Brief Lucifer Thoughts, plus The Expanse, Star Trek: Discovery

[shapinglight]

The Lucifer stuff is to do with ratings and the new time slot and the reason for Tom Welling's presence in the show (because it's certainly not because of his acting). The Expanse/Discovery stuff is just a brief grouse about something.



This is the first time in a year or so - not since The Americans was renewed by Fox for two final seasons - that I've actually cared at all about ratings. Or cancellations.

Okay, so Sense8 being cancelled was upsetting, but I was so busy with K and the WMBB at the time that it hardly registered with me, and anyway the show's been given a two hour finale so all is not lost.

With Lucifer, though I really care about it not getting cancelled, so I suppose I should just grit my teeth and accept that Tom Welling being in the show possibly makes that less likely, were ratings to be less than stellar (though they have started off okay, from what I gather). I actually saw someone on Twitter asking the other day if it was wrong that they only watch Lucifer for Tom Welling, and I thought, yes it is. But now I think, well, if it means you watch it, who cares? Go for it. It's weird to me that the guy has a fanbase, because I just don't get the attraction, but quite possibly the majority of TV viewers wouldn't understand why I find the people I find attractive either, so fair do's, I guess.

I was also a bit miffed about the new US timeslot, because I was afraid that being aired pre-watershed would mean that certain aspects of Lucifer's character that I enjoy - his bisexuality, his joyful drugs references - would have to be toned down (there's no mention of either so far but early days, I suppose). I'd been thinking that surely it would have been better to have shown Fox's new teen X-Men drama, The Gifted at 8, and keep Lucifer at 9pm. But now I think, maybe this way around is better? People who have switched on to see The Gifted might not stick around for Lucifer, but the other way around they might possibly watch both shows. Who knows? And if The Gifted tanks, it won't spoil things for Lucifer because it's on first so people will watch that and then switch off if they don't care about The Gifted.

And clearly I thought all this back in the Dark Ages when people still watched TV rather than streaming/catch-up etc, and it's come through a wormhole in space/time and just caught up with me. ;)

My grouse about The Expanse/Discovery is slightly spoilery so behind another cut.



Yesterday, I watched the third episode of Discovery, which I thought was a big improvement on the first two (though I still really hate the way they've reimaged the Klingons), but today I watched episode 8 of season 1 of The Expanse and I realised that Discovery has totally ripped it off - the scary, dark abandoned spaceship, the bio-hazard, even blowing up the dead ship at the end. What do you think?

Comments

[yourlibrarian]

Hmm, I only saw 2/3 of the Discovery premiere and the rest is paywalled here. But it wouldn't surprise me. I would say that Expanse is most like what Deep Space Nine was supposed to be, only 25 years ago and on a broadcast network, it was never going to be that.

And damn, I meant to put The Gifted on the recording schedule and forgot. It got some good reviews so I was curious.

[shapinglight]

And damn, I meant to put The Gifted on the recording schedule and forgot. It got some good reviews so I was curious.

Yes, it seems to have done quite well - or the first episode did anyway. I haven't watched it yet, but I mean to when I have time. Over here, Discovery is being shown by Netflix, so I have access to it that way.

Do you think there's really enough of an audience out there for multiple streaming services? TV watching is so fragmented these days, but presumably there are limits to how many subscriptions people will feel able to take up?

[yourlibrarian]

No, in fact I think we've already hit the limit. I remember I posted about that back when the plans for Discovery were announced. The whole point of Hulu, for example, was that it would be the single streaming service for broadcast networks. Now clearly CBS is going its own way with that.

I think there's more of a market for multiple pay-per-view services because you can stop watching if you want, watch only particular episodes, and better control your spending. But that's frustrating even to young people and I doubt older viewers will ever start doing that in large numbers. It's too much work and they tend to be volume viewers. I suspect the less convenient you make things the more piracy you'll have.

[shapinglight]

I suspect the less convenient you make things the more piracy you'll have.

Sounds about right. I know my husband would never (or hardly ever) pay to view something as a one off. We have Amazon Prime but a lot of the stuff they advertise isn't included in the subscription and he absolutely refuses to pay extra for it, even if it's only a couple of pounds.

Can't say I blame him.

[sibilant]

I've enjoyed both Discovery and The Expanse, although only seen 4 episodes of the latter. They are satisfying the part of me that still watches old Next Generation Star Trek episodes on SyFy and still misses the best of BSG.

[shapinglight]

I'm up to episode 10 of season one of The Expanse now. It gets better and better, IMO.

I'll probably carry on with Discovery, though I am miffed about them copying The Expanse.

[scripsi]

I've never seen anything with Tom Welling before, and I felt pretty underwhelmed by him. Good-looking, I suppose, but in a very bland way, if you know what I mean.

[shapinglight]

I know exactly what you mean. I saw someone on Twitter today raving about how much she loves his character and how handsome he is and hoping he won't turn out to be a villain and I just...well, I just don't understand it.

[scripsi]

Me neither! I found him bland and uninteresting in episode 2 as well.

[shapinglight]

So did I, and I feel rather gloomy at the thought of him being in almost every episode (though, thankfully, not next week's as it's one of the standalones they made during season 2 and didn't show yet).