GirlvsTV

I'm building a pillow fort, all are welcome!

Sorry, I can't help but get comfy over here in my conspiracy corner. *shrug* ETA: Except for rare circumstances these two have become nearly allergic to being photographed together. Also, they won SOTY the previous year and all we got was a grainy phone video, like 10 months later. So yeah, given the current state of the ratings, lack of buzz and the sense of dissatisfaction in the fandom I find the timing of the video interesting.

That was very enjoyable. It's easy to see why O/F gel so well on screen. Give the timing though, it does make me think

I'd usually be extremely irritated by the damseling, but this is essentially a story about a guy grappling with how to tell his kid he's very sick so I think it works okay in that context. I thought the actors were very good, Emily in particular because she had to convey her emotional state with very little dialog. The first scene in the car, I thought, was quite well done by both leads. It made me a bit choked up a few times, which could have been embarrassing since I was watching at my desk.

First time I've tried to watch an episode this season and I couldn't make it past Oliver and Lyla being rude af to Felicity and then Oliver, once again, deciding to make decisions for other people. So, almost 15 mins.

Pretty sure 'sides' are also used to refer to script excerpts for the scenes being shot on a specific day. So, not just for auditions. Most likely, that is just his script for the scenes he was in the day the pic was taken.

My bitterness ultimately boils down to the fact that I have lost all faith and trust in the writers to create a good story that respects the characters and relationships they've established over the past 4 seasons. Even though people seem to be responding positively to the new episodes so far, I can't bring myself to watch because it feels like a waste of time to get invested in the characters again when everything will likely be dismissed, stalled or retconned by mid-season. Or I'll get excited about where Oliver and Felicity might be going, only to have it unravel due to some completely ooc decision or choice one of them makes that ultimately undermines their entire relationship up to that point. The recent promotional focus and EP interviews seem to be saying to me the show is no longer interested in keeping viewers who like Felicity and Oliver/Felicity, so I'm not sure why I should stick around to watch.

Even if there is a crossover ratings boost, if the shows are already down going in to the crossover the boost most likely won't be as large as they might have been expecting. I wonder if the 4 shows from Mon-Thurs just overdid it? Packaging them that way and focusing on promoting the comic book side of things may have actually read as repetitive or too samey across all the shows to viewers. Maybe splitting it to 2 shows in the Fall, 2 in the Spring might have worked better. Even Netflix only releases one of their Marvel shows at a time.

I've actually been thinking the cast may have been told to cool it with the bts stuff to avoid spoilers getting out. So, so dumb since most of the spoilers that came from stuff like that were minor and they created buzz for the show. Also, they could create social media buzz with very little, if any, money. It would require spending time on it, though.

Zoiks! Wonder if we are just getting to a Superhero saturation point. I do think story and promo decisions for Flash and Arrow may be factoring in, since those shows already had a more firmly established audience. Wonder if they are freaking about the potential xover ratings now?

Caity Lotz got the first BC nod and she was a total unknown.

If the goal was to get back to trending during the episode, in the short term I'd do whatever was needed to increase engagement. Having the cast live tweet the way they do for pretty much every Agents of Shield episode would be a good place to start. Also, prepping media in advance (images, GIFs) from the ep to post during the airing would encourage others to share that media which would help increase impressions and reach. Responding to and engaging with fans from the CW Arrow account would also help. If I were really desperate, I'd do 'give-away' posts like 200rts = a bts pic with Stephen and Emily or something. Then I'd spend a little time trying to win back the sm base that was lost because they are not totally gone, just mad. Identifying the most popular fan 'influencers' and reaching out to them specifically would be a good start. As the pr rep I'd have no control over the content, but I'd definitely be advising/encouraging the show runners to adjust their talking points and stop alienating their fans on both sides. Or, I'd just tell them to stop talking full stop. A lot of the 'drama' with all this could have been avoided if the lack of buzz had been investigated earlier and statements about season 5 altered a bit. Arrow hasn't really had to 'work' for their sm buzz since s1-2. I think they just took it for granted. ETA: I'd also encourage the cast to get back to posting bts pics and snapchats like they did at the end of last season. Despite the potential for minor spoilers getting out, that kind of stuff really helps create buzz. Even the minor spoilers help because everyone will talk about what they mean ad naseum until the ep actually airs. Really, now that I think about it, not having that stuff out there once shooting started back probably accounts for A LOT of the hiatus buzz drop off. If it is true the CW only has Chico for all this . . . Well, as trivial as sm may seem it can be very time consuming. If there is only one person across all the shows to handle traditional and digital media, I think it would be extremely difficult to give Arrow's the time and focus it clearly needs to improve. Also, I know everyone piles on Chico, but it is possible the direction of the promotion for this season came from someone above her. She doesn't work in a vacuum, even if it was her idea I'm sure she had to get approval before executing it.

