[AlexG]

Well, best you enjoy her while you can in reruns since it seems that this fifth season was the last run for the series.

http://www.andromedatv.com/about/behind_billhamm01.html

What’s next for Andromeda?

Part One of our interview with Tribune executive Bill Hamm

Since the beginning of Season 5, and now with dozens of props from the set of Andromeda for sale at auction, many fans have concluded that our heroes’ adventures are winding down. Others are hoping for an official announcement to the contrary. AndromedaTV.com Producer Jeremy Horowitz sat down with Tribune Entertainment VP of Scripted Programming Bill Hamm to set the record straight on this issue, as well as to find out what fans can do to help the shows they love.

Jeremy Horowitz: What’s the official word? Is Andromeda coming back for a sixth season?

Bill Hamm: No. Andromeda will conclude its fifth and final season this May. Basically, five seasons is the magic number you need for business purposes to go into syndication and have your repeats stripped. We now have that number and everybody felt at this point — both the creative people on the show as well as the local affiliate stations — that we had told as many stories as we possibly could, and that it was time to go out on a high as opposed to getting another season and whimpering out.

Jeremy: When you say “to have your repeats stripped,” you mean to be shown five days a week in reruns, right?

Bill: Yes. If you only have 3 seasons or fewer, there aren’t enough episodes to run five days a week or four times a night, so you really get hit economically. But a fourth season or even a fifth season is really what you want.

Jeremy: I don’t want to get too far afield, but when you say you “get hit economically,” you mean that the deals are structured differently, and so you don’t get as much money if you don’t have as many episodes?

Bill: Right. You’ll see stuff that’s only been on for half a season or a season, and they just get played off, if at all. Usually they just sit on the shelf, never to be seen again. It’s sort of like a magic 5-year club. The amazing thing is that Kevin Sorbo has now had two series that have lasted that long. So he’s really in an exclusive club.

Jeremy: What would you say to the idea that the show is ending because Kevin Sorbo is leaving? Was that the order of events, or was it otherwise?

Bill: No, that’s actually false. Kevin enjoys doing the show, and he was open to discussing a potential sixth season. But when we all sat down – writers, producers, Kevin, the rest of the cast – we really felt that we had finished what we had set out to do, and that it was time to look toward new horizons. So we’re really proud of Kevin’s contributions and can only wish him great things on his ABC pilot.

Jeremy: Could the fans have done anything to save the show? Whether it was massive letter-writing campaigns, or fundraising, or anything else, was there anything that the fans could have done to keep it on the air for a sixth season, or even beyond?

Bill: Not really. Again, to put the economics aside, many dramas (with some exceptions such as Law & Order ) tend to have a five- or six-year cycle. So it really was just everybody saying that we feel that it’s time to put a conclusion on it and move on.

Jeremy: So even if Warren Buffett, for example, had stepped in and said, “Here’s $20 million to continue Andromeda ,” what would have happened then?

Bill: Well, I’m one who never says never, so with that kind of offer there would definitely be potential, but it didn’t look like that was going to happen. I can only say that I have the greatest appreciation for the Andromeda fans. They’re the best out there, and we appreciate the support and letters they’ve sent over the years. At this point, though, it’s time for Andromeda to ride into the sunset.

Jeremy: One last question about fan involvement in that scenario. Pie in the sky, let’s say, for example, the fans were able to raise $10 million and come to Tribune Entertainment or someone else involved in the production and say “We love this production so much, we want to buy in.” Would that have meant something?

Bill: It’s an intriguing idea; I never really gave it too much thought. I think it’s going to get complicated by who owns the rights to these shows, and having fans come in on that basis makes it a bit of a messy playing field. But I think what you’re playing into is basically what I think is going to be a cool potential for the future, which is that you may see the next Andromeda come around, and it may be on some sort of pay basis where the fans pay for the show themselves. You get a million fans all paying a dollar each, and that may be enough to make a new episode every week. Whether it comes through your cable or satellite, or through a Netflix type of situation where it comes in the mail — whatever it may be — I think there’s a lot of potential there because it gives you a chance to do more specialized shows that don’t need a mass audience, but if you have a million paying people, it may be enough. I hope the fans are open to this; I’m not sure that we’re ready for it right now, but the potential is there.

Actually, the best thing I can tell anyone who’s interested in watching the old Andromeda is to use what we have now that we didn’t have years ago – and this is not a plug – but you can buy the series on DVD, or you could even find a place where you can rent it, and that makes you your own ultimate scheduler, where you can watch the show any time of the day or night, and in any place, and I think that’s the wonderful thing today. And I’m not just pitching it for Andromeda , you know, whether it’s 24 , or anything else, you’re in control, which is a nice change.

