Hope the C3 readers got something valuable out of the interview with Parry Aftab. It's Wednesday morning now, and I wanted to update everyone on a few extensions of issues we've been following here at the C3 blog over the past year.
1.) Flash Gordon. I first wrote about Flash Gordon in a post from January on fan communities based on historical comic strips, such as Dick Tracy and Flash Gordon, as well as the historical Yellow Kid of much older fame. Some fans wrote in response to me, questioning whether Tracy and Gordon could really be considered historical properties, and the scope of this changed when I learned through Warren Ellis' blog that Sci Fi was planning on making a television movie featuring Gordon.
nstead, later in January, I found out that Sci Fi would be launching a Flash Gordon television series. I wrote, "I am happy in this case to have that statement become so immediately irrelevant, that the fan support for Flash Gordon has led to a reincarnation of his popular image in the new Sci Fi series planned." The show has now launched (official Web site here), and it looks like it got among the higher ratings of Sci Fi shows for the debut, according to the Nielsen ratings released for last Friday's pilot (look here for discussion). For another of Sci Fi's more controversial shows, see my previous posts on ECW on Sci Fi from last summer here and here. However, some Sci Fi fans were not pleased with the pilot. See this thread from the official Sci Fi boards for more on fan reaction to the Flash Gordon series.
2.) As the World Turns InTurn. The reality television show which pits several neophyte actors competing for the chance of a continuing stint as a minor supporting character on ATWT must have been decently successful, as the show is now in the process of wrapping up the second season of the Webisode series, InTurn, distributed through the CBS Web site. I wrote about InTurn last August, pointing out that some fans of the soap enjoyed the extension, while others felt that it distracted the company's attention from the main text, which should be the focus. Last year, the finalists appeared in small roles on the main text of the show, giving viewers a chance to choose among the finalists. They were doing a story in which a serial killer was murdering Oakdale teenagers, and each of the InTurns played one of the roles. The winner, Alex Charak, plays the recurring role of Elwood Hoffman, who was the college roommate of a prominent ATWT character for awhile. This season hasn't wrapped up yet, but one of the contestants who didn't make the cut has recently had an extended run in the small part of a barmaid on the show. See more here.
3.) Ten Day Take. You may remember that I have posted a couple of times on the blog in the past regarding the Comcast Ziddio/Endemol contest online called Ten Day Take, which allowed users to submit their own videos to compete for the right to produce their own pilot. The production process would become content itself, leaving Endemol and Comcast with three layers of story: the initial clips submitted and the contest itself, the reality show of the winner making their pilot, and the pilot and any subsequent content related to it. I first wrote about the contest last December. By April, a contestant from the show anonymously posted comments on the entry, questioning whether the contest would ever declare a winner, because no information was ever made available on the site. More from this post in April. Well, not only has the winner finally been announced, but the footage of the making of the pilot is now available. What's more, they are planning a second round of the contest, with information available here.
