Why is Firefly a 'Hard Sell'?

POSTED BY: SergeantX
UPDATED: Saturday, October 4, 2003 22:04
VIEWED: 9407
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SERGEANTX

Friday, January 3, 2003 1:56 AM

I first heard about Firefly on slashdot.org. I remember, that while the article was positive, a majority of the follow up posts were critizing the concept and obviously not pre-sold fans. Their comments, and most of the negative comments I've seen since about Firefly, had a consistent thread. Most of them were really just saying that Firefly wasn't what they expected, therefore they didn't like it. Rarely have those critical of the show tried to make a claim that the acting was poor, or that the scripts weren't well written or anything else substantial.

Viewers complained about the western theme, the hillbilly dialect, six-shooters, the music, the dark tone, the number of characters, etc.. I'm sure you've read more of these types of complaints than you care to, but I'm trying to make some sense out of the fact that a lot of the people that Fox expected to be instant fans of the show just didn't sign on. Part of the problem, I suspect, is that Firefly really doesn't have a target 'demographic'. A casual survey of the fansites and message boards shows a large variety of people. I think that Fox expected to have a core audience of traditional science fiction fans (trek fans) bolstered by Joss Whedon's Buffy fans. When it became clear that those people weren't watching in large numbers they started (apparently) trying to target younger viewers with those ridiculous MTV-style ads. I'm sure many of the younger crowd that did check it out weren't happy with what they saw because, once again, it wasn't what they expected.

Now, I can't speak for all Firefly fans, but part of what I like so much about the show is the very way it tweaks expections. I remember specifically when I thought this show might be something special. It was at the end of "Train Job"-not the best pilot, but still a good episode- when Mal casually kicked the big thug into the engine intake. I sat there staring at the screen, just smiling. It was so much fun precisely because it was NOT what we expected. Joss Whedon's stock in trade is in tweaking expectations. The one thing you might expect in an ME script is that you'll get something you didn't expect.

The problem is, only a small percentage of viewers really like this kind of thing. I don't mean Firefly is doomed to a small fanatical following. What I mean is most people prefer the comfort of predictability. Sure, they like excitement and humor, but given a choice they'll take the complacency of yet another formula show, because its just like some other show they liked. If they are given time, and if there is enough buzz, (in other words, if they think everyone else is doing it) they will watch the show and fall in love with it the way we have, but its not the kind
of thing they will seek out on their own.

The problem gets worse when you try to target that small percentage of people who will be drawn to something truly new and original, because they don't exist in any specific demographic. They are older, younger, female, male -- the only thing that really ties them together is they are pretty tired of the same old stuff. There are enough of us out there to support a show like Firefly, but we don't fit into some specific slice on a pie chart. Its been shown over and over, that groundbreaking art, especially television, tends to flounder while it finds it audience. All in the Family, MASH, Cheers... all these had slow starts, but they had leadership that recognized the quality and had the patience to wait for momentum to build.

So now we hold our breaths, waiting to see if UPN has the kind of leadership and patience that FOX obviously lacked....

SergeantX

"..and here's to all the dreamers, may our open hearts find rest." -- Nanci Griffith

HJERMSTED

Friday, January 3, 2003 7:05 AM

All audience building takes is time. Look at X-Files. That show was new, different and tweaked people's expectations. Was it a cop show? was it about aliens? was it a conspiracy drama? X-Files was edgy, unique and on Fox just like Firefly. In TV terms, that was a whole era ago now Fox is less edgy, more stodgy and harbors delusions of being in the network top 3.

I work with a couple dudes that are total sci fi geeks. Farscape was their show and Babylon 5 before that. They gave up on Firefly around the "Jaynestown" episode. This means they saw "Train Job", "Bushwacked", "Shindig", "Safe", and "Our Mrs. Reynolds". Only "Bushwacked" and parts of "...Reynolds" are comparable to hard sci-fi. The other episodes were planet-based and therefore more western in nature.

Had My co-workers hung on, they would have seen "Out of Gas", "Ariel", "War Stories", "Objects In Space", and a re-worked "Serentiy"... six of the finest hours of sci fi TV I have ever witnessed with very few planet side scenes.

It is now my mission to get these sci-fi co-workers of mine to sit down and watch the episodes they blew off.

Like it or not, WE are the buzz builders for Firefly. The show speaks for itself. Share your tapes and VCDs with as many people as you possibly can whether they are sci-fi fans or not.

Include a couple pre-printed and addressed postcards with your dubs so your friends can scribble a quick note immediately after they are hooked and help the cause.