Jeremy: Absolutely. One last thing on the fan issue: You read about projects in Hollywood that have a hard time finding partners and, frankly, financing. Beyond the Sea , the Bobby Darin movie, is a good example. Kevin Spacey really wanted to do the project, and, according to what I’ve read, he made some compromises because he had a foreign partner involved who put up a ton of money to do it, and Kevin Spacey really wanted to get the project done. The foreign partner believed in it too, but that meant the movie had to be shot in Germany, among other things. What’s the difference between a single person with a lot of money having an interest in a production, and a lot of people with a little bit of money, but ultimately putting up a large sum of money as I described before, with an interest in production. If the fans were able to organize and call themselves “The Supreme Council of Andromeda” or something like that, and they had a real, bona-fide organization that put together a big chunk of money and said, “If you’re in, we’re in; we really are interested in this,” would it be taken seriously?

Bill: I think it would. You really have to separate between movies and TV, though. Unfortunately with television series, it’s not the same situation as just a single feature film. You’re trying to set up a situation where you’re doing 22 episodes per season, so that gets to be a pretty hefty price tag. Certainly on Andromeda alone, the production budget was over $25 million for the season…

Jeremy: For the fifth season.

Bill: Yeah. I think your idea works maybe more in a one-shot. Now say there were enough Andromeda fans that wanted to see the next chapter, it might work better as some kind of reunion movie or special a year from now – if fans wanted more closure than we’re giving them, something along those lines could happen. But I think it works better in a movie area. Now I can imagine, if there had been enough original Star Trek fans, and Paramount had never done the theatrical Star Trek movies, it’s possible that they all could have banded together and said “we want to make a theatrical version of it, and here’s some investment seed money.” [Notices Jeremy’s reaction.] Do you know of something like that?

Jeremy: I don’t want to give you false information, and I’m sure there are lots of people out there who know much more about this than I do, but there is a group of people out there – their website is http://www.newvoyages.com — who have the blessing of Eugene Roddenberry, Gene’s son. They put together a mini-series which they consider to be the Fourth Season of the Original Series of Star Trek. They built sets, they hired actors, they designed costumes, and I have to say that, whatever its faults may be, the production values are very high, and it’s very convincing. And it was obviously a concerted effort by these people who love the show so much that they decided to do it themselves.

Anyway, as far as the fundraising issue goes, I think the fans definitely perceive the difference between television and film. The reason I bring up a project like Beyond the Sea, and what that entailed in terms of a big foreign partner, is because you hear very often with television shows that there isn’t enough money in the budget for certain things. The reality is that there are many political issues that affect whether a show is or isn’t successful, but when you keep hearing “we don’t have enough money for this, we don’t have enough money for that,” (which hasn’t always been the case with Andromeda ) the fans get the feeling that if they had a large chunk of money to contribute, a lot of that would be alleviated. So do you still think that there is a major difference between feature films and television series on the level of budget strategy and planning?

Keep an eye out for Bill’s response

in Part Two of our interview, coming soon!

“I like a good story well told. That is the reason I am sometimes forced to tell them myself.”
~ Mark Twain / Samuel Clemens (1907)

[AlexG]

WOW! Thanks AlexG !

Have all the WPW mags but keeping them for now.

Is WPW 1 actually worth anything by now?

ANYWHO….. Will definitely follow your advice!!

—====================

If Deana Panting has been in the closet this long,

she can wait till December to come out!!

HEY, is that a double entendre!!!! 😀 😀 😀

Panting certainly made many a fan short of breath . . . 8)

In ref to your question, I’m assuming it’s not retorical – hard to say, as I don’t believe there is any collectibles pricing guide for it, usually its a case of what someone is willing to pay for it. With more recent WPW magazines, say of the last ten/fifteen years, you might want to sell them as bundles by the year of publication, older then that then indevidually.

With single issues – Ironman, Flex, Muscular Development, etc – if its in near mint condition, a loose rule of thumb I go by would be what’s the current price of BBing magazings as a guide for a starting bid and/or observe the eBay listings of others for a while, just to get a feel for what the market is willing to bear. If its got an exceptional amount of female muscle material contained within it – say a swimsuit issue or older magazine when it was (yes, people there was actually a time when this was true) common to see workout and interview / photo op articles or even two / three-fold centerspreads, then figure in a fetish factor, but in total keep the starting bid at around $9.99 (one penny more at $10.00 and you end up paying .55 for the listing rather then .35, which can add up really fast as outflow expense with multiple listings – tricky these electron pushers.)

If you’re really uncertain and think you have a truely hot item then place a reserve price on it.

“I like a good story well told. That is the reason I am sometimes forced to tell them myself.”
~ Mark Twain / Samuel Clemens (1907)

[AlexG]

Yes, Paypal does charge a fee, unless they’ve changed their policy/setup with eBay since this past January – many concider it a double dipping into the seller’s profit, so they don’t use it. Personally, if you’re just starting out I’d stick to Money Orders and Bank Cashiers checks as a means of accepted payment. If you want to include Personal Checks state in the listing there is a two-weeks/10 working days clearance time on them.

