"Time After Time" - The TV Series

To quote the article: launching with a 0.6 Live+same day rating in adults 18-49 for its two-hour premiere from 9-11 PM, likely the lowest ever premiere rating for an in-season broadcast drama series. It drew 2.5 million viewers.

 

And is it gone?

All I said is it is on tonight at 9 in response to someone unable to successfully look at ABC listings for one week and find it. Sorry I tried to help.

 

It's still on as far as I know. Sorry you misinterpreted what I was saying. I merely wanted to provide a quote of the meat from the article about the ratings for those who don't follow links. When a show is a "lowest ever", it can't bode well for the series' longevity. With ratings like that I can guarantee it won't be around for the May sweeps unless ABC is throwing in the towel.

 

If you look over the ratings for Sunday night network shows you'll find they're all pretty low. Even a "success" like Madame Secretary only drew a .8, Elementary .5. The fact that Time After Time actually held at .6 live (.7 when the +5 was factored in), a good sign for a network Sunday show these days. Cable shows have stolen away the audience on Sunday nights, not surprising as they are of a much higher caliber.

You'll find in coming weeks that the new characters featured in episode 3 play a huge part in the plot evolution which takes on a new twist on Wells' Island of Dr. Moreau.

 

OK, I'm not arguing. I AM watching the show, as I love time travel stories. I just don't hold out much hope for continuance with the ratings I've seen so far. I recognize that MADAM SECRETARY is doing just as badly for CBS, but that network seems to like to have a "prestige drama" in that slot. They allowed THE GOOD WIFE to live in that slot for years. We'll just have to see whether the ABC network is willing to bide its time, but if few watched at the start, I don't see many hopping on board later on.

 

Over the air viewers really can't jump in on later episodes, it's an ongoing narrative. But those with Hulu or on demand availability from their cable company can start whenever they like. Now will they?, that's the question. The TV market is too fractured and cluttered nowadays, when TV shows come up in conversation as they often do, it's always facinating how many people have never even heard of shows I watch and consider outstanding, and vice versa.

 

The loss today is of those water-cooler disussions that we used to have on the day after an airing.

Today, all discussion is stifled with the spoiler alert mentality.

 

That's true, however, I much prefer to binge watch a heavily serialized show than have to wait a week for the next installment. Navigating spoilers doesn't bother me because I simply don't read articles/threads about stuff I haven't yet seen.

 

Personal preferences- which are great. The closest we get to binge-watching is to watch one - rarely two - episodes per day of a series. I feel it takes away from a specific episode to immediately drown it in whatever the next episode offers. By limiting it to one a day, I have time to reflect on the episode just watched. This is the way we've handled most of the series that we stream, and even those we watch on Blu-ray or DVD. One a day is enough and I feel enhances the experience that it is a series and not a horrendously long movie.

 

This is actually a plot element from the Jack Finney novel, "Time and Again", not "Time After Time".
Time and Again (novel) - Wikipedia

 

I've been watching the show... grew up watching the film dozens of times on HBO when I was a kid.
To me the most distracting part of the show is how Jack The Ripper is a dead ringer for Mac from 'It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia'... and that gets me to think that unless the series finale has the time machine landing in Paddy's Pub where the gang uses it for multiple ungodly purposes, then there's just no point to this whole thing.

 

Canceled.

 

We just finished watching the last episode - and now it really is the LAST episode! Ah well.

As I watched it I thought, Holy Crap, this is just like TIMELESS. Guy and girl team chasing the bad guy to a different a famous time period. I won't miss it.

 

CANCELLED. Now, if H.G. Welles could only go back in time six months and tell the producers to cast better people and make better scripts, they might have made a better show that would stay on the air.

I think the problem with the show was one of tone: parts of it were kind of whimsical and romantic, but other parts (like Jack the Ripper) were gritty and scary and violent. I don't think those two things work well together. The 1979 feature film was much darker and stayed away from whimsy, but the romantic scenes were very much romantic and the violent scenes were very violent. The only things in the show I liked were the bare elements from the original book and movie. I think bad creative choices were made -- and while I think the lead actor is talented, I don't think he's right in this role. Looking at Malcolm McDowell, he was absolutely perfect and was believable, naive, smart, and also very sympathetic; this actor is a little too cocky and comfortable in 2017.