Keep Flying!

mattro

ALLRONIX

Friday, January 3, 2003 3:27 PM

Oh, Gods. I made an utter pain of myself by crashing a Deadlands game with postcards in hand and refusing to leave until each player signed one.

Will it work? I'm trying to set myself up for the mosre likely news that UPN won't take it, Joss has to walk away, tail between legs, and this little show's toast.

But, considering my whole life has been championing the impossible...what the hell?

Co-founder of the Evil Writing Crew - causing hell, one hero at a time!

SUINEGAGPF

Saturday, January 4, 2003 1:10 AM

The answer is: peer pressure.

I am not necessarily advocating that you should corner your friends and co-workers with duct tape in hand... although it might come to that.

Most people have a basic desire to fit in (to be popular).

So what happens when something new and different appears on the scene? No one wants to be the first to try it. And worse yet, they don't want to find out that they are the only ones who like it. So if they do watch the show they are predisposed to nitpicking every little detail that doesn't conform to what is considered to be popular. And as soon as one person starts complaining they all jump on the bandwagon. Once the popular opinion has been established, it is very difficult to get people to change their minds. People who never even saw the show will be completely convinced that it is not worth seeing.

So what is the answer?

The answer is: peer pressure.

To sell a show that doesn't conform, you need some way to convince people that it is alright to like it because it is new and different. I think the network should have pre-screened the first 10 episodes to several well respected TV critics and built the initial advertising campaign solely from their favorable quotes. Get people comfortable with the idea that it is ok to like it. Then when people start to watch the show, instead of complaining about this or that they'd be more likely to just enjoy it.

And if that didn't work, then we duct tape them to their chairs and hide the remote.

----
(I know a few friends who are going to require the duct tape treatment.)

BOBKNAPTOR

Saturday, January 4, 2003 2:24 AM

"All the cool kids are doing it"? Well, heck, it works for cigarettes......

______________
Willow: She was already smoking in fifth grade. Once I was lookout for her.
Xander: You're bad to the bone.
Willow: I'm a rebel.

LORA

Saturday, January 4, 2003 4:45 PM

This may sound elitist (I've been accused of worse sentiments before), but I believe that the percentage of people in the world who want to watch characters struggle to live in freedom, and succeed despite their human flaws, is very low. Most people want either a super-hero who is somehow better than everyone else (Buffy herself has weaknesses, but still possesses her unique Slayer-powers) or a supposedly realistic show where everyone behaves in a predictable, usually base, manner. Mal has an accent that would prejudice most folks to underestimate his abilities; Zoe and Wash are not the stereotypical married couple; Jayne is openly mercenary, the open part being unexpected; Kaylee is a very young woman with a talent other than looking pretty; Simon has a lot of heart, even though he's a gifted child; Book is not one's sunday school teacher; Inara is a prostitute with more class than most people can even recognize; and River is ... River. These are not characters from a soap opera -- they have depth and are well-acted. I think they are simply too much for most people.

Further, these characters have made sacrifices that make one think of the supposedly important things that could be done without in life. I believe that the majority of us avoid thinking about hard choices like that. (Shows with characters whose driving personality traits are lust and greed seem to dominate. Case in point being "The Bachelor" in all its variations.) Mal and Zoe show us the hard work and determination necessary to live for oneself and not for a social structure, and things that must be left behind to do it. Simon came out and told us in "Objects in Space" (and "Serenity", which I do wish I'd been able to see first) exactly what he left behind because he knew something more important than success.

If we can persuade other people that these characters are inspiring, we will do them a service.

I don't care, I'm still free. You can't take the sky from me.

GUNNAR

Saturday, January 4, 2003 7:02 PM

"Firefly" came as a surprise to me. I didn't even know it was on the schedule until the evening I saw the first episode. I found it to be more intriguing than "X-Files", the character's better written than those in "Northern Exposure" certainly far superior to the formula "CSI:" and "Law and Order" shows. The show's humor was of high quality, it's hardware far more believable (and enjoyable) than those of other sci fi programs and movies. The stories were right on for it's times and still Fox blundered. I hope UPN will now use "Firefly" as another program of quaility to add to their line up. I'm 63 years old, don't fit the demographics but I've watched and enjoyed every episode.

Keith McArthur

SELNYC

Saturday, January 4, 2003 8:08 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Gunnar:
"Firefly" came as a surprise to me.

Does this mean you've never seen any of Joss Whedon's other shows? If that's the case, my friend, the best advice for you is run, don't walk, to your nearest electronics store, pick up a DVD player and the first three seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. All the stuff you like about Firefly is in there without the pesky getting cancelled thing.

