Recent convert question!

POSTED BY: andyeats
UPDATED: Saturday, April 16, 2005 06:43
VIEWED: 2719
PAGE 1 of 1

ANDYEATS

Friday, April 15, 2005 5:23 PM

Yes, I imagine you have probably been asked this a thousand times before.....but after watching the DVD's, I cannot understand how this show was dumped before it ended!

As a UK fan and only hearing of Firefly recently, what exactly was the story behind the cancellation in the US?
Is there a thread on this site where I can get up to speed?

I know the film is on its way, but I feel I have just watched the finest SCI-FI series I have ever seen, and I need more!!!!

MANWITHPEZ

Friday, April 15, 2005 5:35 PM

Whew! Talk about opening some floodgates! Well, there's plenty of information out there about the cancellation and its story. Just takes some looking around...Short version...Fox screwed Joss Whedon and his fans. Good result...New MOVIE!

Kaylee: "What's so damn important about being proper? It don't mean nothing out here in the black."
Simon: "It means more out here. It's all I have..."

DIZ

Friday, April 15, 2005 7:40 PM

Hi & welcome!

To answer your question a bit more fully (and some of this is rumor, but pretty solid rumor, if you know what I mean)... first of all, FOX wanted Buffy in Space. They wanted a show with action, humor, and great heroes. After Joss gave them the pilot, they were not pleased (and I believe (someone will correct me if I am wrong) that this was the second time they re-did the pilot). So Joss and Tim scrambled and wrote THE TRAIN JOB in one weekend, to apease them. FOX wanted Mal to be a funny guy, very likeable. Joss wanted Mal to be darker and more serious. In the end, the execs at FOX were not happy with the show, and did nothing to support it. They showed it out of order (a killer with all the continuity that Joss built in), they preempted it, put it in a bad time-slot, and promoted it poorly. Then after a few showings, yanked it off the air. The final insult was showing the pilot last, after it had been canceled.

FOX has a rep for canceling good shows before they have a chance to build an audience, and replacing them with bad rip-off reality shows. Unfortunately, much of Joss' fanbase had a bad feeling FIREFLY wouldn't last, even before it aired. The brisk sales of the DVD is kind of like a big "I told you so" to the jerks at FOX, but it's bitter-sweet because those fools are making money off this fabulous show that they canceled.

Thank goodness there is a movie, with more possible, or I would be all kinds of depressed!

CHANNAIN

Friday, April 15, 2005 8:43 PM

First and foremost...

*pours a cup of fresh wine*

Welcome aboard!

*passes the cup*

Quote:
Diz wrote:
FOX has a rep for canceling good shows before they have a chance to build an audience, and replacing them with bad rip-off reality shows.

They were actually called "The Serial Killer of Quality Television" in one article. I wish I could tell you which one.

Quote:
Diz wrote:
Thank goodness there is a movie, with more possible, or I would be all kinds of depressed!

That makes about... how many of us bought the DVDs again?

Fans come and fans go...but zealots are with you until the bitter black end.
I draw...therefore I am. http://www.mnartists.org/artistHome.do?rid=7922
Minnesota Meetup - join us! http://firefly.meetup.com/45/

SICKDUDE

Friday, April 15, 2005 10:42 PM

Since I'm fairly new here as well, there's a related question I gotta ask. Again, sorry if it means repeating posted stuff. If you want to point me in the right direction...

What were the reasons why Joss and company couldn't take the show to another network. I'm assuming it's a legal issue.

Thanks!

"Don't say 'ka' until you've tried it." Daniel Jackson

NYWOE

Saturday, April 16, 2005 12:46 AM

>>What were the reasons why Joss and company couldn't take the show to another network. I'm assuming it's a legal issue.<<

Joss did shop it around, but none of the other networks wanted it, if I remember correctly. I think they saw it as too expensive of a show to take a risk on. In other works, cheap-to-produce reality T.V. was giving everyone dollar signs in their eyes.

I was so shocked when it was cancelled. I simply couldn't believe it.

If not for the movie, I would be a severely bitter person, here!

I have heard of a place where humans do battle in a ring of Jell-O.
--Teal'c

ECGORDON

Saturday, April 16, 2005 1:42 AM

Everyone thought that Sci-Fi Channel was a logical network that would pick up the show, but they had canceled Farscape because it was too expensive in comparison with the ratings it was receiving, so Firefly probably looked to be more of the same to them.

No disrespect to anyone who is a Stargate fan, but can you imagine how shiny a Friday night it would be if SFC had kept Farscape and picked up Firefly too, and then followed that with Battlestar Galactica?

I would be in starship heaven, let me tell ya!

wo men ren ran zai fei xing.

SOUPCATCHER

Saturday, April 16, 2005 6:43 AM

Hi andyeats!

Just wanted to join in with the welcome.