An Open Letter to the Fans of Dark Skies

Bryce Zabel
Co-Creator/Executive Producer

April 4, 1997

Those of you who have watched Dark Skies know how we like to tell you
the real story behind the story.  A lot of times that includes aliens but,
unfortunately, this time, I can’t blame them for why you can’t find us on
Saturday nights any more. 

Or at least why you can’t until the end of May.  Our latest pre-emption will
total out to be nine weeks.  That’s probably a record. 

We have two episodes left.  “Strangers in the Night” will air May 24th.  Our
season finale, “Bloodlines”, will air on May 31st.  There is more story
packed into “Bloodlines” than a normal five episodes.  Mark your calendars.

That final episode takes you to San Francisco in the “Summer of Love”
where you’ll meet Timothy Leary, Carl Sagan, Ronald Reagan and Charlie
Manson, among others.  You’ll find out what happens to Kim, whether John
finds his son or not, and you’ll hear about a tenth planet, Project Intruder,
and bloodlines.  If we’re going out, we’re going out with style.

So, the good news is we get to finish telling the first season’s story. 

For all intents and purposes, however, NBC has written us off.  We were the
lowest rated series of all the Big Three networks.  They are actively seeking
our replacement.

There are lots of reasons for this.  In the world of networks, numbers are the
only bottom line.  I thought you might like to know a little more.

First, though, understand this is not about bashing NBC.  The truth is they
gave us the biggest promotional send-off in their network’s history.  Also,
the creative executives we dealt with, David Nevins and John Landgraf,
gave us the support to do the show we set out to do – with very little
interference. 

Having said that, what happened?  Why are we here at this place where
cancellation is imminent?

It started with our time slot.  Saturday nights are historically the worst
viewing nights.  People go out, they party, they see movies, they have
dinner.  They don’t maintain regular viewing habits. 

The 8 o’clock slot on Saturday nights is the worst time slot on the worst
night.  Granted, our competition, Doctor Quinn, did well there but they are
definite family viewing and we were on the family viewing hit list.  There
audience is watching TV and ours tended to be out having a life.  Besides,
Quinn has been on for a number of years and had time to find an audience.

If people are going to even have a chance to watch, you have to be on-the-
air.  We routinely ran across people in our internet chat groups who saw the
show mentioned in their local TV listings but couldn’t find it on the tube
because local stations had pre-empted us for everything from college
basketball to Billy Graham.  Those people got pissed off and I don’t know if
they ever came back. 

A lot of the rest of you have been upset by all the other network scheduled
pre-emptions.  After only two airings, for example, we were taken off the
schedule for two weeks because of the baseball play-offs and the World
Series.  We faced four more sets of pre-emptions of two to three weeks each
time.  Networks have to pre-empt, of course, because they don’t make as
many episodes as there are weeks in the year, but often they run re-runs or
promos telling your audience when you’ll be back. 

We were never repeated at all this season, not once.  Even when we went
into a pre-empt, there was never a notice at the end of one of our last shows
when the next show would air.  On the other hand, The Pretender not only
repeated but was given the E/R slot at the beginning of the season to expose
it to other viewers.

Some people thought if we were on Saturdays we should have been on at 9
or 10 o’clock.  Our concepts were adult, and so were our story lines.  The
Pretender, in contrast, seemed much more acceptable to a younger, family
audience.  They got a try-out in our time slot although we never got an airing
outside of our 8 o’clock slot. 

Why?  Well, both The Pretender and Profiler  are either owned or partially
owned by NBC.  I have no evidence that this has made a difference, but
there are people in the business who tell me it probably did. 

Another obstacle was the fact that Fox programs at 8 o’clock and they don’t
at 10 o’clock.  We had to face Fox’s Cops which, with its heavy male
appeal, struck straight at our core audience every airing.  Plus, depending on
your local station, we often found ourselves up against Hercules and Star
Trek , splitting the sci-fi crowd even further.

