WTF?

[ratcreature]

Now tv has inter-series crossovers too, that force you to watch the other show you don't know anything about? (I just found out that after I watched this week's CSI that it is a two parter and that the other half is an episode of some series called "Without a Trace" that I don't think I've ever seen. *grump*)

And here I thought only comics did this kind of thing.

Comments

[teneagles.livejournal.com]

It's actually fairly common on American TV, especially on shows that share producers or that air one-after-the other (CSI and Without a Trace do both.) The crossover was fairly heavily hyped in commercials.

[ratcreature]

Really? I know the different CSI series crossed with each other a couple of times, and that Buffy crossed with Angel, and SG-1 with SGA, but otherwise I don't remember watching any two part crossovers. I mean, it's not like CSI and WAT are spin-offs from each other, like the different SG flavors or Buffy and Angel.

[teneagles.livejournal.com]

I mean, it's not like CSI and WAT are spin-offs from each other, like the different SG flavors or Buffy and Angel.

Well, the real reason for crossovers is to increase viewers to one of the shows -- In this case, they wanted viewers to not switch to another network when CSI ended. Ratings are more than enough incentive for the producers and network execs to have a crossover.

[ratcreature]

Yeah, I know. That's the same reason comic companies do crossovers all the time too. And why I dislike them there too, though much more so because of the excess of them. They are an underhanded sales tactic.

Though I guess my knee-jerk hate of them is mostly because DC has been in crossover hell for three years. I used to like them okay, but the extent to which everything has been a frelling event crossover for ages, prevents me from getting back into the main continuity despite being in the mood for comics again. It's just impenetrable and I want them to stop and not see another crossover for at least as long as the relentless crossover phase has been lasting.

I know it's not all that rational but I guess in my mind it's all a slippery slope and soon I'll be forced to watch hundreds of episodes of NCIS, L&O and other series I don't care about at all, maybe even comedies and soap operas, just to find out the whodunnit of the CSI ep...

[teneagles.livejournal.com]

I couldn't agree with you more about DC. I've been gaffiated for months; the crossovers and "events" are so incomprehensible and pointless that it's turned me off comics altogether. *sigh* It's all just so, so, badly done. Dan Didio's got a lot to answer for.

[ratcreature]

I stopped reading for a while shortly before the mess, because I go through phases with my long-term fandoms, where I'm sometimes more, sometimes less interested in them, but tend to come back. And I even got my regular series still for later reading, but when I was in the mood for comics again it was completely daunting because I couldn't just strat reading again or anything but it was all Crisis this, infinite that. I'm not opposed to complex backstory per se, I'm more than willing to read a comic with two reference websites and wikipedia open, but there are limits to the hoops I still have fun coping with.

They whine and whine that not more people are interested in their comics, but then they make it almost impossible to follow them even for fairly dedicated fans. On the Marvel side I can at least simply buy Daredevil without hving to deal with the thousandth variation of their most recent epic mutant woe. (I can never quite keep track whether at any moment the mutants are tragically wiped out or everybody turned into one.)

[madripoor-rose.livejournal.com]

Oh, it's fairly common in American TV... Pretender did a crossover with Profiler, Crossing Jordan and Vegas, and Murder She Wrote and Magnum PI...usually the shows have to be on the same network. And in this case Without A Trace (about the FBI Missing Persons Department)airs right after CSI, so it makes a nice two-part 'tv movie' event.

[ratcreature]

How does this kind of thing work on their season DVD sets? Do they include one WAT on the CSI set and vice versa? Or do they put on half the story on the DVD?

[madripoor-rose.livejournal.com]

...that's a good question. I haven't seen a dvd with one of these crossovers, so I don't know how they handle it.

[an-kayoh.livejournal.com]

Hmm...ER did this with Third Watch. Drove me batty.

[ratcreature]

Yeah, it feels like a gimmick intended to trick you into watching another show. I can see the point if the shows are actually spin-offs from each other, that can be neat, but just because they share a timeslot? It's not like that's going to hold true in repeats or when people watch it on dvd.

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

on the same network it's fairly common...i think Buffy/Angel was the first cross-network one.

Ally McBeal crossed with The practice (and that might have been network crossing too with Fox and ABC) and L&O crossed all over the place (most notable with Homicide...one of the Homicide regulars joined SVU lster as his own character!)

There's some XF/Millenium crossover too, and then, of course, the bazillion spinoffs where you get one or two eps crossing every once in a while (CSI and Miami or JAG and NCIS, Grey's Anatomy's new spinoff...I'm sure we'll see one or the other character there...)

I think they try to do it so the shows can stand by themselves, and on both Buffy/Angel and SG1/SGA the other half of the eps is not on the DVDs...

[ratcreature]

Well, crossovers in one ep are one thing, I have nothing against the WAT guy visiting Las Vegas, it's the two part aspect that I find annoying. I don't recall that the XF/Millenium xover required me to watch an actual Millenium ep. Same with Homicide.

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

i'm pretty sure the Homicide actually had a proper two parter, b/c I'd never watched it before and saw it only because I wanted to know who the murderer had been.

But you're right, XF and a lot of the character crossovers don't require you see it...

[ratcreature]

I mean the XF/Homicide overlap with Munch's apeearance not requiring to watch other series, not the L&O one. Since I watched Homicide only sporadically and L&O never (I mean, the title alone is off-putting), I didn't catch their crossover episodes.