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Firefly/Serenity (1 Viewer)

Anonymous Internet User

Anonymous Internet User

Footballguy
Bought Firefly on sale this past weekend and, after watching it, also went out and bought the movie Serenity.

Thought the quality of both was excellent.

Why did Fox ever cancel this show? :thumbup:

I hope some people got canned for that decision, and didn't get multi-million dollar golden parachutes to break their fall.

 
It was just too successful for its own good. TV executives have to stay modest; they don't want all the money and success going to their heads. Plus putting less interesting programming on TV encourages people to spend more time with their families. Helping one child get better grades in school is worth all the Nielsen ratings in the world to Hollywood.

 
Because people didn't watch it. It got crappy ratings. Of the 11 episodes that were aired, 4 of them were the lowest rated Fox show that week, and it never did better than 3rd from last. The initial episode was 66th out of 119 prime time shows, the second episode was 78th out of 125, and the other 9 episodes it ranked between 88th and 103rd.

Fox just didn't give people enough time to discover how incredible it was. Maybe the night and/or shows they aired it against played a role too, dunno.

I agree about how awesome of a show it is, though. By the way, if you haven't watched the DVDs with the commentary on, you should. Especially the 2 hour pilot episode, when it's Joss Whedon (series creator) and Nathan Fillion (Mal) doing the commentary. You'll totally see where the sense of humor in the series comes from when you listen to those two cut up. The commentary for Serenity is good too, and also I recommend the commentary on the Objects in Space episode, though it's a lot more cerebral and less funny, but it's a great insight into what goes on in Joss Whedon's mind.

 
I've often said one could almost make a successful network out of shows FOX has cancelled in the past decade. The following lists gets us to 7.5 hours a week.

Arrested Development

Andy Richter Controls the Universe

Firefly

Futurama

Family Guy

The Tick

Undeclared

John Doe

Wonderfalls

Keen Eddie

Just missing the decade mark is one of my all time favorite series, The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.

 
Some programs take time to build a following. But since most studio execs have the attention span of an 18 month old, good shows often get cancelled just as they are starting to take off. Firefly was one.

 
Firefly was one of many shows that took The X-Files old time slot. Because of the huge success that X-Files had (so much so that they moved it to Sundays) they came to expect every show put into that time slot to have the same ratings. If it didn't get X-Files ratings within a couple episodes, it was canceled. Many decent Fox shows were lost this way.

 
GregR said:
Because people didn't watch it. It got crappy ratings. Of the 11 episodes that were aired, 4 of them were the lowest rated Fox show that week, and it never did better than 3rd from last. The initial episode was 66th out of 119 prime time shows, the second episode was 78th out of 125, and the other 9 episodes it ranked between 88th and 103rd.

Fox just didn't give people enough time to discover how incredible it was. Maybe the night and/or shows they aired it against played a role too, dunno.
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Actually, I think it is a little more complicated than that. Fox really bungled this show. If I recall correctly, they played the show out of order. :loco: Some idiot execs thought that the "pilot" episode (where they indroduce the character and some of the history and motivations) wasn't exciting enough, so they decided to run the third episode first, and then the "first" two episoded, and then the fourth through eleventh episode. The audiences were confused, and it never caught on.I'm sure someone like Smoo or Andy Defresne knows the whole scoop.

 
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Great show, but I didn't hear about it until Serenity was coming out. I went to see Serenity in the theater and when millions of others didn't, the chance to revive the show died. I went back and checked out the show on Sci-Fi and thought it was awesome.

 
Sweet J said:
GregR said:
Because people didn't watch it. It got crappy ratings. Of the 11 episodes that were aired, 4 of them were the lowest rated Fox show that week, and it never did better than 3rd from last. The initial episode was 66th out of 119 prime time shows, the second episode was 78th out of 125, and the other 9 episodes it ranked between 88th and 103rd.

