Posts Tagged ‘hiatus’

Years ago I wrote a column about science fiction shows I wanted to see. One of them was Hiatus, a show that was universally accepted as brilliant and critically acclaimed and which would be cancelled before the pilot episode's closing credits. Fans of the column responded to it, so I wrote another column listing little known facts about the show. After that friends started posting news about Hiatus at other forums and websites, reminiscing over this show that never existed. And then they started writing fan fiction for it, and coming up with Windows wallpaper, all for a show with few named characters, no actual plot or situation, no nothing. I encouraged it shamelessly, starting a blog and spreading rumors about the show's comeback. One of my NaNoWriMo novels was to be about fans trying to save the show. I was having a ball putting it into different formats without ever getting pinned down as to what, if anything, Hiatus was actually about.

Over the years of Serenity fandomness, I had seen the work of Adam Levermore. He did the Can't Stop the Serenity posters. He did the Browncoat Ball posters. He came up with his own brilliant Firefly-inspired designs for his CafePress shop, Black Market Beagles. He created the Little Damn Heroes artwork.

And then he jumped into the Fans4Writers campaign with both feet, and suddenly I was talking to him every day. And then we met during the Mutant Enemy Day weekend, adn we got along pretty well, and we got to talking about doing a project together some time, and he mentioned he always wanted to do a webcomic but didn't want to write one. We were both obsessive fans who had spent the last two years fighting to save and promote shows, and I already had this idea about other fans trying to save a nonexistent show, so…

Save Hiatus began in February, 2008, and it ran every Monday and Friday for seven months  — with a  burst of seven days in a row during the San Diego Comic Con. We got a decent amount of attention, got some good reviews, Adam's already amazing art, was improving, my writing was tightening up… and we had to stop. Life, as they say, intervened, and fun as it was, "Save Hiatus" was taking much too much time for something that wasn't making any money. We took a breather, I filled in for a few weeks with the prose-only novelization of the Hiatus pilot episode, and then we came back in January of 2009.

And we came back strong! We dropped color and big strips in favor of 4-panel B&W strips but we added an extra strip a week and a Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule. It worked nicely, the plot moved along faster, we got to keep playing in our world… and then life dumped on us again and we had to go on — sigh — hiatus.

For now it's in limbo. You can see all the strips at savehiatus.com, and we hope to come back to it someday. We both love the characters and there are plenty of storylines planned that we never got to (and stuff keeps happening in the geek world that I keep wishing I had a webcomic to comment with!) and as soon as we can fit it into our lives and make it work, financially, Hiatus will fly again. Or hover in a synchronous orbit. Whatever it did.

Last week my column dealt with the appalling lack of spaceship shows on television today. I suggested we address this appalling situation with a variety of new shows including one called "Hiatus," which was destined to glow brightly in the creative heavens and then get tragically cancelled midseason. It was a joke, you see.

But, as happens whenever work of such brilliance is treated disgracefully by the networks and unheeded by the reality-show-gulping public, "Hiatus" is now attracting a growing number of fans who are clamoring for its return. The fact that the show lacks a plot, characters, or, technically, existence is entirely beside the point. The love of an obsessive fan knows no bounds, and the Snakes-on-a-Plane people need something to keep them busy now anyway.

So for all you devoted "Hiatus" fans out there, I offer you these behind-the-scenes tidbits.

12 Things You Never Knew About "Hiatus"

1. The idea for ship's communications to be in Esperanto was the suggestion of child actress and cast member Julia Twee ('Arcus') Bohammin. It wasn't discovered until after the voiceovers had already been recorded that she had been kidding.

2. Show creator Manny Ulrich demanded that the ship not only be completely built so as to enhance the illusion, but that it actually be launched into space and shot on site. It is believed that the cost of approximately $26.1 billion per episode (plus catering fees) may have had something to do with the show's early demise.

3. That was Kevin ("Captain Vince Parvo") Sutton's real hair. Seriously.

4. Brent Spiner's guest appearance in episode six, "Winds of Change, Yo," actually happened accidentally when he wandered onto the set on the way to the studio commissary. He was a good sport about being unexpectedly tortured by the Rllrians, though, and even dropped the lawsuit after the studio covered his medical expenses.

5. The show's theme song has been translated into 37 different languages. The lyrics, written by Ulrich in a drunken stupor, make no sense in any of them.

6. Darnell ("Cygnus Alpha") Lee was determined to do his own stunts and even told one interviewer, "If my butt's gonna be blown off, I want the audience to see it!" This was made ironic when an accident involving a Crushborg inadvertently removed half of Lee's left buttock. It was later replaced with a prosthetic replacement and Cygnus Alpha wielded his dreaded hyper-laser cane for the remainder of the show's run.

7. The high-pitched Rllrian language was devised by linguist Paul K. Bunford, who based it on traditional Himalayan shepherd profanity. Some Hiatus uberfans speak it fluently, for some reason, and have even translated the entire Def Leppard songbook into Rllrian verse (except for "High 'n' Dry," which bites).

8. The role of "Hy" was turned down by Christina Ricci, Lindsay Lohan, and Bjork before being accepted by veteran character actor Hank Robinson. Robinson's makeup takes nearly three and a half hours to apply, not counting appliances.

9. Because of Ulrich's deep and abiding love of Shakespeare, a line from the Bard is included somewhere in every episode. In most instances this is a subtle in-joke for the fans, but even the show's most loyal supporters admit that the episode "A Mid-Parsec Night's Dream" (featuring Joe Morton as Oberon Prime, king of the Space Fairies) was pushing it.