I imagine both. To me, lack of fan driven sm buzz indicates a lack of enthusiasm, which means the viewers still hanging on may be more casual or on-the-fence about watching. Those are not viewers likely to buy DVDs or other types of merchandise. Also, if less people are watching live the CW just made it a lot more difficult for them to catch up by taking all their stuff off Hulu. Less invested viewers, who do not have a dvr, are unlikely to know they can watch via the CW app and less likely go through the trouble of downloading it. ETA - I work in marketing / pr and handle social media for a living and the thing that kills me is this lack of sm buzz was extremely obvious from the end of s4 and all through the hiatus. Especially when compared to previous years. You'd think someone over there would have noticed and raised a red flag so some attempt could be made to fix it. But, nope.

But the network's budget for paid promotion is tiny and they are not going throw a lot of it at a show in its 5th season. The bulk of marketing money will likely go towards promoting new projects and their highest rated shows, like Flash and Supergirl. Fan promotion and buzz is pretty important to shows like Arrow because it's FREE. There are a lot of other shows out there that would love to have the ability to trend nearly every week the way Arrow used to. I don't think they realized they were risking their sm fan base with these storylines. I think they believed the Olicity fans would watch regardless and sit through a whole or half-season of terribly written romantic angst. They were wrong, which is why they actually made an attempt (not a very good one though) at creating some Twitter buzz when the show was on last week.

This show reinvents its past every episode. Next week Oliver will admonish the newbies to not go running off on their own because, "look what happened to Laurel!"

I think they believed adding all the new masks would create more buzz from the comic book crowd and get them to tune in. Instead they got a big, "meh." I just don't think Arrow's main audience really cares much for the comic book stuff, after 5 seasons they are more attached to the characters and the story. Neither of those things were great in 4b, plus the awful promotions, so fewer people came back for season 5. It's also possible they thought the hype around the huge xover might raise the interest of comic book fans and bring in (or bring back) viewers. They were super wrong though, lol. I'm very interested to see what they do if Flash ratings continue to drop.

Did the show trend at all last night? Curious since they seem to have actually put some effort into promoting sm engagement . . .

I handle the Twitter account for my workplace and this is exactly what I do.

And the really frustrating thing is having him apologize would have gone a long way towards actually repairing the mess they made. Doesn't mean Felicity had to take him back, but if he'd actually expressed remorse to her I might have come back around on his character. As it is, I pretty much can't stand Oliver, nor do I have any interest in his 'journey.'

Well, 4x18 was a pretty terrible episode. Maybe Ryan just realized how bad the writing had become and decided to bounce.

Lochte was not drunk when he continued to lie after the incident and he wasn't drunk when he ran away back to the US and left his other teammates to take the heat. He is a national disgrace. If his skin were any color of the rainbow other than white he would have been excoriated by the public and media for much longer than a week. Instead, he's getting paid to twirl his dudebro butt across a ballroom floor and people actually feel sorry for him.

If the screenshot leak was deliberate that's a pretty dumb way to get people excited - unless they are still more interested in courting the non-Olicity fans and getting them to watch. Most of the reactions I've seen are either pissed off and/or grossed out. It's also kind of interesting to me that, at least on Twitter, it seems like a lot of people are chatting about the show but not using hashtags which would make it more difficult for the PR people to track show buzz, if they are even bothering to do that. Even though I was aware of the bf thing, actually seeing the screenshot removed the remaining tiny smidge of interest I had in watching. I just don't want to see that in real time - or ever really.

I thought SA denied the 250k thing. He was clearly unhappy with the article in his most recent Fbook live video . . .

I've never been to a con but I don't get the impression anything underhanded is going on. Those who buy con tickets and autos and photo ops are not being tricked or misled into spending their money on this stuff. The 'product' is obviously in demand, so the notion people are profiting from it isn't terribly surprising.

I finished Stranger Things last weekend and loved it. Eleven is now one of my favorite tv characters ever. The kids actors in the show are sooo good. Plus, Winona Ryder!