Site Columns

Hello World!

From zapping past all the channels here in the Netherlands, it's clear the new television season is about to begin. In a few days 'Big Brother II' will start, while the sequel of 'The Bus' (in which 12 people travel through the Benelux in, surprisingly, a bus) already started about a week ago. 'Star Trek: Voyager', too, will resume showing new episodes tomorrow.

However, with the start of the new season I'm realising there's one thing we're really missing here - high-profile shows that flop after just a few episodes. From following the American news sites, I always find it very interesting to read about how seemingly promising series like 'Mercy Point' or 'Harsh Realm' are cancelled after only a few episodes, but that kind of thing simply doesn't happen here that often. Sure, there are some Dutch drama series, but in general they frequently continue airing even if they get disappointing ratings - they're often produced by public television channels, after all. Series that already failed in America simply don't get bought by Dutch stations, and if a successful show doesn't perform that well here it's just moved to another time slot, as the stations paid for the show anyway. This is what happened with my own favourite show, 'The West Wing'.

Actually I think creating a series based on failed programs would actually be a nice idea for one of the stations here. They'd just need to get a post-midnight timeslot, when nobody watches anyway, and just air failed American shows at that time. The late timeslot might actually even benefit the really bad shows, as by that time people would be able to enjoy bad television a lot more. I know I'd certainly be watching that.

Trek BBS Today

Below are some of the topics currently being discussed at the Trek BBS:

-Is the rank of Fleet Captain, also used on the BBS, an actual permanent Starfleet rank?

-How should Guinan's character story be resolved?

More topics can be found at the Trek BBS!

Today On TV

-In Canada, Space! will be showing Voyager's 'The 37's' at 4:00am Eastern Time and the Original Series' 'Tomorrow Is Yesterday' at 10:00am.

-In the United Kingdom, Sky One will be showing Voyager's 'False Profits' at 17:00, and TNG's 'Encounter at Farpoint, Part One' at 21:00.Thanks go out to the Great Link for this!

-Here in The Netherlands, Net 5 will be showing TNG's 'at 18:05 CET.  Thanks go out to StarTrek.nl for this!

Happy Birthday!

Today is the 46th birthday of Jeffrey Combs, who appeared on 'Star Trek: Deep Space Nine' as Weyoun the Vorta (all of them) and Brunt the Ferengi.

Discuss this news item at Trek BBS!
 Add TrekToday RSS feed to your news reader or My Yahoo!
Also a CSI: Crime Scene Investigation fan? Then visit CSIFiles.com!