Quote:
The show's humor was of high quality, it's hardware far more believable (and enjoyable) than those of other sci fi programs and movies. The stories were right on for it's times and still Fox blundered.

All of Joss Whedon's shows and screenplays combine elements in new and exciting ways. We may say Firefly is a combination of Science Fiction and Western genres, but its also about existentialism, it's about how you go on living in a world of intolerable conditions. Mal's answer is he keeps on moving.

As far as the hardware, as seen in Buffy, Joss tries to deal with fantastic elements in as realistic a fashion as possible. Real SF fans know there is no sound in space and that faster-than-light travel is like, in Gregory Benford's words, "playing tennis with the net down". That's not to say Joss doesn't take shortcuts (vamps turn into dust when staked, a convenience so we don't have a half-hour of killing vampires followed by a half-hour of burying them), but those shortcuts are in the interest of moving the story along. And as you've seen, these stories do move along.

Quote:
I'm 63 years old, don't fit the demographics but I've watched and enjoyed every episode.

Well, I'm 49 and the only demographic I fit into is the one called "People who like really good writing". When somethings well-written, it does not matter where it's set, what genre it wants to be or how big their spaceships may be. If Joss wanted to re-write the Yellow Pages, I'd read it cover-to-cover...

I'm a mean old man.

GUNNAR

Saturday, January 4, 2003 9:26 PM

I've only seen shorts bits of "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer" and no, I didn't know who Joss Whedon was until "Firefly". I'll have to look in at other things he has done. I'm a hard sci fi fan which is why "Firefly" surprised me so. Everything was in order like the real world, a world of discord. I always thought it foolish that other sci fi shows only dealt with Earth in an off handed way and when they did, they used it only as a backdrop. "The Train" floored me, what a mixture! Just like the real world. So I was taken too by the western background he used, the music, the clothes, the humor, the dialect and yes, the horses. It's obvious Whedon has it all working for him now (Fox just hasn't caught on yet) and it is up to me to catch up. But I do want more of "Firefly".

Is anyone doing anything about compiling tape sets?

Keith McArthur

SELNYC

Sunday, January 5, 2003 6:02 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Gunnar:
I'm a hard sci fi fan which is why "Firefly" surprised me so. Everything was in order like the real world, a world of discord. ... But I do want more of "Firefly".

Is anyone doing anything about compiling tape sets?

I'm also a hard SF fan, Keith, going back 40 years or more (do the Tom Swift books count?), but I don't have to tell you about the paucity of creditable space operas or any other SF on film or TV. George Lucas, long considered the master of filmed SF, plainly has it all wrong, especially when he spends too much time considering what kinds of sounds his "space-bombs" might make in a meteor field (SW II), not to mention his heavy reliance on other people's sense of what is mythic or might resonate with a modern audience; Joss has no such problem. Aside from Silent Running, which had a multitude of other problems, I'm hard pressed to think of another big studio SF/space opera film that even came close to getting the basics right.

Blade Runner perhaps, but only because of it's dystopian view of the future, maybe the Mad Max series (looking forward to the recently announced Mad Max IV, now that Mel's involved). But neither of these films were set in space. Utopian visions of our future as evinced by the Star Trek series seem hopelessly clueless, especially when we look at the position of the world in which we live now -- it is difficult for me to feel optimistic after living through 9/11 here in NYC and then seeing what our government deems an appropriate response -- invading Iraq, which winds up smelling like we've got a couple of "ex"-oilmen in the White House looking to protect the interests of their "former" oilman colleagues.OK, I know that last part was off-topic -- sorry, spent the afternoon and evening at the bar watching football. No, I'm not drunk -- lil happy, maybe...

It is also my opinion that Gene Roddenberry, as much as he was one of the, if not the most, major figures responsible for bringing filmed SF from a niche market into the mainstream, is also responsible for much of the mis-information about what hard SF, especially space operas, is all about. At the same time, let's also note that both Roddenberry and Whedon "cheat" by "inventing" artificial gravity for their space ships; I'm willing to forgive Joss (and Gene) if only because showing zero gravity on an episodic weekly TV show is prohibitively expensive.

As far as tape sets go, Joss and Tim Minnear (his co-producer) have promised that, if the show goes no further, there will be a DVD set of all 15 episodes, which of course, includes the three we're not certain Fox is gonna show. E-mail me (click on my profile under one of my posts) and we may discuss this further.

In closing, let me apologize for the length of this post; it appears as though that masters degree I've been working on has increased my verbosity. I just hope I'm not turning into an academic.

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