FF mini-series or 11 tossed-around episodes?

Monday, July 19, 2004 1:54 PM

As I was watching "The 4400" on USA Network last night I came to the conclusion that maybe Firefly should have been a mini or limited series.

Look how well "Taken" did on the Sci-Fi Channel in 2002. It was 10 episodes at 14 hours, and it had a stable schedule so that everyone was able to watch it. It did very well for the network.

Now "The 4400" is doing well in ratings, and that is going until, what, August sometime I think. The popularity of this current series shows how much fans still want to watch and enjoy sci-fi.

Perhaps if Firely had a set mini-run, allowing people to actually see it instead of hunting for the show as it was flung around the schedule, more fans would have discovered FF. Joss could have created a nice mini-series, and then when ratings showed how well it was doing, he could have then branched out into a weekly series.

I'm sure that's not how they do it, but it would have been a better fate than what Fox did to it. With a mini-series Joss would have known how many episodes he had, he wouldn't have had to worry about the stress of the network suits, he could have planned a whole story arc, and he would have got to plan 10 or 11 episodes without fear of the cancellation hatchet falling.

What also worries me is that if Joss got burned with FF -- a show he obviously felt very strongly about and loved -- what is going to make him test the shark-infested waters of the networks again? He got burned by the WB with "Angel", too. Perhaps his next show will be on pay-cable.

This doesn't mean I don't think FF deserved to be a weekly series at the start. I just feel that if Fox started with a mini-series they would have had more faith in the fans' reaction and would have had more faith in the series, they would have had better ratings, and we would have had a stable couple of weeks where we could have enjoyed the show.

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