Every once in a while something insanely popular comes around, makes a huge splash, and the very next minute is immediately forgotten.


For example: Avatar, the James Cameron movie. It is literally the highest grossing movie ever, yet it has no cultural footprint, there is no big fandom around it, no one even talks about it anymore and the movie didn't come out so long ago.

By comparison, take the Transformers movies, crazy successful as well though not quite as much, surely hated by many, but never forgotten. There were imitators like Battleship, we can see the influence in the robot design of the upcoming Power Rangers, people always point at it as examples of terrible movies. It has a cultural footprint.


On the TV side think of Game of Thrones, most would classify it as the most popular TV show currently airing (whatever your opinion on its quality may be), and if you ever tried to escape spoilers you'll know how whenever an episode comes out the whole internet talks about it. The last season averaged 23.3 million views across all platforms (granted, it doesn't count all the people pirating it), this does take into account all the people all over the world subscribed to HBO Go.

But you wanna know that the most popular scripted TV show in the world is? NCIS. That's right, NCIS, the procedural about crimes in the navy. It got between 55 and 60 million viewers worldwide these last few years, that's almost triple what GoT has, and 21 million of these viewers are on the US alone.

Do you even know NCIS? Have you even heard about it? It's on TV for over a decade and it's apparently the most popular scripted show in the world and the only reference to it I have ever seen online or anywhere else is this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8qgehH3kEQ


So I want all of us to put our collective heads together and try to remember all the things that are or have been extremely popular in the past, that the world has completely forgotten. If only to try and make the world make a little more sense.

NCIS is popular because it is well written and the characters are fun.

I watch it all the time.

Why do you own 55 million TV sets?

OT: Even then that's not the point. I don't mean this to be a list of things people don't like. Surely you'll agree the show has no cultural footprint? Apart from its spin off it hasn't had much influence on pop culture at large. As opposed to something like Law and Order, which was influential.

I would say that you are learning the limits of your own cultural awareness.

I would dispute that NCIS has no cultural footprint. Start looking up the dark haired tech girl. She is everywhere once you know what to look for. Also, that huge fandom probably does not intersect with your interests all that much.

I'm not sure about Avatar having no lasting impact. I mean, yes, it had little to none in any sort of artistic terms, but it's amazing financial success opened the floodgates for 3D in cinema (much to my lasting dismay).

Trying to think of such popular things with no lasting legacy... would House MD count? I'm not sure how are things elsewhere, but around here it's pretty much water under the bridge. It's also a good example of how hard it is too predict something's "footprint". It was very much talked about and known to pretty much everybody, and very recently, but almost as soon as it ended it started to fade immediately. There is a number of such "procedurals" that I find entirely indistinguishable from one another. They all seem to me to have the exact same cast, premise, sets and style. I have no idea if there are 5 or 500 of them.

...which have long ago dried again.

Or at least this is my perception, that of someone who only goes to the cinema twice or thrice a year but is kind of aware of what's being projected in his area.

I don't dispute that the fandom for NCIS exists and is large, it is the most popular show on Earth apparently, and is very different from my demographic, namely older, as is tinyE. My question really is on how disparate its popularity and cultural impact appear to be. If I'm to be proven wrong about this particular example, then I'm just wrong.

But isn't the "Brainy Brunette" trope older than dirt though? That is true, but I did mean it largely on a artistic sense rather than the technological one. Particularly how the highest grossing movie of all time has sequels in production and no one seems to give a shit. Sadly not true. In many places around the world, in cases where the cinema doesn't have that many screens, they will only carry the 3D version of the biggest blockbusters so anyone who wants to watch it will be forced to pay the extra price that comes with the 3D.

If my interpretation of 'cultural footprint' is correct, I think NCIS starts (or restarts?) the modern wave of fun and lighhearted police procedurals. I'd argue that other series like Bones, Castle, Psych, Numbers or the Mentalist are part of this wave.

Ducky is the best:)

From the knowledge I have, which I admit is limited, NCIS was directly influenced by CSI starting the forensic drama boom, it did began more serious, but by the time NCIS premiered CSI was already in its 4th season and veering into progressively wackier and wackier territory. That and it was a spin-off of JAG.

Bones and Numbers feel like other influences of CSI, being made during the boom of forensic dramas, each focusing on a different area of science to solve their crimes.

The Mentalist and especially Psych owe themselves to Monk, which I believe is the one that might have started the trend for dramedy featuring wacky impossibly brilliant consultant assisting the police, and it's a show that predates NCIS. Of course, Monk in turn owes a lot to Sherlock Holmes, as does nearly every other story about a super detective written in over a century now.

I wouldn't really compare Transformers to Avatar as relative equals. The Transformers movies came out after the IP had been in the public consciousness for decades, with millions of kids (now ticket-buying adults) growing up with it: cartoons, toys, games, comics, what have you. Avatar was more of a standalone product that didn't have such a build-up over the years. The Transformers movies, on the other hand, put the cartoon and toy fantasies into a live-action "reality" on the big screen. I think that explains a lot of the stick. Given that head start the Transformers movies simply added to something that had been going on all along. Avatar essentially started from scratch and didn't have all of that momentum behind it from the past.

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The Fast and The Furious series left its long-term mark, extending beyond screen entertainment and into the realm of physical stuff - namely cars. That has led to some people retaining a love of the hobby and related motorsports, helped grow the SEMA show, and boosted the custom scene at the entry level.

On the matter of Avatar, the reason it left no impact is because when it comes down to it, it was more generic than no name corned beef.

The Bayformers are a terrible example, as nobody actually likes them, and they were nothing more than cheap cash grabs to try and cash in on nostalgia.

Edit: I wonder if anyone is aware of Doc Martin. Imagine House MD, but out in the British Countryside, and with less medical mysteries and more slices of life.

If Avatar had a sequel, or a followup TV show, or any attempt to turn it into a franchise, it would have had more cultural impact. A movie is a short-form visual medium, and a standalone movie is the shortest form there is. A single standalone movie needs to have something very resonant and gripping to it for it to enter into the public consciousness on a deep level. E.g. Silence of the Lambs, Apocalypse Now, Forrest Gump.

It's pretty big here, but I'm surprised anyone in the US has heard of it. It's not the kind of show that you expect gets exported.

NCIS = Naughty Christian`s Irritating Sexuality?