our hands!

By the way, Genesis of the Daleks is a few episodes in season 11, I think (not the entire season), but I haven't checked which episodes yet or whether that is available.

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To answer John Q
The Sandbaggers is completely available on youtube.
Very kindly madp allowed Dr Who because of its uniqueness.
Each Dr who season is made up of 4 or 5 stories each of4 or 6 25 minute episodes. So each story is a little series on its own ,with a start middle and end, totally self containing.
I have nominated one 6 part story that makes up season 12.
A famous story featuring the Daleks ,the iconic enemy of Dr Who. Because of the length of the show there is no massive arc stretching over 35 seasons .Fans have their favourite seasons depending on when they were born!! Seriously
If you were born ,say, in the early seventies then "your" Doctor would be the fifth Peter Davison.No one said " there's already been 15 seasons so I can't watch it ,how do I know what happened previously?"
All you really need to enjoy a mini series /story is to know who the Doctor is and why he does what he does. I'll give that detail if it's nominated.
But c'mon guys I've asked cult tv fans to give a six week try to the longest Sci fi show in the world , pretty stupid eh!

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by michaellevenson1 » But c'mon guys I've asked cult tv fans to give a six week try to the longest Sci fi show in the world , pretty stupid eh!

I was going to say, "No, not stupid at all," but then I fixed my sarcasm detector, and I realized perhaps I should explain this if it has not entirely clear again. Dr. Who is an excellent show and yes, we should know it better, shame on us. Personally my only problem is that this group was originally created for us to watch old, short, failed shows, possibly ones we could mock, or sometimes short and almost forgotten gems, not very long and extremely successful shows. This is why I would never expect us to watch absolute classics such as Star Trek TNG, The Twilight Zone or Dr. Who. But of course, I've always guessed at some point someone would question that and propose we change things.

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[deleted]

Okay lads it's probably my fault I haven't explained this properly. Lost and 24 are shows with massive story arcs ,Who has none. A season would consist of Story 1 perhaps with 4 parts , then a 6 parter ,a 4, another4 ,finally another 6. That would equal 24 parts for the season .Using season 15 as an example,the location of the stories in this season were ;Victorian England,29th century Jupiter moon titan, England 1977, 25th century Pluto,at the edge of creation date unknown, and finally,on the Doctor's home planet.
There is no possibility of an arc . I have a theory about U.S. Television and U.K. television and the difference.
There are so many tv stations networks, broadcasters in the US all reliant on advertising revenue , this stifles creativity, risks can't be taken. The BBC on the other hand is a public service broadcaster who care little about ratings. Monty Python for example couldn't be born on peak time US tv. However some of my favourite shows are American, Star Trek, Curb your Enthusiasm,Hawaii 5-0 , Eureka, Mission Impossible. Anyway sorry rant over!

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by michaellevenson1 » Okay lads it's probably my fault I haven't explained this properly. Lost and 24 are shows with massive story arcs ,Who has none. A season would consist of Story 1 perhaps with 4 parts , then a 6 parter ,a 4, another4 ,finally another 6. That would equal 24 parts for the season .

I agree about Lost, but each season of 24 is self-contained, especially the first ones. In theory one could think of choosing that. The subject made me think of a show I loved back in the 1980s, (link=tt0092484), in which FBI agent Vinnie Terranova would go undercover for a few episodes on a mission to take down some gangster and, after the arc was over, he would be sent in another unrelated mission for a few more epísodes. There was no endgame, just independent story arcs.

But the British indeed seem to love that technique, so much so that sometimes a season has a title. I remember, for instance, Torchwood (2006), in which season 3 was called Children of Earth (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0485301/episodes?season=3&ref_=tt_eps_sn_3) Excellent story, I have to admit. My only objection is that those independent stories depend on previous knowledge about the main characters to make sense of things, and the fate of the main character will not be decided by its end, because the character must live on to be in the subsequent story arcs/stories and seasons.

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Surprised at your knowledge of Torchwood,a great series.
Of course capt. Jack appeared first in Dr Who season 27 and Torchwood is an anagram of Dr Who.
The rebooted Who (2005-to present) features torchwood a lot. According to a Season 28 story (I think) Queen Victoria set up Torchwood after an encounter with The Doctor.
Told you, risk-taking is who writers forte.

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by michaellevenson1 » Surprised at your knowledge of Torchwood,a great series.

I watched Torchwood because they started showing on a local cable channel (back in the time when I had cable, and a TV for that matter, but that's another story...), but they interrupted it. Then I figured I could catch all seasons online and watch the whole thing. That's the crux of the issue: to watch the whole thing, not just fractions of it. This is why I never got around at watching Stargate SG-1 or Dr. Who: too damned long and if you didn't catch them when they originally aired, now you're left with the overwhelming feeling there was too much to catch up with.

Torchwood was a great show, but it took me ages to begin to understand what the deal with Jack Harkness's immortality schtick was, because apparently he had been introduced in some lost episode of Dr. Who. I think I caught those episodes and understood it, but I don't remember anything anymore... The story is just too complicated. Torchwood: Miracle Day (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0485301/episodes?season=4&ref_=tt_eps_sn_4) helped me understand things better, though.

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I did check for availability of the shows before I nominated. I will admit Do Over is not the best quality on youtube and each episode is broken into three parts but I figured if we are doing one season cancelled shows that a lot of what we end up picking will not be of the best quality.
Actually I have three shows that I would nominate over the ones I did but did not do so because I could not find them on the internet. So if anybody ever sees Raines, Drive or Crusade out there let me know. I think all three of those would be a perfect fit for this group.
Both of the shows I nominated I put where they could be found. Maybe this could just become standard information we include when we nominate.
1. Earth2
2. The Unusuals
3. Better Off Ted

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by lorkris » Both of the shows I nominated I put where they could be found. Maybe this could just become standard information we include when we nominate.

In theory that would be a great idea, but, again, as I've mentioned, living in Brazil I don't have access to Netflix or Hulu, and I got so used to torrents... Well, let's set that aside because I know this is a delicate subject for some. I can check if my shows are on youtube, though.

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Ok, here are my votes:

1. Earth 2
2. Life on Mars
3. Do Over

Hard to decide this time; there was a lot to choose from. I'd be willing to try almost any of them - including Dr. Who.

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1-Life on Mars (UK Version)
2-Twin Peaks
3-Better Off Ted

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Well, well, it looks like Earth 2 is coming ahead of everybody, followed by Life on Mars and Better Off Ted. This is getting exciting! Even though everybody has voted, let's wait a little longer as somebody might want to change his mind. There's still time to make changes.

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Yeah, a lot of very good nominations this time around. I wanted to nominate J.J. Abrams' "Alcatraz" but I couldn't find it streaming in any location. I wasn't sure how people felt about buying dvd's or paying for the downloads. Another show I was looking at that had the same problem was "Undeclared".

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