I’ve sold several WPW/RM tapes and Bodybuilding magazines on eBay in the past, and based upon that experiance your best time to sell them for the greatest return would be after this summer period, in the fall and closer towards Christmas when people are more inclined to loosen up on their wallets for bidding. (BTW – this is also true of most collectiables, including comic books). I might also add that if you’re planning to include any MEM or adult oriented FBBr tapes or magazines they’ll have to be listed in the Adult Check section, otherwise eBay will auto-pull and erase the listing from the public section of the site. You might want to make a bold text note (I’ve used a moving gif banner with mine) on your public listings for people to also check those listed in the Adult Check section.

Another thing occured to me, shipping – especially with VCR tapes. If you use USPS for your listed shipping method (which is what I do), at the post office you can pick up ready to use priority mail mailer boxes and Flat Rate envelopes. In both cases, its only $3.85 to ship an item (for the boxes it must weigh one pound or under) and you can include an optional offer for insurance to the customer as a part of the mailing cost. For myself I also add in Delivery Confirmation as a manitory part of the shipping to make certain the package got to where it was suppose to go and didn’t end up in Outer Mongolia.

Hope this is of assistance. 8)

“I like a good story well told. That is the reason I am sometimes forced to tell them myself.”
~ Mark Twain / Samuel Clemens (1907)

[AlexG]

Hello Alex. I’m a fan of your stories, but I haven’t been able to find any of them recently.

I’d be surprised if you did (wryly smiling 8) ) as I’ve not posted a story in nearly five years time since ZZZ’s Everything Grows (and by extension) GTS Grows forums declined into near zero activity.

Do you have a website where your stories are available?

Afraid not, although I once had one (actually two, first on geocities, then moved it to tripods/angelfire before it got nuked again) but they’re both long gone from the on-line environment.

“I like a good story well told. That is the reason I am sometimes forced to tell them myself.”
~ Mark Twain / Samuel Clemens (1907)

[AlexG]

Glad to see you turned off your cloaking device, welcome back into the fold . . . wait a second, when was it not alright for one of the premier FMG artists of our generation (or any other for that matter) not to post his wondrous works of wondrous women? 8)

“I like a good story well told. That is the reason I am sometimes forced to tell them myself.”
~ Mark Twain / Samuel Clemens (1907)

[AlexG]

Just a suggestion, but next time you might want to try out the translation tools page on Google – (cut and paste the text or use the web page direct converter) . It’s certainly not perfect, but you’ll get the gist of the article. 8)

“I like a good story well told. That is the reason I am sometimes forced to tell them myself.”
~ Mark Twain / Samuel Clemens (1907)

[AlexG]

Mmmm, the ever awesome looking Malissa Robles, you have excellent tastes my good sir – but then I’m bias as she’s one of my prefered Uber-Amazons of the current era.

Mari Kudla – **pant pant** <<< What’s there not to like! 😯

Debbie Auer – whoa, man has she grown . . . and seems very pleased about it, too!

“I like a good story well told. That is the reason I am sometimes forced to tell them myself.”
~ Mark Twain / Samuel Clemens (1907)

[AlexG]

If there were/are I think you’d have to stand in a very long line to get a ticket . . . 8)

“I like a good story well told. That is the reason I am sometimes forced to tell them myself.”
~ Mark Twain / Samuel Clemens (1907)

[AlexG]

Ah, the power of protein . . . 😯

It’s nice when you see advertising moving towards displays of fem-strength, but you’d think that they’d be able to afford a slightly buffed-toned up model to give it a touch of visible creditability.

It’s also very eye-catching when you see a number of perspective pics appear in a female physique photo shoot – it does makes you wonder if the phototag has secret GTS/SW interests in addition to his Amazonian ones.

Case in point, this one of Giana Holder from Andy’s AMG-Lite site – no need to GTS collage this one, its already done for you. 8)

“I like a good story well told. That is the reason I am sometimes forced to tell them myself.”
~ Mark Twain / Samuel Clemens (1907)

[AlexG]

Robert Adams certainly was quite a prolific writer before he passed away around 1988, the year his last of his Horseclans novels was published – Number 18. (Plus two anthologies w/ "Friends of the Horseclans" where he let other writers try their hand at the fictional world he had created). He was one of the few mainstream authors that had a regular element of muscular Amazons in his stories, especially those involving the Bili the Axe character – who incidently was married to one of them.

In many ways, he was the Edgar Rice Burroughs of his day, even to focusing on the female characters as primary elements to the story, rather then as backdrop support to the male ones. The "Castaways in Time" series, as Alt-History, were interesting, fast moving reads, too.

“I like a good story well told. That is the reason I am sometimes forced to tell them myself.”
~ Mark Twain / Samuel Clemens (1907)

[Author]

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