When you’re spending a lot on a show, you simply can’t afford to take risks, do seemingly unimportant filler episodes, and the risk of cancellation is always high.
It’s a bit like LEXX, the cult SF show from the 90s. Cheaply made, poor SFX, frankly insane plot, often outright bad, small audience Still managed to go for a full four seasons, wasn’t ever cancelled but ended on its own terms and got to do some weird and wonderful stuff while it was on air. Meanwhile something like The Expanse, which was invariably high quality and had a large audience, was still cancelled before Amazon stepped in.
It’s the same thing with B-movies. A lot of cheap crappy movies can be really interesting, exactly because they’re cheap/crappy movies and no one cares. Gives the writers a lot of freedom.
This is what I dislike about big budget scifi.
When you’re spending a lot on a show, you simply can’t afford to take risks, do seemingly unimportant filler episodes, and the risk of cancellation is always high.
It’s a bit like LEXX, the cult SF show from the 90s. Cheaply made, poor SFX, frankly insane plot, often outright bad, small audience Still managed to go for a full four seasons, wasn’t ever cancelled but ended on its own terms and got to do some weird and wonderful stuff while it was on air. Meanwhile something like The Expanse, which was invariably high quality and had a large audience, was still cancelled before Amazon stepped in.
It’s the same thing with B-movies. A lot of cheap crappy movies can be really interesting, exactly because they’re cheap/crappy movies and no one cares. Gives the writers a lot of freedom.