Talk:Rubicon (TV series)

Pilot

Pilot is identical to first episode... available on-line already at http://www.amctv.com/videos/rubicon/ and titled "Gone in the Teeth" 76.27.140.208 (talk) 23:32, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

The pilot is the first episode; even The Futon Critic lists the preview episode on June 13 as the pilot that will air on August 1.
I'm more curious as to whether we should include the official debut date of that episode underneath the preview debut date, particularly for the sake of the ratings, since this "sneak peek" was exactly that, and wouldn't properly relect the episode's impact, like so...

#	Title	Directed by	Written by	U.S. viewers (in millions)	Original air date
1	"Gone in the Teeth"	Allen Coulter	Jason Horwitch	1.071 X.XX2	June 13, 2010 (2010-06-13) (Pilot preview) August 1, 2010 (2010-08-01) (Series debut)

The only other show in recent memory I can think of for a precedent is Glee and they just went with the original debut date. But I can't help but feel this merits discussion. KnownAlias contact 15:37, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Regarding wording in section Reception

1. I do find the sound in the formulation,
   - "The show has often been compared with AMC's other shows...",
   a bit strange for a series this new. It sounds like one are talking about a much older TV-show, like for instance Star Trek, or one that has had several seasons. Would perhaps be more correct to phrase it by i.e. "The show is/has frequently...", "Early reviews..." or in some other way formulate it so that it reflect the current status of the show.
2. The word "action" seems to have been misused in the context of depicting it as a thriller. The text say
   - "About the lack of action on the show, Scott D. Pierce for the Deseret News wrote, `For a show that's supposed to be a spy thriller, there aren't a whole lot of thrills in `Rubicon``...".
   I believe the word `tension' would be more correctly describing the quotes in that section. Alternatively `suspense' or `excitement'.

English is not my first language nor do I feel I have the proper education to make the decision in these cases. Could be I am wrong about the issues I am raising. By that I leave the rephrasing and decisioning to others. :)
Best regards,
Essexesd (talk) 08:17, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree on point one but while the show does provide tension and suspense, there's very little action in the tradition of Bond, Bourne, or other popular spy dramas. - Dravecky (talk) 08:36, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

* Think I might understand what you mean regarding pt. 2. (But,) My point goes directly towards the quotes. a.) "there aren't a whole lot of thrills" and b.) "pace is sometimes slack". And also on what I understood from articles to be the concept of the series, namely that it is not action - or external action, if you like - that is supposed to be the (principal) motive power of building the suspension, but rather the suspicion of something to be wrong leading to paranoia and a steady climbing tension as the protagonist realize more about the situation. A leading epiphany, if you like, where a trusted environment dint and start to fall apart.

* And then by the reference to the quotes b) advocate for a faster developing storyline while a) and b) find the base storyline lacking the weight of classical tools like people exposing themselves to situations where they could be caught; overstepping their boundaries in their quest for knowledge. The revealing of trusted parties to be either in conflict, not trustworthy, not possible to define as trustworthy or not and so on, and the consequence of not being able to share this with innocent people to whom one self are the guardian of trust. Not having anyone to share ones knowledge with, sometimes leading to frustration and bad choices. Having no control. And, well... one could go on and on. But the point being that they are elements of suspense, tension, thrills and so on rather than pure (external - ) action that are found to be lacking in the compliance of what the series depict it self to fulfill.

* Because of the widely recognizable genre action-thriller the word action therefor must be used scarcely and with caution.

. It can be someone find this to be somewhat pedantic :) , - but the power of words are even stronger then the forces ruling the laws of the subatomic realm.

Essexesd (talk) 11:27, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Genre

Format, drama, but genre is another question. The about section of their homepage say conspiracy thriller. Is that OK for the "Infobox television"-section? Alternatively / additionally one have Category:Espionage_television_series [1]. Or should one even add a higher category here Category:Television_series_by_genre [2]? Essexesd (talk) 15:59, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Source

There is an excellent piece about Rubicon in The New Republic that might be of interest to editors working on this article: "Why 'Rubicon' Is the Perfect Spy Show for the Obama Era" -- Scjessey (talk) 19:29, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Cancellation: why?

The article says that AMC was disappointed to cancel the series; also that the series received favourable reviews and high initial ratings; and the episode list page shows what I believe to be a fairly normal ratings trend.

So why was the show cancelled? This would be valuable information in this article.78.86.61.94 (talk) 12:55, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

The official announcement from AMC was quite terse, a single paragraph quoted in the article, that doesn't explicitly state the reason. It's obvious from looking at the ratings (Rubicon was drawing about 1 million viewers an episode, compared to 2 million+ for Mad Men, with little hope of improvement) that they were the cause but to state so in the article would be the forbidden "original research". - Dravecky (talk) 13:51, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Several reviewers have remarked about this subject, and more pointedly, how the series shot itself in the foot with its season finale. The sources are out there, I think. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 16:51, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

The finale had nothing to do. It was The Walking Dead's ratings which made them cancel it. I guess they thought they needed a show with barely acceptable ratings when they could get a shitty, poor, but easier to watch show like TWD. --Dexter_prog (talk · contribs · count) @ 23:58, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Are fiction and non fiction the same genre?

In two places, the present text refers to "conspiracy films" and lists one film based on a well known work of non-fiction, and two works of fiction. "The series is influenced by conspiracy films of the 1970s such as All The President's Men, Three Days of the Condor and The Parallax View,[3] which find an innocent character caught up in, and slowly unraveling, a major conspiracy." I am uncomfortable with the grouping of something based on fact and intended to convey facts ("All the President's Men" is history, not fantasy. Nixon apologists to the contrary, the Watergate scandal started with and revealed criminal acts, by persons both high and low, who were convicted in courts of law, or in the case of Richard Nixon, resigned from public office. ) with works of imagination. But I recognize that the slow unwinding of a story that starts at one size and scope and grows to enormous dimension is a particular property of the three films named.

The reference is to three films, not to three stories. But I find the dissonance grating. I prefer to keep Wikipedia short and to the point, but in this case I wonder if a few additional words wouldn't actually improve the precision of the entry, particularly,

"history as well as fiction",

"where innocent character(s)" (- Mr. Dale in Rubicon is alone, Woodward, Bernstein *and* Deep Throat have, and depend, on each other.)

Tighten "unraveling, a major conspiracy." down to "unravel, vast, secret, stories behind public events."

Add: "while normal life carries on, oblivious, unaware."

All together, I'd like to see: "The series is influenced by conspiracy films of the 1970s, history as well as fiction, such as All The President's Men, Three Days of the Condor and The Parallax View. In these films, innocent character(s) are caught up in, and slowly unravel, vast, secret, stories behind public events, while normal life carries on, oblivious, unaware."

Does anyone object? Having started to fix a conflation of fact and fiction, which I fear will devalue fact, I also want the film reference to be specific to the films and series being discussed, and not, say, "The 39 Steps". Hitchcock's movie also features an innocent who stumbles into a hidden world, but the headlong rush of it is entirely different than the point being made here. Billabbott (talk) 21:49, 24 May 2011 (UTC)Bill Abbott IV aka abbott.bill@gmail.com

I do. The proposed wording is lousy, unsupported by the source, and simply wrong. All the President's Men was a somewhat dishonest but nonfiction book; All the President's Men was a fictionalized thriller based on it. Absolutely, Nixon actually was a criminal but the actual history didn't play out the way the movie did and (more importantly) this series was based on the fictional narrative and presentation, not the historical one. — LlywelynII 00:21, 6 September 2015 (UTC)