Titans

[Carrie Fairchild]

While I'm not the biggest fan of this show, this is the first time in a while that all 13 episodes have been available online so I thought I'd share. I think that the audio is muted on a couple of them because of music copyright but most of the drama revolved around who was sleeping with who, so the plot is pretty easy to decipher, even without sound. From what I recall, the last two or three episodes never aired in the US but have been uploaded here from the UK airings on Sky One.

 

[tommie]

I was SO excited for this show. I even remember in 2000 how I'd shamelessly promote this - then it turned into crap. Le sigh.

 

[Willie Oleson]

@Carrie Fairchild will you post all the videos here, because I can't find the list on YouTube.
This has been on my to-watch-list for a long time now.

 

[Carrie Fairchild]

@Carrie Fairchild will you post all the videos here, because I can't find the list on YouTube.
This has been on my to-watch-list for a long time now.

The channel doesn't seem to be searchable on the app. Here's the direct link to the playlist. If that doesn't work for you, let me know and I'll post each of them individually

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-WfaXJ3m34XQffszGSenOS24Szc-lZbe

 

[Willie Oleson]

Here's the direct link to the playlist

:thank:

Oooh...Casper!

 

[Carrie Fairchild]

:thank:

Oooh...Casper!

The same user has uploaded a number of other short-lived soapy obscurities from the late 90's / early 00's like Wasteland and Relativity. I only stumbled upon the channel as it has a few random episodes of Beggars and Choosers which I'd been looking for for ages. Alas, while it's not bad, it is another show which I remembered as being better than it actually is.

 

[Karin Schill]

Thank you Carrie Fairchild for sharing Titans with us.
I have never seen this show before and I am not sure why I didn't give it a chance. Maybe it wasn't broadcast in Sweden?

But most likely it was since Tommie's seen it...

So I am not sure why I missed it. Anyway I decided to check it out now and saw the first episode last night. I think it held some real promise and all the time watching it I kept on wondering why it flopped?

I mean on the surface it's very similar to other successful shows such as for instance Dynasty or Melrose Place. So well the only conclusion I could reach was that the reason it flopped was because the TV landscape had changed. It was no longer the 1980s and people were not as interested in watching shows about very rich people anymore.

At the time I was watching shows like "Friends", "Buffy the vampire Slayer", "Angel" and yes still "Beverly Hills 90210" as it's run didn't finish until in early 2003 here in Sweden. So well except for 90210 I don't think any of those shows had particularly much in common with this show.

Anyway I'm gonna check out episode two in a little bit.

 

[Carrie Fairchild]

Thank you Carrie Fairchild for sharing Titans with us.
I have never seen this show before and I am not sure why I didn't give it a chance. Maybe it wasn't broadcast in Sweden?

But most likely it was since Tommie's seen it...

So I am not sure why I missed it. Anyway I decided to check it out now and saw the first episode last night. I think it held some real promise and all the time watching it I kept on wondering why it flopped?

I mean on the surface it's very similar to other successful shows such as for instance Dynasty or Melrose Place. So well the only conclusion I could reach was that the reason it flopped was because the TV landscape had changed. It was no longer the 1980s and people were not as interested in watching shows about very rich people anymore.

At the time I was watching shows like "Friends", "Buffy the vampire Slayer", "Angel" and yes still "Beverly Hills 90210" as it's run didn't finish until in early 2003 here in Sweden. So well except for 90210 I don't think any of those shows had particularly much in common with this show.

Anyway I'm gonna check out episode two in a little bit.

I'm glad you're enjoying it!

As to why it flopped, I'll leave it to Victoria Principal to answer that one:
http://www.ultimatedallas.com/victoriaprincipal/victoria3.html
"Well it got axed because it became a lousy show. I think the original concept for Titans was really exciting, it was going to be a dark, funny, satire. It was going to be a cross between Soapdish and Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman but instead it didn’t know what it was, it lost its way. It aspired to be something really interesting and really smart and it lost its way."

 

[Karin Schill]

Well I've never heard of either one of the shows she referenced. So I'm not sure if they were really that big hits.

Anyway I'm gonna watch episode four soon.

 

[Carrie Fairchild]

Well I've never heard of either one of the shows she referenced. So I'm not sure if they were really that big hits.

Anyway I'm gonna watch episode four soon.

I've never seen Mary Hartman either.

Soapdish was a film from the early 90's starring Sally Field, Robert Downey Jr, Whoopi Goldberg and Teri Hatcher. It was a comedy based on the behind the scenes shenanigans of a daytime soap. Aaron Spelling was one of the producers. I quite enjoyed it. They're in the process of making a musical based on it with Kristin Chenowith due to play the Sally Field role. She mentioned it recently on Andy Cohen's chat show.

 

[Karin Schill]

Thank you for explaining. I watched episode four last night and enjoyed it.
I am starting to get into this show. It's actually quite good so it's a shame there's only 13 episodes. It's a delight to watch Victoria Principal act again. Watching this makes me sad that she gave up her acting career after this show failed though.

I'll try to watch another episode tonight. But since episode five is without sound I guess I'll have to skip it.
I hope there's sound on episode six since I can't miss two episodes in a row. Then I'll miss too much of the plot. I wish whoever uploaded it would edit out the scene with the copyrighted music on it and upload the rest of the episode without it. It's so annoying how like a song on maybe 3-4 minutes has muted a whole episode of 45 minutes!

