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]

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.)