Are Firefly Ratings Good Enough For UPN?
POSTED BY: Haken
UPDATED: Saturday, December 14, 2002 16:05
VIEWED: 12040
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Sadly, Whedon's track record is more than questionable. He's primarily a writer on trashy movies, who has three TV series, none of which have ever broken out of niche and genre audiences.
Somewhat inaccurate, especially in the movie department. Let's take a look at the movies shall we?
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992)
Admittedly this does qualify as it was a low budget, badly cast, and badly directed camp fest. On the other hand that's about par for the course for someone with Joss's experience level at that point (even the great Robert Towne's first screenplay was for the Roger "camp master" Corman movie Last Woman on Earth).
Toy Story (1995)
Joss got an Oscar nomination for being one of the 4 writers with screenplay credit (along with an additional 2 who only got "story" credit...who says good things don't come out of committees
). WHile its impossible to say who wrote what when you have this many an Oscar nomination is a feather in your cap regardless.Alien: Resurrection (1997)
Admittedly this one wasn't great, but given the handicaps they had from the previous film (which was also pretty bad) this one was actually pretty okay (though whoever did the production design for the "new hybrid Alien" at the end needs to get smacked). imdb.com rates it as a 6.0 and it did make over $100 million world wide.
Titan A.E. (2000)
imdb.com rates this as a 6.5. Which isn't too shabby considering that John (Charlie's Angels) August is listed as one of the screenwriters. Not bad considering...
This isn't even counting all the "uncredited script doctor" work that Whedon's gotten (including, apparently, on Speed). I sort of think Whedon is starting to get viewed as the TV version of Robert Altman, someone who has his trademarks and die hard fans (and who usually produces the series relatively economically given its subject matter...). My main beef is with him being characterized as a writer of trashy movies as the man has an Oscar nomination and a certain amount of respect as a script doctor.
edited to add:
Also, about Buffy's falling ratings? UPN's ratings are down across the board (Enterprise is down, Smackdown is down, and those are all three of UPN's top 3) so this doesn't really reflect on Buffy at all.
Nathan
"It looks like a great adventure...That's what it is; that's what it feels like. When I saw the pilot, it was really engaging. It was exciting. It was unusual. It threw me off every now and then. I think people will be grabbed by it." - Ron Glass, on the pilot, during an interview with the Indianapolis Star
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About Buffy's falling ratings. It ain't Buffy's fault as UPN has lost a few affiliates, and Buffy is still UPN's Golden show
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Just here to reiterate a few things that have already been said.
1. At some points in the season, Firefly has had higher ratings than Buffy. We can presume that part of this is because there is a loyal group of fans, primarily in the male 18-49 demographic, who watch every week. If UPN advertised Firefly more than Fox did, it would be likely to do VERY well.
2. UPN is in LOVE with Joss Whedon.
3. Right now, UPN is our best bet because they have a record of picking up shows from other networks as well as an established relationship with Mutant Enemy. That's not to say UPN is the ONLY network they can market the show to - they're just the one that Mutant Enemy is trying first.
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The thing is, UPN paid what they did for Buffy thinking they could use it to anchor a strong night, if not a strong network. And they failed miserably. They take a loss on the episodes of Buffy they buy, in the hopes that they can use it to make money on other, cheaper shows.
Unfortunately, that's not working.
Unless Firefly becomes one of those cheaper shows, and they anchored Tuesday night with it... but then I'd have to choose between it and 24, and that would sadden me deeply. =/
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