[airali_glo]

Probably we won't have sneek peeks of the premiere or, if we have it, it's the day before the episode...

[AlwaysCB]

Great promo! I need more.

[*OldHollywoodStarlet*]

Originally Posted by airali_glo (View Post) Probably we won't have sneek peeks of the premiere or, if we have it, it's the day before the episode...

Agree with this.

[airali_glo]

I was wrong, we had already one but I can't post it here, it's spoiler.

[AlwaysCB]

Nikita - Season 4 - New Promo | Spoilers

[PhoenixRising]

OMG, I can hardly wait!

[airali_glo]

It seems

[PhoenixRising]

Only two weeks away!

[FrellingTralk]

Not too long at all

[AlwaysCB]

We're so close

[PhoenixRising]

The wait is killing me!

[airali_glo]

Nikita's Final Season Isn't About Fan Service, It's About Netflix This Friday marks the beginning of the final season for CW cult-hit, Nikita. While an action packed series with a great lead and excellent storytelling skills, following a very underperforming second season (the show was one of the lowest rated dramas on the network), many were surprised when the show was picked up for a third. Picking up Nikita almost guaranteed a fourth season so enough episodes could be produced for syndication, and that’s where things become complicated. Nikita got that fourth (and final) season, but just for six episodes. In the end, the amount of produced scripts will only come to 73, far from the magical 88 that makes syndication deals possible (the number was dropped from 100 a few years ago). So a new question now arises: why did The CW pick-up the series for a seemingly pointless six episode run? Was it just a matter of giving the fans what they want? No. The answer can actually be found in a place we’re all familiar with: Netflix. Not too long ago Netflix paid a very pretty penny for the rights to CW’s programming. The deal allows the digital network to broadcast shows for up to four years following the end of their initial run (a show cancelled in 2013 doesn’t have to renew contracts until 2017). For a network like The CW a billion dollars is as cool as Justin Timberlake makes it seem, but it’s money that comes with a (unwritten) stipulation: the acquisitions must end with true conclusions. Netflix’s (television) business model is founded on the concept of binge watching. People learn of a cool show they’ve never seen, queue it up and proceed to marathon it over a weekend; a vacation; a sick-day; etc… And thanks to sites like Wikipedia and IMDB, it’s very easy to find out the fate of a particular series. Ones that were prematurely cancelled into their runs are less likely to be watched by a Netflix subscriber, and are thus less valuable to the network. It makes sense. You wouldn’t read a book that doesn’t have a final chapter. You wouldn’t watch a movie that doesn’t have a third act. Why would you watch a series that doesn’t have a final episode? It’s because unlike other mediums, there was a time when the ending of a television series didn’t matter. The old model was simple: start a show, make 100 episodes, sell-off the syndication rights, continue producing episodes until it’s no longer cost-effective and cancel the series. That was it. In that model, endings mean nothing; they’re just convenient wrap-ups to a story the money men didn’t care about. But times have changed and cancelled shows are now met with fan-campaigns and threats of viewership boycotts. Thanks to the new age you can’t simply cancel a show and go unnoticed. Any program that’s cancelled is put through the court of public opinion to understand why, and if the network’s reasoning isn’t good enough, it can ruin credibility, goodwill and ultimately, audience loyalty. Netflix has made series finales matter because without an ending a series is less likely to be picked up by their service, and in the age of digital distribution not getting your series on Netflix is like not getting your product into Wal-Mart. Netflix has already shown they’ll go out of their way to produce a series conclusion if it means more subscribers for them, but networks can’t always hope for hail maries like that. They must go out of their way not to produce a certain number of episodes, but to conclude their shows properly to make them more viable entities in the digital future. Some other networks have already employed this tactic. Like Nikita, the SyFy cult-hit Warehouse 13 recently received a final season order of six episodes to make the show more marketable to digital distributors. And in a more unconventional case, ABC gave the Shawn Ryan submarine drama Last Resort enough time to re-work its final episode into a series finale. Did they do it out of the kindness of their heart? Maybe. But if they did, it sure is convenient to now have a completed, 13-episode mini-series to sell-off rather than half of an incomplete first season. In the old days Nikita wouldn’t have survived past season two, and that would have been awful. But thanks to Netflix (and other services like it) the hand of the networks has been forced. Final episodes are no longer just about fan-service, they’re about business. You no longer can sell into syndication a show that doesn’t end, it’s as simple as that. The audience has spoken and they’re tired of simply watching shows based on faith. They now demand guarantees they’re favorite shows are going to end the way they deserve, otherwise, there’s no reason for them to stay, and that’s bad for everyone.

source

[AlwaysCB]

Amazing article. You gotta love Netflix

[FrellingTralk]

I'm really glad that people are now recognising how important it is to give viewers a decent conclusion, I hate when shows end on a cliffhanger and abrupt cancellation

[airali_glo]

You gotta love Netflix

I agree, but I can't watch it

I'm really glad that people are now recognising how important it is to give viewers a decent conclusion

But they do it only because of business. They needed a conclusion for Nikita because otherwise no one would have watched it on Netflix. That's it if a show is not planned to be on Netflix, no one cares if they don't have a conclusion, they cancel it.