10. To keep up with changing viewer interests — and to make the show eligible for as many Emmy categories as possible — the show's format was changed three times during its limited run. The writing staff rose to the challenge, offering deep psychological turmoil amongst the crew, brought out by secret Rllrian germ warfare, to explain why the ship suddenly broke out into music/variety.

11. One of the most shocking and dramatic scenes from the show came about due to a conflict between the executives. While Ulrich was away on a scouting trip, producer Susan Mastler ordered a scene between MacMillan (ship's engineer) and Greta (ship's ombudsman) changed to occur in space, claiming "it would be more romantic that way, with stars and stuff." A furious Ulrich responded by having the scene CGed in post-production to be scientifically accurate, resulting in the violent romantic deaths of the star-crossed lovers from ruptured lungs, exploded gastric systems, radiation burns, asphyxiation, and, coincidentally, the highest ratings the show ever received.

12. When the show's cancellation was announced, Hiatus fans picketed in the streets for 46 straight hours to no avail, partly because the decision had already been made and partly because they were in front of the wrong studio.

You too can help keep the dream alive. Tell your friends! Make fan art! Write fan fiction! Head to savehiatus.com and help save "Hiatus."

Whatever the heck it is.

We need more spaceships.

Not in real life, although I'd be up for it. No, we need more spaceships on TV. For as long as I can remember there have been shows about hardy humans on elegant crafts slipping through the icy vastness of space, encountering alien races and dealing with scientific dilemmas while revealing something about the human condition, especially the human condition of crewmen in red shirts.

But not this stardate. There are no Star Trek series on the air right now. No funky time travel shows. No alternate dimension realities. No black holes. "Stargate Atlantis" remains, but SG1 has just been shut down. Instead we have a plentitude of normal-situations-with-one-sf-element shows such as "The 4400" and "Eureka," with just "Battlestar Galactica" and "Dr. Who" to sustain we proud space opera freaks. Where are the gadgets? Where are our alien invasions? Where are our defiant captains, charging through the galaxies chin-first to bring American values to the rubbery bug-eyed monsters? Where are our ray guns?

We are living in the future that science-fiction once predicted, and it seems a shame that the only aliens on the tube are Kang and Kodos on the annual Simpsons Halloween special. Here then are my suggestions for addressing this shameful inbalance. Engage!

"The Dukes of NASA"
Lowered funding forced the space administration to relax a few of those stodgy old restrictions on the astronaut training program, so meet Zeke and Tommy Duke, the good ol' boy cousins who pilot Space Shuttle Jefferson. They spend their days hot-dogging around wireless network satellites, using the Remote Manipulator System to open beers, and avoiding the stupid and corrupt security officers who work for the evil Flight Director Hogg. Yee haa! Over.

"Star Trek: Desk Captains"
Every other Trek series has focused on what's going on out there. But what about the people who make it all happen? Who writes the regulations for the starship captains to ignore? Who builds more non-hero ships to get destroyed by the Borg before the Enterprise shows up? This is the Federation. Written by Aaron Sorkin, the dialogue-heavy show focuses on the problems a system-wide government faces each day such as getting aid to underdeveloped planets, regulating fair and equitable trade between a thousand different races, and appeasing a foreign dignitary after Kirk shoots one of his people in the face with a hastily cobbled together bazooka.

"The Spacy Life"
Wacky dilettantes Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie, together in a small pink spaceship bouncing between the stars. They'll, I don't know, move rock in human slave mines or try to plot orbital vectors or something. I don't really care, I just want them off the Earth. Pack in Britney and K-Fed, too.

"Space: 1999: 2006"
Just as the new Battlestar Galactica took the original concept and re-imagined it into an exciting and profitable franchise, this new offering takes the story from the 70's TV show Space 1999 and brings it into the now. Just like before, a nuclear explosion on the other side of the moon will send Moonbase Alpha hurtling into space where the crew will encounter bizarre spandex-wearing alien races and incredibly coincidental situations. Only to jazz it up a bit, the explosion also destroyed the Earth, I guess, and the lack of adequate climate control means they have to sponge bathe themselves in slow motion a lot. Oh, and the crew is made up entirely of supermodels. I mentioned that, right?

"Clanks"
When they aren't performing mindless, repetitive tasks, these six fun-loving robots live together in a futuristic Manhattan apartment. See the zany hijinks as BethanyBot finally relents and interfaces with Jo-E-12, only to discover too late that their primary docking couples aren't complementary. Yow!

"Big Brother: ISS"
You won't believe what happens when we cram six very different people into the International Space Station! Watch as the hot chick, the religious freak, the jock, the gay guy, the married woman, and the token minority all learn to coexist in incredibly cramped quarters surrounded by the most hostile environment known to man. They'll have to complete various exciting tasks designed to just barely sustain their lives and each week the audience can choose to vote one of them out of the airlock. Watch the first episode as the hot chick shows everyone what microgravity does to her implants! Thursday nights at 9, right after Survivor: Ganymede.

"Betelgeuse Vice"
Crubbs and Tocket are space cops with attitude. Every week you'll see them in their Armani spacesuits and BMW starship, cracking another interplanetary smuggling ring or alien prostitution scam, but you'll also see them live and love as only space cops can. Which, I'm guessing, includes a lot of product placement.

"Star Wars Kid Dance Party"
Right, like someone didn't sign him to a contract. His Google rankings were through the roof, baby!

"Hiatus"
This exciting new show will feature multi-layered characters with real problems, scripts that are both funny and deeply moving with original and unexpected plot twists that break all the cliches, mind-blowing special effects, and a compelling story arc that quickly attracts extremely devoted fans. Ground-breaking and critically acclaimed, it will be cancelled after 10 episodes. Friday night, on FOX!

This fall, look to the stars! Or at least just think about the Hilton-Richie idea, OK?