Fox just didn't give people enough time to discover how incredible it was. Maybe the night and/or shows they aired it against played a role too, dunno.
Click to expand...
Actually, I think it is a little more complicated than that. Fox really bungled this show. If I recall correctly, they played the show out of order. :rant: Some idiot execs thought that the "pilot" episode (where they indroduce the character and some of the history and motivations) wasn't exciting enough, so they decided to run the third episode first, and then the "first" two episoded, and then the fourth through eleventh episode. The audiences were confused, and it never caught on.
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This is the correct answer.The suits thought they knew what the audience wanted and idiotically changed the order of the shows, even though the shows were meant to be watched in a specific order.

The DVD has them show in the correct order which is why when people watch them on the DVD, it seems good.

The suits were so dumb they actually thought showing the pilot 2 part episode as the last episode was smart. Of course by that time the ratings were killed and the show was canceled. Here was the order they were telecast in. The two part Serenity episode was supposed to be first

1. 1- 1 1AGE01 20 Sep 02 The Train Job

2. 1- 2 1AGE02 27 Sep 02 Bushwhacked

3. 1- 3 1AGE05 4 Oct 02 Our Mrs. Reynolds

4. 1- 4 1AGE06 18 Oct 02 Jaynestown

5. 1- 5 1AGE07 25 Oct 02 Out of Gas

6. 1- 6 1AGE03 1 Nov 02 Shindig

7. 1- 7 1AGE04 8 Nov 02 Safe

8. 1- 8 1AGE08 15 Nov 02 Ariel

9. 1- 9 1AGE09 6 Dec 02 War Stories

10. 1-10 1AGE11 13 Dec 02 Objects in Space

11. 1-11 1AGE79 20 Dec 02 Serenity (1)

12. 1-12 1AGE79 20 Dec 02 Serenity (2)

 
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Serenity is probably the most underrates Sci-Fi movie of all time. It is by far one of my favorites. Fox really did botch this - and continues to botch it. Fans called for Firefly to put back on the air, but Joss Whedon won't work with Fox and Faux won't release the rights to another network. Thus, screwing the fans.

Best scene of all was when, after the little speech, he just kicks the guy into the engine. :thumbup:

 
Anonymous Internet User said:
Bought Firefly on sale this past weekend and, after watching it, also went out and bought the movie Serenity.Thought the quality of both was excellent.Why did Fox ever cancel this show? :thumbup: I hope some people got canned for that decision, and didn't get multi-million dollar golden parachutes to break their fall.
Click to expand...
Fox screwed up the show from the start. They played the episodes out of order which confused the storyline and I think the ads they ran for it were pretty bad.
 
Sweet J said:
GregR said:
Because people didn't watch it. It got crappy ratings. Of the 11 episodes that were aired, 4 of them were the lowest rated Fox show that week, and it never did better than 3rd from last. The initial episode was 66th out of 119 prime time shows, the second episode was 78th out of 125, and the other 9 episodes it ranked between 88th and 103rd.

Fox just didn't give people enough time to discover how incredible it was. Maybe the night and/or shows they aired it against played a role too, dunno.
Click to expand...
Actually, I think it is a little more complicated than that. Fox really bungled this show. If I recall correctly, they played the show out of order. :thumbup: Some idiot execs thought that the "pilot" episode (where they indroduce the character and some of the history and motivations) wasn't exciting enough, so they decided to run the third episode first, and then the "first" two episoded, and then the fourth through eleventh episode. The audiences were confused, and it never caught on.I'm sure someone like Smoo or Andy Defresne knows the whole scoop.
Click to expand...
damn beat me to it.yeah just look at the back of the DVDs for the series. They have the "First Aired Date" next to each episode and they dont match the order they were meante to be shown in.

 
From what I recall, the show was also buried on Friday nights- it was something like it debuted one week at 8pm, was pre-empted the following week, moved to Friday at 9pm the week after, then had one last shot on a different night. They did similar things to Keen Eddie and two Tim Minear spin-off series (The Inside and Drive).

