Where were you *20* years ago? (the answer: watching Back 2 Back Action!)

[Bailey 1729]

(another reminder - or better, encouragement) August, perhaps the release of Cleo on R1 DVD would be an appropriate occasion for you to write up your in-depth observations that you mentioned above ... maybe the next Rational Man essay? What do you think?

[august]

Durn - I never did post those, did I? Well, it'll be a couple of weeks more at least. Awesome idea for the next essay though! :bg:

[Bailey 1729]

It's been a long time since I posted on a forum and had an immediate response ... cool!

[august]

Months have come and gone and I still haven't had a chance to finish that thing up - and yet I was up at 1 AM watching Jennifer Sky do coke with a rapper in "Never Die Alone." Go figure.

At any rate....it's worth noting the 6th anniversary of the show's premiere. :bg:

[Bailey 1729]

Trying to remember some of the context for August's essay ...

[august]

[SIZE="3"]And believe it or not...it's now been seven years! :eek:[/SIZE]

[Boomstick]

Time keeps on slipping, slipping...

In fact, I think I'll watch some Cleo right now!

[august]

"slips into the future ....tick tock tick.... "

Yep, the 8th anniversary!

[august]

[COLOR="#0000FF"]And indeed... it has now been...... drumroll here.... 14 years since Jack and Cleo premiered!

(There's a similar discussion thread here.) [/color]

[Michael]

Last year I went to Hulu to watch some of the old JOAT episodes. I really enjoyed them. They don't seem to have aged as much as some of the other shows I watch there. For example, it's painful to watch some of the Star Trek stuff. Do you know if they were using a newer film technology to make these shows? Maybe the quality of TV productions changed from Circa. 1995 to 1999 to 2000.

[august]

I'm not aware of any change in technology - in 1999, I assume they were still using regular film stock. Is TV shot in digital now? In theory they could have used a better quality film stock. I can ask Josh Becker, the director of the first two eps, who still maintains his site and answers questions.

My guess is that there weren't any obvious special effects to create from the ground up, apart from some stunt effects, and they'd been perfecting that technology for a hundred years. And the costumes were historical, so again, they had plenty of info to draw from, and decades of experience to know what looks good on camera. Plus, by this time, the local NZ crew had been working non-stop for 4-5 years on both Ren Pics projects as well as bigger-budget Hollywood projects, so they had everything perfected. Plus, with the rate of exchange, the lower cost of living, and the rebates from the NZ govt., they were able to create a decent amount of value on screen. i.e. spend $1 million, but get $3 million worth of results. Plus, the climate itself, where the sun is when shooting, etc. has got to help.

[Michael]

Maybe it's just that older shows don't digitize as well as newer shows. I assume all these authorized online shows are sitting in digitally remastered files on servers somewhere and the streaming services like Hulu and Netflix just receive copies of the files.

[august]

Bumping up for the celebration, which is also discussed here and here....

[Boomstick]

I've since finally watched all of Jack Of All Trades, which is very funny. I'm surprised it didn't do better, I think it's much more accessible than Cleo was. Maybe it was too much slapstick for people.

[august]

One problem was that people who might have enjoyed it tuned in to the show on the hour, which began with 30 minutes of Cleo. So if they didn't like that, then they surfed away to another channel and din't come back 30 minutes later.

But... how stunning is Angela Dotchin?

[Michael]

The Cleo fans were very different from the Jack fans, too. Both shows should have been longer and independently promoted. It was inevitable that one would outshine the other.

[Boomstick]

One problem was that people who might have enjoyed it tuned in to the show on the hour, which began with 30 minutes of Cleo. So if they didn't like that, then they surfed away to another channel and din't come back 30 minutes later.

Yeah, that's pretty much it. In spite of being billed as "Back to Back Action," it doesn't seem like they ever did each other any good as lead in/out. I guess the concepts aren't exactly complimentary, either. Post-apocalyptic, underground Charlie's Angels, and Napoleonic era Three Stooges. :bg:

But... how stunning is Angela Dotchin?

She really is brilliant. It's a shame she didn't do more work that was aired over here.

[august]

In spite of being billed as "Back to Back Action," it doesn't seem like they ever did each other any good as lead in/out. I guess the concepts aren't exactly complimentary, either. Post-apocalyptic, underground Charlie's Angels, and Napoleonic era Three Stooges. :bg:

Exactly. In theory, it was a brilliant idea, since Herc and Xena had complimented each other successfully, and both alternated wildly between dark episodes where main characters die or suffer greatly, and light, frothy nonsensical episodes. Cleo kept that same tone, but apparently not every mythology fan cared for sci-fi, not every woman who enjoyed Sorbo and Hurst's pecs wanted to see female leads, and not every woman who enjoyed the subtext of Xena and Gabrielle wanted to see Jen and Vicky drooling over hunky guys. Plus cramming a plot into 30 minutes - 22 actually - was awfully tough. Plus sci-fi requires special effects in virtually every scene, as opposed to a typical Xena episode where the only effect might be some stunt work filmed outdoors, and they had to create those effects with half of the budget of a full-length show.... in syndication, with a budget probably a quarter of what Trek would have.

And in theory everyone had loved all of Bruce Campbell's comic appearances on Herc + Xena... but in practice, while baby boomers like Bruce, Sam and Rob thought "Hey let's do something sort of like Zorro or F-Troop or Hogan's Heroes..." none of their teenage audience remembered those shows or that style of comedy.

Plus with the whole Tribune/syndication thing, the primo timeslots went to Andromeda, and Back 2 Back got stuck at 1 AM in so many markets.

[Boomstick]

Still, being a show that never achieves anything more than a cult following does have it's blessings. Especially in today's market where shows are soon forgotten within a few years of ending production.

[august]

Yep, and it's a different perspective from the actors' and crew members' perspectives. If you're accustomed to working for 6 weeks on a play, then one week on a commercial, then 4 weeks on a film, you think of those shows more like "Hey - there was a US production company in town with lots of $$ to spend, and me and my mates got lots of work out of it!"