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PREY
Campaign Articles
The
Indianapolis Star, August 8, 2000
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'Prey'-ers on Internet being led by Hoosier By Marc D. Allan Indianapolis
Star
If you've ever fallen in love with a new television show, only to see it canceled in its first season, you'll appreciate this story. Or you may think Jeanne Winstead is just nuts. In January 1998, ABC debuted a science-fiction show called Prey that starred, among others, Debra Messing (Will & Grace) and Indianapolis native Vincent Ventresca. Winstead loved the premise -- what if, because of the impact humans have on the planet, we triggered a speciation event that resulted in a new species of human evolving? -- and pretty much everything else about the show. She went on the Internet and found a number of other people who felt likewise. But that number wasn't enough. As is the case with so much of what the networks put on, Prey didn't get the ratings it needed to survive. ABC pulled the plug after eight episodes. Like other fans of the show, Winstead was miffed. She went back to the Internet and joined an effort spearheaded by a Florida woman to save the show. Now, two-plus years later, Winstead is one of the Webmasters for the Prey for Us site (http://start.at/prey). The likelihood of bringing back a show that's been off the air for more than two years is less than slim. But Winstead, a married, 50-year-old programmer analyst for Purdue University, clings to whatever threads of hope there might be. The question is, though: Why would someone invest what she admits is "an inordinate amount of time" trying to save a TV show? "The show is really one in a million," Winstead says. "It inspires a lot of passion and creativity and imagination on the part of people. If it were just that, I think (the Prey for Us effort) probably would have died by now. But it's really the phenomenon of the Internet and what that has brought to us is. It's allowed us to keep connecting with people, keep getting new people to join us. That's kept it alive." The movement has had some success: It pushed ABC to air five previously unseen episodes of Prey in the summer of 1998. The show went off U.S. television for a year, but Winstead says it ran in 30 other countries during 1999. The Sci-Fi Channel picked up the reruns in January 2000. Winstead hopes Sci-Fi will revive the show -- or at least make a movie that wraps up the story. In what to date is the series finale, one of the main characters was locked in a cage. Those hoping to save Prey sent about 500 letters -- 300 with keys -- to the channel. Sci-Fi spokeswoman Kat Stein says the campaign has been noticed. Although it may not be feasible to resume the series, given that the stars have moved on, "I think there has been some movement internally to give the Prey fans something," she says. "While it may not be bringing back the series, or even a movie, I think there's a movement afoot. I can't go into the idea, because I don't know if it's going to happen, but maybe we can give something back to the fans that would satisfy them." That undoubtedly would make Winstead happy. "For 50 years, we've had this box in our living rooms, and we pretty much have to take whatever it gives us," she says. "Whether we want to admit it or not, we're in the middle of a revolution and a new frontier with the Internet, and it's bringing new possibilities to people. "So what if all of a sudden you could actually talk back to that black box that sits in your home? And that's what's happened with the Prey campaign. It's allowed fans to meet one another. It's also allowed fans to talk to executive producers and other members of the creative team that brought the show into our living rooms. And that is exciting -- that you can maybe reach out and touch that in a more personal way, instead of it just being the boob tube." Copyright 2000 The Indianapolis Star |