Frankly, I'm surprised any series on Fox makes it since they seem willing to juggle any show around that isn't American Idol. They've shifted House and Bones a lot this season too.

 
skazooz said:
I've often said one could almost make a successful network out of shows FOX has cancelled in the past decade. The following lists gets us to 7.5 hours a week.Arrested DevelopmentAndy Richter Controls the UniverseFireflyFuturamaFamily GuyThe TickUndeclaredJohn DoeWonderfallsKeen EddieJust missing the decade mark is one of my all time favorite series, The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.
Click to expand...
Greg the Bunny was pretty entertaining.
 
malice said:
From what I recall, the show was also buried on Friday nights- it was something like it debuted one week at 8pm, was pre-empted the following week, moved to Friday at 9pm the week after, then had one last shot on a different night. They did similar things to Keen Eddie and two Tim Minear spin-off series (The Inside and Drive).Frankly, I'm surprised any series on Fox makes it since they seem willing to juggle any show around that isn't American Idol. They've shifted House and Bones a lot this season too.
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:goodposting: Firefly and John Doe were on Friday Nights i believe. I enjoyed both shows but could never find them.Bones is now on Mondays at 8, not sure where house is yet.Wonderfalls was another good show that got the fox treatment, plus there was another similar show on a big network that got better ratings....
 
A lot of things worked against Firefly.

Obviously the decision to not air the pilot hurt. Joss and Tim Minear then had to write their "alternate pilot" over a weekend. I think it shows. The Train Job isn't very good (whereas the original pilot is outstanding). I know several people who were just turned off by the literalness of the "space western" concept. While that concept became far more subtle as the show went on, I do think Joss suffered in the early scripts by making the concept a bit too blatant and precious.

I'm not sure otherwise showing the episodes out of order hurt that much. Our Mrs. Reynolds is a much stronger episode than either Shindig or Safe, so I understand the idea between airing it early.

There was a lot of talk of the baseball playoffs really screwing with Firefly but it doesn't really look like it was preempted all that much.

I do think that the "modern" practice of networks is to give genre shows in particular a bit longer to find an audience. Arc driven shows usually require at least 10 episodes to really hit their narrative stride. Firefly got really good faster than anything else Joss had ever done. It's first season was better than either Buffy's or Angel's. By my count, Firefly had three "great" episodes (Out of Gas, Ariel, and the pilot) and at least three more very, very good episodes (Our Mrs. Reynolds, Objects in Space, War Stories). And that's not counting Jaynetown, which was kind of cheesy but great fun.

 
"Battlestar Galactica" co-star Tahmoh Penikett, Fran Kranz ("Welcome to the Captain"), Australian Dichen Lachman and Enver Gjokaj have moved into Joss Whedon's "Dollhouse."

The four join Eliza Dushku on the 20th Century Fox TV-produced drama, which received a seven-episode order shortly before the strike.

"Dollhouse" revolves around a group of young men and women, aka "Dolls," who are imprinted with different personalities for different assignments. They have no memories of their previous lives, until Echo (Dushku) begins to try to find out who she was.

Penikett will play Paul Smith, an FBI field agent obsessed with the urban myth of Dollhouse and a twisted romantic foil for Echo.

Kranz will play Topher Brink, a twentysomething genius programmer responsible for imprinting the dolls.

Lachman will play Sierra, a doll like Echo and her friend, who has every personality in the world but her own.

Gjokaj will play Victor, also a doll and a friend of Echo's, who is childlike when he's inactive, and everything from Errol Flynn to young DeNiro when he's active.

 
Fiddles said:
andy_b said:
scoobygang said:
Baconator said:
Fans called for Firefly to put back on the air, but Joss Whedon won't work with Fox and Faux won't release the rights to another network. Thus, screwing the fans.
Click to expand...
This seems unlikely, as Joss is preparing Dollhouse for Fox as we speak.
Click to expand...
could you give me more info on this show? It was not listed for Joss at IMDB.
Click to expand...
pretty sure dushku is starring
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<_< would love her in a another joss show.

