Save Our Good Shows!

[joreth]

Help keep good shows on the air so that we don't have another Firefly situation - canceled after the first season just as it really gets going.

Don't worry if you don't have television or don't watch television, you can help by visiting the network websites and streaming the show online.  You don't even have to really watch it if you want to wait until DVD, or you already saw it on your TV, or if you don't have time to watch right now.

Only a select few viewers have a Nielson box that tells the network execs who is watching what.  I do, however, believe that Tivo keeps records, but I'm not sure about other DVRs (I assume they do too, but I'm not sure).  Netflix doesn't count either, even if the show is still currently being aired.  But every show streamed online gets counted if you view it directly from the network website (Hulu doesn't count).

So, you can pull up an episode and watch it on your computer, or you can pull it up on a spare computer and mute it and play it in the background somewhere, or you can start it playing as you leave the room/house/office just to make it count.  Then you can watch it some other time on your preferred medium.

The point here is to make sure the networks know that we are all watching and that these shows should not be canceled.  So, do your part to affect network programming.  Thanks to the internet and the networks who have finally figured out that it doesn't have to be a threat to offer programming online, the actual majority finally has a vote, as opposed to those few families selected to be Nielson familes who may or may not represent the rest of us.  Even if there is a show that you don't particularly keep up with, but you think it *should* be continued (maybe a kid's show or an educational show, or a show with an important message), make sure the networks know you want it on the air.

My personal recommendations to help keep on the air:

Dollhouse

Lie To Me

Numb3rs

Big Bang Theory (unfortunately, this show is not being offered streaming online at the network's website - I had to find other sources, as mentioned below).

The downside is that many of these shows are not archived on the network websites, so if you missed the earlier episodes and want to watch a show from the beginning, then I recommend trying one of the alternatives I suggest above (playing but not watching) and either getting the DVDs later or looking for an online pirate copy to download or stream.  I watched Season 1 of Big Bang Theory with Spanish subtitles on a youtube spinoff called Megavideo (with some from Season 2 located at Free-TV) and I got most episodes from season 1 - 3 of Numb3rs with some non-Latin-based character language subtitles at TV-Life.  If you missed the first 5 episodes of the Dollhouse, you can watch that at TV-Life and Free-TV.

For anyone who was interested in watching Swingtown, CBS sold the rights to another station (WE or something like it), who purchased exclusive rights for Season 1 only and has announced they will not be purchasing Season 2.  No other station will purchase a Season 2 of any show if they can't also run Season 1, so this means that Swingtown is effectively dead in the water.  Netflix has it on DVD and on Watch It Instantly, but I have some low-res digital files that I saved when CBS decided it was a good idea to only show the most recent 3 episodes and pull all the earlier episodes, making it impossible to introduce someone else to the show once the season already started.  I'm thinking of playing them at a PolyC meeting or poly movie marathon or something at some point in the future, for those of you who may be more interested in a social event to watch it.

Comments

[serolynne.livejournal.com]

Swingtown is available on DVD.. we just finished watching it. Awesome series, and a damn shame it got canceled.

I wish there was another way for us TV-less, low bandwidth nomads to cast our votes for the series we like. For us, our only means of watching stuff is either after it's released on DVD, or downloading in mass when we have access to wifi. Streaming generally isn't an option for us with our 5GB per month mobile cap.