Poor Fox isn't doing so well. Boo Hoo

POSTED BY: Beatle
UPDATED: Saturday, July 3, 2004 20:32
VIEWED: 9908
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Originally posted by liz:
You are right Astriana -- i believe it was Jewel that said they didn't have a wrap party (and someone here on FFFn offered to throw one fore them!)
Lailing here's a link if you are looking for an unbiased story:
http://tv.zap2it.com/tveditorial/tve_main/1,1002,271|79147|1|,00.html

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Apparently, Zap2It has "undergone a redesign", and the link doesn't work - and neither do the ones on the site. I'll have to try to search for it later, I guess.

"They've gone to *plaid*!"

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i tried the link and it didn't work, then i tried again and it did... go figure.
anyways here's the article:

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TV News
'Firefly' to Go on Hiatus As FOX Shuffles Midseason
(Tuesday, November 26 10:00 PM)
FOX is introducing a whole series of changes to its schedule com January, heralded by Joss Whedon's "Firefly" going on hiatus.
FOX President of Entertainment Gail Berman admitted Tuesday (Nov. 26) that the ambitious sci-fi western "did not find an audience right away."

"What we know is happening with the show is the great creative growth that it's experiencing. That's why we ordered additional episodes," says Berman. "We think that Joss is finding his creative voice with this show and we need to see how that's going to work for us in December."



Berman says FOX will promote "Firefly" heavily and wait to see if there is any ratings growth when the network airs the original two-hour pilot in December.
"Because we had already ordered additional episodes, we are going to have several episodes available when it's out of production. So we'll have a running start if we want to put it back in production," adds Berman.

With "Firefly" on hold, FOX will move "Fastlane" from its Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET slot to Fridays at 8 p.m. in January.

Starting Jan. 29, Wednesday nights will start off with "That '70s Show" followed by the weekly results of the second "American Idol" at 8:30 p.m. "The Bernie Mac Show" and "Cedric the Entertainer Presents" will move to 9 p.m.

FOX will announce shortly what will fill the Mondays at 9 p.m. timeslot following "Boston Public" since David E. Kelley's "girls club" was so short-lived. Many assume that midseason drama "Keen Eddie," starring Mark Valley ("Pasadena") as a New York cop who has to go to London to redeem himself, is the front-runner.

Since losing key anchor shows "Ally McBeal" and "The X-Files" last season, FOX has been struggling to perform. This showed during the November sweeps, when the launch of FOX's new primetime shows were hurt rather than helped by the disruption of the baseball season.

Berman calls it a "transitional year."

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Thanx!
"Did not find an audience right away"? They must have been looking to hook the whole of the world and within the 1st 3 frames of the show, because if it didn't find an audience right away, then who are all the people buying the DVD's? And why would mega-studio Universal bother buying the rights? You don't see them doing a "Sword of Justice" movie, do you? (Anybody remember that show? It was about a playboy-type guy jailed for a crime he didn't commit. He learned all kinds of cool criminal stuff in jail, though, & when he got out, he used the knowledge to fight crime. On only 1 season & I really liked it. Doubt anybody will revive it in any form...) Ok, I'm officially starting to wonder about Fox. What I'm wondering is if they went to the NBC school of programming. (Referring to NBC's deliberate killing of Star Trek-TOS. Basically it boils down to: they didn't like it, so they killed it.)

"They've gone to *plaid*!"

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Originally posted by Cybersnark:
Pretty sure the official reason was that the show was a flop, ratings-wise. Some weeks, the show actually received zero ratings.

(Yes, due to the musical timeslots, the repeated pre-emptions [can't get ratings if it's not on], and the lack of advertising, but those figures probably aren't recorded anywhere.)

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We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.

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Maybe I hit my head too hard or I was in an alternate dimension at the time but I don't remember the show being Pre-Empted (maybe once) and I seem to remember lots of TV and Radio ads for it. Is my memory fading?

BTW I live in upstate New York so maybe the folk who run the local FuX station liked it.

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The show did cost a lot of money and it wasn't getting good enough ratings so they can make a profit off of it. Mostly because FOX thought they knew what was good for the show and not Joss. They doomed it to Friday night and they were wondering why they it wasn't getting good ratings? They didn't even bother showing the pilot and they wondered why it wasn't getting good ratings? They showed the episodes out of order and they wondered why it wasn't getting good ratings? They promoted it mostly as a comedy show and they wondered why it wasn't getting good ratings? I think they spent most of their money on acid or something.

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I think the Acid would have just made them smarter, this was pure sober stupidity.

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The pre-empting folks are referring to, GunRunner, was the baseball games playing at the time. Think it was some big tournament, called "The World Series." Not nearly as important as FF to us browncoats, but fox seemed to think it was more important than treating the show properly.

Mind that you don't slip and fall on the bitter tears.

Jayne: "You got yourself lookin' mighty hideous!"

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Could also be me being unclear; sometimes I describe it as "pre-empting" when a network decides seemingly randomly to air, say Survivor or Fear Factor in another show's timeslot without actually telling anyone beforehand (and not actually rescheduling said show).

It's typically one of those "and now, three episodes of ___" deals. wherein they rplace the two hour-long blocks after or before the show's official timeslot.

Plus: they aired "Serenity" in December? I recall it was January before I saw it.

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We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.

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Originally posted by LaiLing:
By the way, I never DID hear: just why, exactly, did Fox say they cancelled Firefly - and was that the real reason? Also, I've heard many rumors and hearsay, but nothing specific (no actual quotes by anybody - Fox or Firefly) as to what Fox did or said, to piss Firefly people off - or vise-versa. ...
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http://tv.zap2it.com/tveditorial/tve_main/1,1002,271|84985|1|,00.html

..."Asked what he learned from his "Firefly" experience, Whedon says, "Don't tell your actors you're going to run for seven years when you're not. Make sure that the people buying your show actually want it. That was a big one."...

Sounds like a Fox executive got Joss/Firefly forced down his throat and then sabotaged it.

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