 
Fiddles said:
"Battlestar Galactica" co-star Tahmoh Penikett, Fran Kranz ("Welcome to the Captain"), Australian Dichen Lachman and Enver Gjokaj have moved into Joss Whedon's "Dollhouse."The four join Eliza Dushku on the 20th Century Fox TV-produced drama, which received a seven-episode order shortly before the strike."Dollhouse" revolves around a group of young men and women, aka "Dolls," who are imprinted with different personalities for different assignments. They have no memories of their previous lives, until Echo (Dushku) begins to try to find out who she was.Penikett will play Paul Smith, an FBI field agent obsessed with the urban myth of Dollhouse and a twisted romantic foil for Echo.Kranz will play Topher Brink, a twentysomething genius programmer responsible for imprinting the dolls.Lachman will play Sierra, a doll like Echo and her friend, who has every personality in the world but her own.Gjokaj will play Victor, also a doll and a friend of Echo's, who is childlike when he's inactive, and everything from Errol Flynn to young DeNiro when he's active.
Click to expand...
I'm pretty sure I saw some kind of preview/intro to this show somewhere.Is it on the Serentiy DVD?
 
Fiddles said:
"Battlestar Galactica" co-star Tahmoh Penikett, Fran Kranz ("Welcome to the Captain"), Australian Dichen Lachman and Enver Gjokaj have moved into Joss Whedon's "Dollhouse."The four join Eliza Dushku on the 20th Century Fox TV-produced drama, which received a seven-episode order shortly before the strike."Dollhouse" revolves around a group of young men and women, aka "Dolls," who are imprinted with different personalities for different assignments. They have no memories of their previous lives, until Echo (Dushku) begins to try to find out who she was.Penikett will play Paul Smith, an FBI field agent obsessed with the urban myth of Dollhouse and a twisted romantic foil for Echo.Kranz will play Topher Brink, a twentysomething genius programmer responsible for imprinting the dolls.Lachman will play Sierra, a doll like Echo and her friend, who has every personality in the world but her own.Gjokaj will play Victor, also a doll and a friend of Echo's, who is childlike when he's inactive, and everything from Errol Flynn to young DeNiro when he's active.
Click to expand...
Thank you for the info. I will have to keep my eyes out for this. I have really enjoyed Buffy, Angel and Firefly so I am hopeful for this...
 
Jayrod said:
Fiddles said:
"Battlestar Galactica" co-star Tahmoh Penikett, Fran Kranz ("Welcome to the Captain"), Australian Dichen Lachman and Enver Gjokaj have moved into Joss Whedon's "Dollhouse."

The four join Eliza Dushku on the 20th Century Fox TV-produced drama, which received a seven-episode order shortly before the strike.

"Dollhouse" revolves around a group of young men and women, aka "Dolls," who are imprinted with different personalities for different assignments. They have no memories of their previous lives, until Echo (Dushku) begins to try to find out who she was.

Penikett will play Paul Smith, an FBI field agent obsessed with the urban myth of Dollhouse and a twisted romantic foil for Echo.

Kranz will play Topher Brink, a twentysomething genius programmer responsible for imprinting the dolls.

Lachman will play Sierra, a doll like Echo and her friend, who has every personality in the world but her own.

Gjokaj will play Victor, also a doll and a friend of Echo's, who is childlike when he's inactive, and everything from Errol Flynn to young DeNiro when he's active.
Click to expand...
I'm pretty sure I saw some kind of preview/intro to this show somewhere.Is it on the Serentiy DVD?
Click to expand...
http://www.dollverse.com/
 
Lots of things lead to the demise of Firefly which is too bad because the show was excellent.

But I think the most important was the general rule that's been true for the last decade: if a show gets put in the Friday night time slot on Fox, don't get attached because it's not long for this world. Although, I think Friday night is a death slot for most of the major stations. The only network that seems to do that well on Fridays is Sci-Fi with it's counter-programming (or maybe wrestling which is also counter-programming in a way.)