'Time After Time' Canceled at ABC

What nobody has said is whether there were any more than the five episodes that aired, or if there's another 3 or 7 shows sitting on the shelf. I've worked on a few bad series where they shot 12 and only aired a half-dozen (or less); two famous ones were the 1985 Life with Lucy and then the infamous 1998 UPN comedy The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer. Both series had a half-dozen additional completed episodes that never aired and will probably never be see by any living humans (except the long-suffering post crew).

 

I knew it would not last.. oh well ..

 

There were 12 episodes filmed, principal photography wrapped in early January, and post-production is close to finishing up. I was the show's Graphic Designer and wrapped up my final contribution on Monday.

I'm very sad that they've opted to yank the show without letting it finish, I can only hope that they'll allow it to be seen in full on Hulu where it's currently available or on Netflix eventually, there's really no reason not to given how audiences watch shows these days.

Despite having been part of the crew I don't have blinders in regards to the series' problems. However I think much of the tone issues you posted about are as a result of it's being a network show subject to network standards and practices. I know for a fact from seeing earlier cuts that there was more violence that was deleted.

The cable shows are wiping the floor with the free network offerings, it's clear viewers want the more cinema-like quality of storytelling the cable and new media dramas offer, but the network standards just don't allow for their free on air shows to go that route. As a result we get a lot of stale predictable product, which is a shame. Pladtic TV shows, plastic feature films, corporate entertainment at it's best.

Since they have made the decision to yank the remaining shows I can tell you that the predominant storyline of the series was their riff on Wells' novel "The Island of Dr. Moreau", as in the father of characters Brooke and Griffin Monroe. I thought the series developed nicely, fingers crossed it will be available online one day.

Oh yeah, one other thing:

Sunday, 9pm Network Show = Death

Even the "successful" shows have lousy ratings. Premium cable owns that turf.

 

Is it anything like James Franco's JFK for period authenticity?

 

Not sure of the source, but the unaired Life with Lucy episodes have circulated among collectors for decades. My guess would be overseas airings. Just because a show get pulled off the air in the U.S. doesn't mean it isn't sold elsewhere in the world and that they don't air all of the produced episodes. Hell, even Snip ran in Australia and that never even got one show on the air here.

 

I'm not terribly disappointed it is gone. But, I would watch the remaining episodes if it were shown. I remember that the summer after ABC canceled "666 Park Avenue" they showed the remaining episodes so there is a chance that could happen again.

 

Not disappointed at all since I only lasted thru the first 3 episodes. I won't bother to watch the remaining episodes either.

 

I think the actor playing the Ripper was more convincing but I thought the strongest aspect of the show was H.G. and Jane. And what held out the most intrigue was what happens to them when it is time for H.G. to go back? Unfortunately, at the rate they were going that would have been seasons from now. I could have done without almost all the extra characters and storylines and enjoyed it more if that were the focus.

I like Genesis Rodriguez so I wish her luck finding a better role.

 

Not sure how we're veering from Time After Time, but...

An old friend of mine in the Life with Lucy cast had VHS copies, so I'm pretty sure they got out that way. I don't think they made it very far for PAL syndication. I think the cast members initially posted the VHS copies to YouTube, so that's why those are there. The final episode is hard to watch -- Lucy already knew by this point that the show was cancelled, and she had a very hard time going on. She didn't need the money; she was more concerned about being remembered by the viewing audience and also keeping her cast and crew employed.

 

You guys did a great job -- I loved the look of the show, and the sets, the graphics, photography, costumes, everything was terrific. If you and your guys did the museum signs, TV news graphics, newspaper headlines, and all that stuff, congrats... it was all great. The story and characters... eh...

I have to wonder what this show would've been like had they had the ability to make it an edgy TV-MA show for FX or Netflix or AMC or something like that. If you remember the 1979 film, it got very dark and very twisted, bloody, even sad and poignant. I thought the final moment of the movie was very sad, when H.G. Welles runs over to the time machine just as Jack the Ripper is about to hit the button, and as Welles touches the key they cut to a shot of Jack who nods a little bit (as if to say, "yeah, I know this is going to kill me"), and Welles yanks the key, which means Jack gets ripped apart through time without the machine to protect him, pulverized to atoms throughout eternity. Great bit. This kind of stuff is not in the show. I also think they're playing very fast and loose on the problem of altering time and creating havoc, but that's also a huge problem in Timeless (a show that's no better and no worse than Time After Time, but with a better timeslot and better ratings).

Nicole Parker has a terrific face, and I'd like to see more of her. The rest of them are kind of forgettable to me -- competent performers, but a little bland. I think they needed actors who had more presence and more of a "pop." Unfortunately, we don't have a knob for that in post.