I seem to recall singing this song once already, but here goes:
Sorry guys, but I've got cynicism running through my veins instead of blood. I don't care if the Sci Fi channel swears on their collective grandmothers that they'll run "Dark Shadows" through to the bitter end.......if the opportunity to boost it's ratings comes along and it means giving DS the ax, we'll all be synchronizing our DVD-players and VCR's, and begging each other for missing episodes.
No, onyx_treasure, I'm not suggesting we grovel. Why bother.....they couldn't care less. They already know how many fans are tuning into DS every day. They HAVE to know those numbers. And of course they realise we'd ALL be furious if the show was yanked.....but what would we do about it? Threaten never to watch the channel again?
How many of us routinely watch anything else on Sci Fi? I watch the Twilight Zone every once in a while. I think I caught a couple of episodes of Stargate. If I forget to turn the TV off after DS, then Forever Knight has been on while I did laundry. Is loosing ME as a viewer a big worry for Sci Fi?
What about the miniseries "Taken". It gave Sci Fi the highest ratings of any cable channel, for the first time. I'd be curious to know how many of US were watching that. I certainly wasn't. And I don't think that would come as any surprise to the number-crunchers at Sci Fi.
And that 's not even getting into the question of age demographics. Quite a few of us DS fans are old enough to have been original viewers. Do you think WE'RE the demo that this station wants? Somehow I tend to doubt it.
So, yes, it's frustrating as hell to know we really don't count for very much with the people who control our ability to all be watching the same episodes at the same time, and yes, it's really okay to bitch and moan here on OUR forum (especially if MB is going to lead the way, snarky little trouble-maker that he is
) just so long as we don't delude ourselves that we really have any control over this in the end.
raineypark