 
Boone22 said:
http://www.dollverse.com/
Click to expand...
I'm a bit worried that other than Minear, only Fain and Craft have been hired as writers. Joss and Tim work great together, so that's encouraging. And I thought Fain and Craft wrote solid, if not spectacular, episodes of Angel. Still, you wonder how many Whedonverse writers Joss will be able to lure back.Drew Goddard works on Lost. Jane Espenson is with Battlestar. I think David Fury has given up writing (he might still be with 24).

 
scoobygang said:
Boone22 said:
http://www.dollverse.com/
Click to expand...
I'm a bit worried that other than Minear, only Fain and Craft have been hired as writers. Joss and Tim work great together, so that's encouraging. And I thought Fain and Craft wrote solid, if not spectacular, episodes of Angel. Still, you wonder how many Whedonverse writers Joss will be able to lure back.Drew Goddard works on Lost. Jane Espenson is with Battlestar. I think David Fury has given up writing (he might still be with 24).
Click to expand...
BSG is in its last season, so she may free up relatively soon.
 
GregR said:
Because people didn't watch it. It got crappy ratings. Of the 11 episodes that were aired, 4 of them were the lowest rated Fox show that week, and it never did better than 3rd from last. The initial episode was 66th out of 119 prime time shows, the second episode was 78th out of 125, and the other 9 episodes it ranked between 88th and 103rd.Fox just didn't give people enough time to discover how incredible it was. Maybe the night and/or shows they aired it against played a role too, dunno.I agree about how awesome of a show it is, though. By the way, if you haven't watched the DVDs with the commentary on, you should. Especially the 2 hour pilot episode, when it's Joss Whedon (series creator) and Nathan Fillion (Mal) doing the commentary. You'll totally see where the sense of humor in the series comes from when you listen to those two cut up. The commentary for Serenity is good too, and also I recommend the commentary on the Objects in Space episode, though it's a lot more cerebral and less funny, but it's a great insight into what goes on in Joss Whedon's mind.
Click to expand...
Nobody watched it, including myself, because the name was "Firefly" and the ads didn't sell the show very well. Pulling any show, especially one like that, after a few eps is beyond moronic.
 
Space ships and horse saddles don't work well together (unless they both belong to Jean-Luc Picard).

 
Why does everyone on the ship look like they just walked off of the beach in Malibu?

My first reaction was to check IMDB to see what soap operas these actors were in

Given how many scraps the captain has been in, he should be a bit uglier and missing a few teeth.

I love how they are totally screwed and then, in an instant, all of there issues are resolved in a few seconds...

High budget and low ratings is not a good formula.

most of the main characters are somewhat abrasive

That said, great show

 
Great show. I didn't catch on till it was over and had seen the movie. The movie is really solid. I love the scene where they lead the Reavers into the government team hunting them down. Classic.

 
I really loved the whole space cowboys theme. it worked in this instance. i never say the show until after i saw the movie. i really wish i had seen it when it aired.

i heard rumors a while back of a second movie but I guess that fizzled out.

 
Firefly was the kind of show that would have lasted forever on a cable network that wasn't driven strictly by ratings. In my opinion, some of the show's concepts (developing planets are low tech, there's no sound in outer space, etc.) was just a bit too out there for casual viewers to embrace. Plus, Fox advertised the show as a high-tech space opera whereas most episodes were very low-tech and downright Western-ish. I think Fox was initially excited to have Whedon's next big show, but things went sour sometime before it began to air. Once it debuted, it seemed like Fox was just happy to have it wither on the vine and move on to other things.

 
I'm starting to hate Fox. They moved my beloved Terminator to Friday where I expect it will be canceled after this season.

