GateWorld: Eureka, a couple of weeks ago, was canceled in what I essentially believe was its prime. Ratings are definitely not a reason for it to be disappearing. There’s been talk about whether it’s a Comcast [majority shareholder of NBC/Universal and Syfy’s parent company] decision, ultimately. How did the cast react when the news broke? I know initially, they were looking at an abbreviated six-episode season to finish things off. What was the mood on the set?
Kavan Smith: Well, what I got from everybody was a mix of surprise and some disappointment from a few people. I think the vast majority of people on the show are quite professional and regardless of why or what happened, I think that five years on a television series is a pretty good run nowadays. It doesn’t happen very often. So I think, for the most part, people were okay.
I think what had a couple of people irked was just the way it happened. By saying, “Okay, well we’re not doing a 13 [episode run], we’re not picking you up for another full season, but we are going to do an abbreviated season of six.” I think, in all honesty, everybody reacted really positively to that. I think that idea of doing another full season — some people were ready to move on to other things — so the idea of just doing six more really appealed to everybody across the board.
So when the bottom dropped out the next day and the six episode order was pulled, there was a lot of speculation. They sent some network execs up and we were talking about things like the market and how that affected the dollar and Comcast and what their bottom line would be. I mean, it’s a business. It’s the reality of it, unfortunately. But it’s a business that involves fans and that’s the kicker. The two don’t always see eye-to-eye on things.
GW: I think a lot of fans also don’t get the part that we’ve still got how many episodes left. Christmas, and then another full 13 next year.
KS: Exactly! A whole season next year. I think you’re totally right in saying it’s in its prime because the episodes are really, in all honesty, getting better every single week. They really are.
GW: You’ve got Eureka and Warehouse 13 and then Alphas. All three of them are performing well. It’s probably the closest thing that Syfy has had to a sure thing since the SG-1, Atlantis, Battlestar combo they had on Friday nights back several years ago.
KS: Yep. I think that ultimately, this one comes down to budget and I think that Eureka probably had the biggest budget of them all.
GW: But it shows, it’s on the screen.
KS: It does, it is on the screen and you do see it and it’s great.
GW: Having been on the sets of both Atlantis and Eureka, I can attest that you can feel it physically on the set of Eureka, too. We’ve both extensively touched the Atlantis gate, so we both know what it’s made of. But the sets at Eureka just feel more “real,” overall. All across the board. From material used to size and scope.
KS: Yeah, it does! It is. The sets are fantastic, they are really, truly fantastic! And they spent a lot of money on it, but the budget is three million dollars for a show that has two and a half million viewers. Ultimately, at the end of the day, for three million dollars, across the board any network is going to want five million viewers. That’s really just the way it is for that kind of money. It’s a lot of money. There’s a lot of shows out there that spend less money and get more viewers.
It’s a shame because this is my favorite show. This is one of my favorite shows I’ve ever been on and I really love the character and they’ve really taken off with him. Andy, his storyline just gets better and better all the way through, right to the very end. I’m really excited about it. I was excited about another six because we had had some discussions with Jaime [Paglia] about some possibilities and unfortunately, they’re not going to happen because now the bottom has dropped out. It sucks. It sucks a**.
GW: Fan outpouring. Initially, with a six-episode season, the fans were like, “Oh, uh, okay, I guess. All good things…” but when it dropped out, the outpouring on Twitter, on Facebook, everywhere on the web, people were furious. It was a viral knee-jerk reaction I haven’t seen in quite some time.
KS: Do you think they were furious because they were given six and then pulled away, or just cancelled?
GW: I think it was just the way that it was handled, announcement-wise.
KS: Just the way it was done, yeah.
GW: “Yes, we’re going to give you six. Oops, no, we’re not giving you anything.” But in the end, Syfy went ahead and ordered an extra episode. Do you think it was because of that? To try to give it the closure that it deserves? And to give closure to the fans who have stuck with it through all the scheduling changes and breaks?
KS: I think that it probably had something to do with that. We were talking to the producers when this decision was being made, the day that they were going to think about whether or not they were going to give them the fourteenth episode. There was no time parameter for this — if they were going to give us a fourteenth episode, we had to know that day.
So we were talking to the producers that day and he talked about how on Atlantis and other shows … like that they had these various things that they did when the show was canceled. People sent in lemons on Atlantis. Hot sauce on Roswell. Just weird things to show their disapproval. We were talking about how it would be such a gesture to the fans and a smart business move from both Syfy and Comcast to just say, “Okay, we ****ed up.” Because it’s released — as soon as you say, “We’re going to pick up six,” nowadays, that s*** gets out there fast.
So they know there’s six more coming and then when that’s taken away, that’s going to piss a lot of people off. So to hold out a little olive branch like that and say, “Yeah, okay, tell you what. We realize we screwed up, we’ll tie this up properly. We’ll do one more last episode.”
I think that the numbers, to be honest, are going to keep going up because the show is getting better. This last season, the whole season, each episode is just incredible. There’s Season Five, from the premiere, the opener, all the way through — we’re almost finished now — each episode is just better and better and better. It’s really strange to see a cast that’s been together for that long, all of a sudden in the fourth and fifth year, really find their speed. Not just the cast, but the cast, the crew and the producers, directors and writers, all together, solidify at the same time. That show really has taken it to another level in the last two years.
And like you said, we’ve got so many in the bank and knowing that you’re done for, like we still have another year of watching it left and it’s done. We don’t know where it’s going to go, ratings-wise. It could turn into a three or four million-viewer show. Still, even though the budget is three million and you have two and a half million viewers, two and a half million viewers is nothing to laugh at. I mean, that’s a lot, so that’s a shame to just say, “Okay, well we’re done with the show.”
NEXT: Kavan muses on his latest TV-movies and his co-stars in them
Thanks for a great interview! I loved Kavan’s Lorne and Deputy Andy. Wish him well no matter what he does next.
It is a business, but it is also art. Art isn’t always profitable and it doesn’t have to be profitable to be worthwhile. Unfortunately too many of the business people aren’t artists and the art suffers as a result.
2 things I would’ve done differently in regards to SGA/SGU… #1: Keep SGA on the air for Season 6, as a lead-in for newcomer SGU. They would have the possibility of sharing characters, and possibly even storylines between the shows (much like SG1 did for SGA). #2: I would’ve cast Major Lorne, in a promoted role/rank as a Lt. Colonel Lorne on SGU, leader of the military contingent headed for Destiny (essentially replacing Col. Telford). With the difference, of actually sending the RIGHT guy to Destiny, and not the base commander. I would’ve rather seen Young in a role on… Read more »
@darkthunder: #1: Wasn’t MGM’s decision, but they could have put out a DVD movie before SGU came on to act as a segue. #2: The whole point was that Young was a flawed commander Telford too, they could have done something like that with Lorne but I don’t think fans would have liked it. Actually no. For all the noise fans & anti-fans make, they don’t make the ratings. Casual viewers do. Those would be the people that were watching Monk instead of SGA or Dancing with the Stars instead of SGU. Also, it wasn’t constant even on the *first*… Read more »