What might have helped Firefly? (Hindsight is 20/20)

POSTED BY: JavidRho
UPDATED: Friday, July 11, 2003 16:37
VIEWED: 6312
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JAVIDRHO

Tuesday, July 8, 2003 3:02 PM

One of my friends asked me what I thought might have helped Firefly stay on the air (besides more advertising and a better time slot). Having worked as a script consultant in the past, I thought about this, and here is what I came up with:

All future science fiction series should start off as a miniseries - say five 2-hour shows or ten 1-hour shows. Something like that. The miniseries would end with the conclusion of a particular story arc, but still leave you with a feeling of wanting more. Think about the ending of almost all major SF movies these days - they always leave room in the plot for sequels.

To me, this would solve two issues.
1) A miniseries becomes a "TV event" which separates it from the regular TV lineup. The ten hours of the miniseries would allow people to get to know the characters much better (very important for a character-driven show like Firefly). If it ends up doing well (ratings wise) after the series ends, then it could picked up as a regular episodic show later in the year. If the miniseries comes out in the summer (good time for it), then the regular show could start in the fall.

2) If the miniseries does not bring in high enough ratings when it ends its ten week run, then the show can be remembered as a great stand-alone miniseries by those who loved it (even the lowest-rated shows have huge fan-bases). In addition, when it is later released on DVD, the fans would have the sense of completeness when the DVD ends.

I think this might have helped a show as unique as Firefly. Moreover, if it didn't help, at least the fans would feel slightly better about the series ending. After all, if you looked at it as a miniseries right from the beginning, with no promise of a continuing series, then there would be less of a reason to be upset. After all, most of the best movies (and books) have not had sequels made of them, and we still remember them forever.

Just my two-cents worth - any comments?
Any other ideas?

JAVIDRHO

Tuesday, July 8, 2003 5:14 PM

As a follow up to why I think that Firefly would have made a great miniseries, here is a description of what exactly a miniseries is - as quoted from The Museum of Broadcast Communications (link = http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/M/htmlM/miniseries/miniseries.htm)

"...the miniseries, at its best, offers a unique televisual experience, often dealing with harrowing and difficult material structured into an often transformatory narrative... The extended narrative time offered by serialisation makes possible the in-depth exploration of characters, their motivations and development, the analysis of situations and events."

Doesn't this describe Firefly?

SERGEANTX

Tuesday, July 8, 2003 5:37 PM

Makes sense to me. I wonder if Fox would yank a miniseries before it completed its run... assuming the ratings weren't up to expectations? Doesn't seem likely given that they'd probably have all the episodes finished before air time, but they did can Firefly after ordering three more epsisodes.

SergeantX

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

JAVIDRHO

Tuesday, July 8, 2003 6:07 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SergeantX:
Makes sense to me. I wonder if Fox would yank a miniseries before it completed its run... assuming the ratings weren't up to expectations? Doesn't seem likely given that they'd probably have all the episodes finished before air time, but they did can Firefly after ordering three more epsisodes.

SergeantX

I'm quite sure the network would still cancel a miniseries if the ratings were too low, but I think that miniseries, in general, get more press than regular series. Also, I think there is more desire to keep watching a miniseries once you have started it, since it is a serial (continuing story line) and you know that it is on for a limited time (i.e. you don't have to watch it all season if you don't really care for it). That might boost rating and allow enough people to get to know the characters.

You know, I was just thinking - if the two-hour Serenity pilot was launched as a "Movie of the week", it probably would have done much better, especially if it had lots of hype and maybe was shown a couple of times. Let the characters sink in awhile, then launch the series later on. Another thing that would have helped is having more informative commercials - maybe a bunch of short ads with Joss saying some of the quoted sayings that appear at the top of this site. Maybe explaining that this is not your average science fiction show. Maybe explaining that it is NOT a space western.

Okay, there are alot of things they could have done differently. Can we all just snap our fingers and go back a year and try this all over again. Okay, first we build a way-back machine, then...

NIGHTTRAIN

Tuesday, July 8, 2003 8:33 PM

Quote:
Maybe explaining that it is NOT a space western.

Could you explain to me how it is not a space western???
1. Locations, characters, style, wardrobe, themes, dialogue, and plot of so many episodes are so clearly influenced by the western genre.

2. they live on a spaceship......in space.

So if you put the previously mentioned facts together, you'd find out that when you watch your old Firefly episodes, you are in fact watching a space western.

Signature?? I DONT HAVE TIME TO THINK OF A SIGNATURE!!!!!!

