# Titanic 4-part miniseries on ABC April 14-15



## pablo (Oct 11, 2007)

http://abc.go.com/shows/titanic/



> From the creative minds of Julian Fellowes, Academy Award (Gosford Park), Emmy and Golden Globe winner (Downton Abbey), and BAFTA-winning producer Nigel Stafford Clark (Bleak House) comes the highly anticipated ABC Premiere Event, Titanic, a four-part miniseries that will premiere SATURDAY, APRIL 14 (8:00-11:00 p.m., ET) on the ABC Television Network. Parts One-Three will air on April 14, and the miniseries will conclude with Part Four on SUNDAY, APRIL 15 (9:00-10:00 p.m., ET), which will actually mark the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the RMS Titanic on April 15, 1912.


[YOUTUBEHD]R2en9NNN-Y8[/YOUTUBEHD]


----------



## dpeters11 (May 30, 2007)

Interesting. Though I think my wife will have enough with all the Titanic documentaries I have set to record.


----------



## pablo (Oct 11, 2007)

dpeters11 said:


> Interesting. Though I think my wife will have enough with all the Titanic documentaries I have set to record.


What are those?


----------



## dpeters11 (May 30, 2007)

Titanic's final mystery 4/5 on smithsonian at 8
Titanic: ballards secret mission 4/7 on nat geo at 8 (this is a few years old)
Titanic the final word with James Cameron nat geo 4/8 8-10
Titanic at 100: mystery solved on History. I'm recording it on 4/16 12-2 am because my hr34 said it was busy for the first airing.

I also recorded titanic: birth of the legend on green, that was also fairly old but recorded it anyway.

I think I saw a few others that I passed on, either because of age or only in sd.


----------



## SayWhat? (Jun 7, 2009)

How many ships have sunk in the world in the last 500 years?

Are there dozens of flicks on any one of them?

People need to get over this one.


----------



## dpeters11 (May 30, 2007)

To me there are a few ships that stand out among the others. Titanic is one of them. If it's not your thing, then don't watch them


----------



## pablo (Oct 11, 2007)

dpeters11 said:


> Titanic's final mystery 4/5 on smithsonian at 8
> Titanic: ballards secret mission 4/7 on nat geo at 8 (this is a few years old)
> Titanic the final word with James Cameron nat geo 4/8 8-10
> Titanic at 100: mystery solved on History. I'm recording it on 4/16 12-2 am because my hr34 said it was busy for the first airing.
> ...


Thanks for the heads up, I'll definitely record those.


----------



## photostudent (Nov 8, 2007)

Thanks. I would probably just thought it was reruns of Cameron's movie if I had not seen this thread.


----------



## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

There's a great 3D/IMAX theater about 3 miles away here...they have already sold out 6 days worth of tickets for the Titanic 3D/IMAX release showings coming up locally....so I guess somebody must still be interested.

As for the other posted programs....

Thank you.

I have always found the various other such content to be informative, and often learn something new about this historical event.

Different strokes topic I suspect.


----------



## pablo (Oct 11, 2007)

SayWhat? said:


> How many ships have sunk in the world in the last 500 years?
> 
> Are there dozens of flicks on any one of them?
> 
> People need to get over this one.


Well, over 1500 people lost their lives. It's a pretty big deal.


----------



## dpeters11 (May 30, 2007)

I think there's more to it than that. I get what SayWhat is saying in a sense. Disasters like the sinking of the Sultana (the most casualties on a ship I can think of that wasn't due to attack, though I'm sure there are others) don't get the kind of attention Titanic does. The Sultana didn't exactly get a lot of press when it sank, let alone much talked about it now. Other stories took the medias attention from that one during the time.

Titanic has endured for a few reasons. The size and opulence of first class (I realize Britannic was larger), that they called it virtually unsinkable, yet sunk on her maiden voyage, and probably because John Jacob Astor IV and Isador and Ida Strauss died. It's also the disaster that caused many changes to happen in terms of ship safety and design, the creation of the ice patrol etc.


----------



## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

The first two decades of the 1900's was really the pinnacle of newspaper influence on popular culture. The "yellow journalism" battles of Pulitzer vs. Hearst in the late 1890's for all the sins involved, set the stage for a sensational newspaper press while radio would not begin to displace newspaper "scoops" until the next decade.