:thumbup:

 
Jobber said:
I'm starting to hate Fox. They moved my beloved Terminator to Friday where I expect it will be canceled after this season. :goodposting:
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I agree, why do people keep pitching sci-fi shows to Fox or any mainstream network? Wouldn't it just be better for them all to go to SCI-FI network and just stay where they are wanted?
 
skazooz said:
I've often said one could almost make a successful network out of shows FOX has cancelled in the past decade. The following lists gets us to 7.5 hours a week.Arrested DevelopmentAndy Richter Controls the UniverseFireflyFuturamaFamily GuyThe TickUndeclaredJohn DoeWonderfallsKeen EddieJust missing the decade mark is one of my all time favorite series, The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.
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Don't forget Strange Luck. Awesome show that Fox dropped.
 
Sand said:
skazooz said:
I've often said one could almost make a successful network out of shows FOX has cancelled in the past decade. The following lists gets us to 7.5 hours a week.Arrested DevelopmentAndy Richter Controls the UniverseFireflyFuturamaFamily GuyThe TickUndeclaredJohn DoeWonderfallsKeen EddieJust missing the decade mark is one of my all time favorite series, The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.
Click to expand...
Don't forget Strange Luck. Awesome show that Fox dropped.
Click to expand...
Well that was just a summer series. But supposedly they were pleased with it's success that they were gonna bring it back during the regular season. Somehow, that never happened.
 
Hov34 said:
Jobber said:
I'm starting to hate Fox. They moved my beloved Terminator to Friday where I expect it will be canceled after this season. :boxing:
Click to expand...
I agree, why do people keep pitching sci-fi shows to Fox or any mainstream network? Wouldn't it just be better for them all to go to SCI-FI network and just stay where they are wanted?
Click to expand...
because the budgets some sci fi shows require is above and beyond what the Sci Fi network can support through sponsorships. Very few seems to find the right balance (like Stargate has) on the Sci Fi Channel.
 
Hov34 said:
Jobber said:
I'm starting to hate Fox. They moved my beloved Terminator to Friday where I expect it will be canceled after this season. :popcorn:
Click to expand...
I agree, why do people keep pitching sci-fi shows to Fox or any mainstream network? Wouldn't it just be better for them all to go to SCI-FI network and just stay where they are wanted?
Click to expand...
And don't forget that Fox put Dollhouse -- Whedon's new show -- into the Friday night timeslot right after Terminator. If I'm Joss Whedon, there's no way I do another show with Fox.
 
Top #3 Sci-fi show of all time......creeping into my top 10 TV show of all time on one damn season...

watched S1 3 times already..

 
GregR said:
Because people didn't watch it. It got crappy ratings. Of the 11 episodes that were aired, 4 of them were the lowest rated Fox show that week, and it never did better than 3rd from last. The initial episode was 66th out of 119 prime time shows, the second episode was 78th out of 125, and the other 9 episodes it ranked between 88th and 103rd.Fox just didn't give people enough time to discover how incredible it was. Maybe the night and/or shows they aired it against played a role too, dunno.I agree about how awesome of a show it is, though. By the way, if you haven't watched the DVDs with the commentary on, you should. Especially the 2 hour pilot episode, when it's Joss Whedon (series creator) and Nathan Fillion (Mal) doing the commentary. You'll totally see where the sense of humor in the series comes from when you listen to those two cut up. The commentary for Serenity is good too, and also I recommend the commentary on the Objects in Space episode, though it's a lot more cerebral and less funny, but it's a great insight into what goes on in Joss Whedon's mind.
Click to expand...
I remember when it came out and I didn't watch it because the ads for it looked terrible. I ended up watching it on DVD and was shocked at how poorly it was marketed. It also doesn't make sense to cancel a show after 11 episodes without trying to market it better.
 
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So you're saying there's a chance....

FOX OPEN TO FIREFLY REBOOT IF JOSS WHEDON WANTS TO


Given the success of Fox’s reboots of The X-Files and 24, and Prison Break returning this year, Madden said he’d be open to a Firefly reboot if Joss Whedon himself wanted to revisit it. Madden suspects Whedon is now too busy with movies, and he would not consider doing Firefly without Whedon
Click to expand...

 
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