VETERAN

Wednesday, July 9, 2003 1:29 AM

You have a lot of good ideas. I think 4 two hour episodes would be enough of an introduction. Showing the pilot as the movie of the week is an old idea, but showing it a couple of times might help the show work it's way into peoples' minds.

The only point I disagree with is that the Show is a Space Western. That's how Joss and Tim billed it.

ANUSBOB

Wednesday, July 9, 2003 4:37 AM

I wish to be american cowboy. I see horse on Firefly and space. Tell me science too.

MICRONAUT

Wednesday, July 9, 2003 6:13 AM

I like your ideas. I was bitching about a few things along the same lines in a different thread ( http://www.fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=2&t=2245 ).

As I mentioned in the other thread, I think that some kind of preview coupled with a DVD set is the only viable future for serialized sci-fi. Conventional TV is just too "instant fix" and/or tempermental to tolerate high concept fair like Firefly.

People (i.e. the ADD affected, unwashed masses) want fast food TV - quick laughs, quick drama, quick action, quick sex, quick tragedy and quick payoffs so they can go back to their mundane little lives without being too upset or challenged by what they just watched.

They say ignorance is bliss... that must mean there are a lot of happy campers watching Survivor....

"Just remember... all success is illusion: what has really been accomplished is the displacement of an area of specific failure to somewhere else... or is it the other way around?"

TALONPEST

Wednesday, July 9, 2003 7:24 AM

Considering that Firefly ran 13 episodes (counting Serenity as 2 parts) before Fox yanked it, I doubt they'd cancel a low-rated 10 part miniseries before it finished.

That being said, while the miniseries idea may have helped, it would be completely unnescessary if Fox had done a few things differently:

1: Give the show a timeslot other than Friday at 8, when even hard core scifi geeks go out.

2: Don't preempt it every other week for baseball.

3: Give it some decent advertising.

4: Run the episodes in $@#*ing order.

If they'd done that, ratings would have been significantly higher, and right now we'd be getting ready for season 2.

Come to think of it, Buffy and Angel seasons are essentailly miniseries in themselves, with a season-long Big Bad.

JAVIDRHO

Wednesday, July 9, 2003 10:28 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by NightTrain:
Quote:
Maybe explaining that it is NOT a space western.

Could you explain to me how it is not a space western???
1. Locations, characters, style, wardrobe, themes, dialogue, and plot of so many episodes are so clearly influenced by the western genre.

2. they live on a spaceship......in space.

So if you put the previously mentioned facts together, you'd find out that when you watch your old Firefly episodes, you are in fact watching a space western.

NightTrain,
You seemed to miss the point of this thread and concentrated on one small sentence in my original post. But, since this is a free world (and web) I will divert slightly off topic and respond to your post.

Okay, some valid point made - so maybe FF could be called a "space western," but the reason I mentioned it, is because I have read so many rants (on other sites) about how that single term put off so many people when the show was first being advertised. In fact, when I first heard the term, I thought the show would be really stupid (I was happily wrong).

With the term space western, I expected;
1) Everyone to be wearing cowboy hats (no one does)
2) Everyone wearing western clothing (a few do, but Wash wears Hawaiian shirts, and Jayne wears T-shirts.
3) Lots of shows involving cattle (only one show had cattle and that was a small part of the plot)
4) Everyone riding horses (some ride, some have ATVs, others have hovercrafts)

Being an old timer, I remember way back when the first Star Wars came out, the film reviewer, Roger Ebert, said it was simply "The Wizard of Oz in Space". Sure, there was a Tin Man (C3PO) and a scarecrow (Chewy), or maybe chewy was the lion, I don’t know. The point is, by giving a new type of show a moniker that simply mixed up two genres (space & western), it belittles the show (IMO). It’s like the way some people describe a new taste by saying it “tastes like chicken” – well, no, it does not taste like chicken, it is simply a new taste and you are having difficulty describing it.

So, having said all that, I guess I would have preferred a term like “frontier science fiction” which I think is much more appropriate. Even the term space western would have been okay, if someone had explained it better in those early days before the show first ran.

Back on topic - the reason I like the idea of a miniseries for SF shows like Firefly, is that most shows make or break it based on the pilot. A miniseries is considered sort of a really long pilot and I think people would give it a little bit longer before deciding if they like it or not. Maybe I'm wrong. I do think, however, that I would prefer to see Firefly come back as a miniseries instead of a movie. Two hours is just not enough time to explain this show to new people.

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