Add to that the fact that in 1912 the European-American engineering and scientific community was pretty full of itself. 

Now it's 2012 and things are surprisingly similar in the news biz. Imagine a slow news month with CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, plus the broadcast networks taking on a story with as many different elements. There was just so much to work with in this story.


----------



## pablo (Oct 11, 2007)

For the record, the Doña Paz collision was the most deadliest with over 4000 casualties: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Doña_Paz


----------



## pablo (Oct 11, 2007)

PBS is also showing Saving the Titanic: http://www.pbs.org/programs/saving-titanic/


----------



## dpeters11 (May 30, 2007)

The Smithsonian special was the most interesting I've seen I think, that the iceberg couldn't be seen due to a mirage. I'm glad I got the extra pack.


----------



## spartanstew (Nov 16, 2005)

Looks just like the movie, but with a much smaller budget. Not sure I get the point.


----------



## Alan Gordon (Jun 7, 2004)

BTW... if there are any "Doctor Who" fans out there, one of the cast members of this mini-series will be the actress who will be playing the new companion in the upcoming season. 

~Alan


----------



## Getteau (Dec 20, 2007)

dpeters11 said:


> The Smithsonian special was the most interesting I've seen I think, that the iceberg couldn't be seen due to a mirage. I'm glad I got the extra pack.


We watched the 2 or 3 shows on Smithsonian last night and I agree, they were really good.


----------



## MysteryMan (May 17, 2010)

It's just more Hollywood franchising.


----------



## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

The thread subject show should have been a PBS Masterpiece series presented over two Sunday nights. ABC adds nothing to the credibility of the production, adds advertising, and scheduled it in a really goofy way.

This is not, I repeat _*not*_ a Hollywood production. It is an IFC production written by Julian Fellowes, the creator and writer of "Downton Abbey." It has more in common with "Upstairs, Downstairs" than James Cameron's Hollywood version of the story.

Fellowes explained his viewpoint:


> "They talk about the perfect storm now but this is the perfect disaster. This one ship holds every element of a self-confident society that was headed for a smash-up (in the First World War, two years later)."


Though each episode will include all the characters in every episode, each episode will give us the view from a different economic class. At the beginning of each episode the characters have no idea of the fate that awaits them and at the end of each episode the ship will start sinking.

The creator and producer of this version of the story, Nigel Stafford-Clark, explains:


> "We were the most powerful nation on earth, we had been for about 50 years by that point, there will probably never be a nation as unchallenged as we were, and we saw no reason why that shouldn't continue for ever.
> 
> "But we were sailing towards the First World War as obliviously as the Titanic was sailing towards its iceberg. It just felt like it was a real chance to do a portrait of a whole society at a particular moment, just before it vanished forever....
> 
> "You've got the whole class system, which at that point was the bedrock of Britain's stability, literally encased in steel. It's the perfect setting."


_*This isn't two star-crossed lovers standing on the prow of a ship while Celine Dion sings.*_


----------



## pablo (Oct 11, 2007)

I'm really looking forward to it, and I like how they scheduled it, but they could've done all four hours in one night to make it more in time with the event itself, as the ship hit the iceberg late evening April 14 and sank early morning April 15.


----------



## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

Just keep in mind that mostly each hour is a separate story arc focusing on a family of different class and ending when the the ship starts sinking. The ABC trailer (see the OP) doesn't make that clear.

My guess is that they scheduled it mostly on Saturday night because they think that like "Downton Abbey" it would be a multi-Sunday ratings winner for PBS but for not a commercial broadcast network.

But I'll report the ratings and I hope it will turn out that I had no idea just how many Americans would stay home next Saturday night just to watch this show.:sure:


----------



## pablo (Oct 11, 2007)

dpeters11 said:


> Titanic's final mystery 4/5 on smithsonian at 8
> Titanic: ballards secret mission 4/7 on nat geo at 8 (this is a few years old)
> Titanic the final word with James Cameron nat geo 4/8 8-10
> Titanic at 100: mystery solved on History. I'm recording it on 4/16 12-2 am because my hr34 said it was busy for the first airing.
> ...


Really enjoyed The Final Word with James Cameron.


----------



## pablo (Oct 11, 2007)

There will also be a 5-part Rebuilding Titanic doc on NGC on April 15.


----------



## Carl Spock (Sep 3, 2004)

SayWhat? said:


> How many ships have sunk in the world in the last 500 years?
> 
> Are there dozens of flicks on any one of them?
> 
> People need to get over this one.