 

[Carrie Fairchild]

Thank you for explaining. I watched episode four last night and enjoyed it.
I am starting to get into this show. It's actually quite good so it's a shame there's only 13 episodes. It's a delight to watch Victoria Principal act again. Watching this makes me sad that she gave up her acting career after this show failed though.

I'll try to watch another episode tonight. But since episode five is without sound I guess I'll have to skip it.
I hope there's sound on episode six since I can't miss two episodes in a row. Then I'll miss too much of the plot. I wish whoever uploaded it would edit out the scene with the copyrighted music on it and upload the rest of the episode without it. It's so annoying how like a song on maybe 3-4 minutes has muted a whole episode of 45 minutes!

Watch the final couple of minutes of episode 5. It's pretty pivotal to the overall storyline and you don't need sound to work out what is happening.

 

[Soaplover]

The ratings started out so so...but then NBC moved the show to another night without warning and the ratings dropped.

Focusing the show on Casper Van Dien and Yasmine was a mistake. I recall message boards saying at the time that either she had a nose job or was on coke.

Rumor has it Jaclyn Smith was also a contender for Gwen.

Two sisters sleeping with the same guy story was boring...the alcoholic sister had an interesting back story..if I recall

 

[Carrie Fairchild]

The ratings started out so so...but then NBC moved the show to another night without warning and the ratings dropped.

Focusing the show on Casper Van Dien and Yasmine was a mistake. I recall message boards saying at the time that either she had a nose job or was on coke.

Rumor has it Jaclyn Smith was also a contender for Gwen.

Two sisters sleeping with the same guy story was boring...the alcoholic sister had an interesting back story..if I recall

I may be wrong but I think it was originally up against Who Wants To Be A Millionaire on Wednesday nights, which was at the height of it's ratings success at the time. By moving it to Mondays, they hoped to garner some of the female audience as Monday schedules are usually dominated by football. It was a move that worked well for FOX a few years prior with Melrose Place but not for NBC.

Also, the marketing of the show was pretty dire. In the run up to it premiering, NBC were calling it "this Fall's guilty pleasure". It was like NBC were saying "this is trash but you'll love it". It's up to viewers to decide if a show becomes a guilty pleasure over time. It doesn't arrive fully formed.

 

[Karin Schill]

Okay so I watched episode 6 last night and I think I know why the show flopped now.

Spoiler

In my opinion it was a mistake to kill off Richard. I mean it changed the entire dynamics and made the Caspar and wife number two plot sort of pointless as the obstacle of them being together disappeared too easily. Also I think it's gonna bring out a bitchier side in Gwen and I liked her just fine the way she was in the beginning. She was likable. Also I sense a triangle with the brother coming on and it doesn't interest me. Gwen and Richard's backstory I was interested in learning more of. It was obvious they still had feelings for each other. But the idea of Gwen and the younger brother just bores me.

The whole episode was depressing shit.

 

[Carrie Fairchild]

Okay so I watched episode 6 last night and I think I know why the show flopped now.

Spoiler

In my opinion it was a mistake to kill off Richard. I mean it changed the entire dynamics and made the Caspar and wife number two plot sort of pointless as the obstacle of them being together disappeared too easily. Also I think it's gonna bring out a bitchier side in Gwen and I liked her just fine the way she was in the beginning. She was likable. Also I sense a triangle with the brother coming on and it doesn't interest me. Gwen and Richard's backstory I was interested in learning more of. It was obvious they still had feelings for each other. But the idea of Gwen and the younger brother just bores me.

The whole episode was depressing shit.

Spoiler

Apparently NBC wanted a patriarch figure with a darker edge to him, so Perry King was dropped and Jack Wagner was brought in. Which as you've pointed out, just up ended the main premise of the show.

 

[Soaplover]

Spoiler

Apparently NBC wanted a patriarch figure with a darker edge to him, so Perry King was dropped and Jack Wagner was brought in. Which as you've pointed out, just up ended the main premise of the show.

And it made the fun shade thrown between Yasmine and Victoria seem pointless once that happened.

 

[Carrie Fairchild]

Reading between the lines, Titans was a show that NBC didn't really want to begin with, but their president at the time, Garth Ancier, was fully behind the idea of a Spelling show on NBC, having worked with him at the WB to bring the hits 7th Heaven and Charmed to the screen. Titans cancellation coincided with Ancier's sacking from the network.

I've seen the question being asked before "would Titans have lasted on another network?". FOX probably would've been the best home for it as (a) they'd worked with Spelling before and (b) they were known at that point for their slightly less "prestige" drama to put it politely, so Titans would've fitted in there whereas it just seemed out of place on the NBC lineup alongside the likes of ER, The West Wing and Law & Order.

 

[Karin Schill]

That's frustrating, it sounds to me like NBC wanted this show to fail. But yeah I agree it would have been better to move it to another smaller network instead of scrapping it all together.

Also I watched episode 7 last night and Jack stepping up acting like the father when we know he's the uncle it just doesn't work. If they wanted the patriarch to have more of an edge to him they could have written it into his character slowly as they added more depth to him. It would have worked better than trying to substitute one character for another and upsetting the whole dynamic and premise of the show in the process.

 

[Carrie Fairchild]

Here's an interview with Aaron Spelling and Charles Pratt discussing some of the behind the scenes decisions.

http://www.ultimatedallas.com/titans/spellinterview2.htm