Speaking of… Something that hurt us badly at the first of the year was the
perception in the sci-fi community that we were an X-Files rip-off.  This was
the easy hook for critics to use in writing their reviews.  It soon became a
loyalty test.  You couldn’t like Dark Skies if you liked X-Files. 

Which was too bad because the shows are very dissimilar, each fun to watch
in its own way.  While they were sly about their reveals, we were in-your-
face.  While they dealt with all paranormal activity, we focused on aliens. 
While they were present, we were past.  And while their characters never
slept together, ours did. 

Both Brent Friedman and I were a little surprised at how selective this filter
was.  At the first of the season, X-Files did an entire episode which flashed
back to the JFK assassination and took place in Dallas, Texas.  This was, of
course, the Rosetta stone of Dark Skies but we never heard from a fan or a
reviewer who pointed out the similarity.

Anyway, the point is, eventually people who watched Dark Skies decided,
for better or worse, we were not the same show at all, but the perception
hurt, and we probably never got over it.

It becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy in the network business.  The worse
you do, the more likely you are to be deprived of the very things that are
necessary to breathe new life into your show.  Your ratings are bad so they
get worse.  They get worse and you get cancelled.

So, are we cancelled?  Not officially.  However, the network announces next
year’s schedule in May and, again as scheduled, we don’t even air our final
two episodes until May 24th and May 31st. 

Now, if you talk to the NBC brass, they’ll tell you they gave us a shot and
we didn’t cut it.  Fair enough.  Get this, however.  In England, where we are
on every Wednesday night at 9 o’clock, we’re getting a 21 share.  We’re tied
with the E/R numbers in Britain.  Dark Skies is currently a world-wide
series, airing in Germany, South Africa, Australia, all over South America,
etc.

Of course, it ain’t over until it’s over, and so far that’s not been officially
stated.  So …

Those of you who are fans, let’s tell NBC what the show has meant to you. 
But don’t E-mail them.  I know you’re all techno-sophisticated but an E-mail
will be completely ignored.  You can’t dump a stack of E-mail on someone’s
desk.  If you want to get through to the Powers-That-Be, you have to use
snail mail.  You have to write a letter.  Here’s what you need to know:

Warren Littlefield
President, NBC
3000 West Alameda Avenue,
Burbank, California 91523
(818) 840-4444

Tell Warren how much Dark Skies has meant to you.  Tell him how hard it’s
been for you to establish a regular appointment with the show like other fans
do with shows like Friends and E/R.  If you tape the show, tell him that you
and your kind have never been measured by Nielsen.  Break off one of those
little black recording tabs, tape it to your letter.  But most of all, write. 
Write now.

If you really want to help bring this series back, we have another idea.  After
you’ve sent your letter to NBC, keep writing.  Write to each of the heads of
the other five networks.  Tell them that you watch Dark Skies and that if
NBC is foolish enough to cancel us and they’re smart enough to pick us up,
you will follow the show to their network.

These are the names and addresses you’ll need for that campaign:

Les Moonves
President, CBS-TV
7800 Beverly Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90036
(213) 852-2345

Jamie Tarses
President, ABC-TV
2040 Avenue of the Stars
Los Angeles, CA 90067
(310) 557-7777

Peter Roth
President, FBC-TV
10201 W. Pico Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90035
(310) 369-1000

Lucie Salhaney
President, UPN
11800 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90025
(310) 575-7000

Jamie Kellner
President, WB
4000 Warner Blvd.
Burbank, CA 91522
(818) 977-5000

Think of April 20th as your first deadline for getting letters out that have
maximum impact.  Think of May 10th as your absolute drop-dead time to get
letters out that can still make a difference.

This is because Hollywood is in the middle of pilot season.  All the pilots are
being shot and edited now.  The networks get them, make their decisions and
announce their schedules in mid to late May. 

Bottom line:  there is time, but it is running out.