Titanic is the classic example of hubris. An unsinkable ship goes to the bottom with 1,500 souls on its maiden voyage.

It could remain the standard for man's arrogance for a thousand years.

We think we know so much. We know nothing.


----------



## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

I'm kicking this up as a reminder.


----------



## dpeters11 (May 30, 2007)

"Carl Spock" said:


> Titanic is the classic example of hubris. An unsinkable ship goes to the bottom with 1,500 souls on its maiden voyage.
> 
> It could remain the standard for man's arrogance for a thousand years.
> 
> We think we know so much. We know nothing.


Right, it's still a valid analogy. We think that our technology can beat nature, but nature can be much more powerful, unless it's overwhelmed.


----------



## dpeters11 (May 30, 2007)

"pablo" said:


> Really enjoyed The Final Word with James Cameron.


I have a whole new respect for him just from that.


----------



## Carl Spock (Sep 3, 2004)

^ That was good. 

Cameron was an honest scientist, trying to find what was wrong with his depiction of the Titanic's last few hours in the movie, which were minor, literally a matter of a few degrees: (1) it was listing a bit, (2) the bow wasn't down quite so far just before it broke off, and (3) the stern never went fully vertical before it plunged to the bottom. 

Reality was less dramatic.

When he said he wasn't going to go back and make changes in the film to correct those facts, I thought, "There's a wise man."


----------



## dpeters11 (May 30, 2007)

The starfield error was much easier to correct anyway.


----------



## Laxguy (Dec 2, 2010)

dpeters11 said:


> To me there are a few ships that stand out among the others. Titanic is one of them. If it's not your thing, then don't watch them


The story of The Titanic is emblematic in many ways. Man's hubris, for one.

Moreover, the film *Titanic* is gargantuan.

The myths around the whole story are colossal.

In short, everything about The Titanic is, well, uh, titanic.


----------



## Laxguy (Dec 2, 2010)

pablo said:



> For the record, the Doña Paz collision was the most deadliest with over 4000 casualties: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Doña_Paz


OMG. On a ferry designed to handle 608 passengers. Sad and pathetic. The official count was ca. 1500 people, but it was widely conceded that there was more than a thousand un-manifested people aboard.


----------



## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

Laxguy said:


> OMG. On a ferry designed to handle 608 passengers. Sad and pathetic. The official count was ca. 1500 people, but it was widely conceded that there was more than a thousand un-manifested people aboard.


Sadly...there are a number of these kinds of incidents with over-loaded ferries and other ships in foreign waters. While the U.S. has strick policies and enforcement, and several European nations do as well...once you get outside that governance....the risk goes up.

The same holds true for the airline business.

Having seen 2 more Titanic specials yesterday...there were alot of new things learned and new footage seen. Great stuff.


----------



## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

Just a note on ratings. Saturday's airing of the first three parts of the mini-series that is the subject of the thread pulled 18-49 demo and total ratings as follows:

8:00 0.8/3 - 4.39 million
8:30 0.7/3 - 4.19 million
9:00 0.8/3 - 4.37 million
9:30 0.8/3 - 4.26 million
10:00 0.8/3 - 3.76 million
10:30 0.8/3 - 3.69 million

A week ago ABC's airing of _The Ten Commandments_ with Charlton Heston averaged 1.6/5 - 6.90.

As I said before this mini-series should have been a PBS Masterpiece series presented over two Sunday nights. It may be that many recorded it as I did. But it would have been a better fit for PBS. I don't get why ABC bought this.


----------



## Maruuk (Dec 5, 2007)

Saturday night is a dumping ground for rotting corpses. I guess the ABC execs knew what they had on their hands and disposed of the body where nobody would find it.

The national reviewers all pronounced this thing moribund last week. I think I'll record tonight's death rattle just for fun.


----------



## Jaspear (May 16, 2004)

This turkey aired over the last four Wednesday nights in Canada. The first episode made no sense to me when the timeline went from the ship's launch to the iceberg in 45 minutes! Turns out, they did it again for the next two episodes. I didn't even bother with episode four.


----------



## pablo (Oct 11, 2007)

There will be a new 6-part miniseries airing on Encore starting on October 8:

http://www.starz.com/originals/TitanicBloodandSteel


----------

