General Discussions

Any hope for Firefly?

POSTED BY: millernate
UPDATED: Saturday, October 19, 2002 19:15
VIEWED: 18608
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JAYNESGIRLFRIEND

Tuesday, October 15, 2002 3:24 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Novagrass:

One final thing... It's really bad that you guys are being so pessimistic. If the fans are this ready to throw in the towel, it's not sending a good message to Fox AT ALL. We need to be supportive, and we need to stop all of this "oh, it has no chance in Hell" crap.

--Dylan Palmer, Pretentious Bastard at Large--

"Oh my god, I'm a hack!" - Joss Whedon

For me at least its the whole 'expect the worst and you won't be so disappointed if it happens'. I have faith in the show to be entertaining and eventually build a very loyal and fairly large fan base. I do not however have faith in Fox to wait for that to happen.

"I was gonna get me an ear, too." - Jayne

JERRY

Tuesday, October 15, 2002 3:55 AM

I'm a firm believer in enjoying every episode as though it's the last. Given Mal's philosophy that every day you keep flying is a good day, I think that's compatible with the show. There is ultimately only one thing any of us can do to keep the show afloat - tell people to watch it!

MILLERNATE

Tuesday, October 15, 2002 2:10 PM

Quote:

Umm... there's no reason to believe that it won't be renewed.

Actually there is plenty of reasons to believe that the show won't be renewed. Last week the show earned a 3.3 finale rating. Allow me to repeat: a 3.3 final rating that is significantly less than Dark Angel averaged (even during its pathetic time period at the Friday 9:00 slot). The show has to do at a MINIMUM a 4.5 average to get renewed and even that would be iffy. Especially when you factor in that the best that a TV show will do in any given season is the first episode (The best you can hope for for the rest of the season is to hold onto as much of the initial rating as you can, it sucks but that's the reality of TV in the age of cable).

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Firefly's ratings haven't been through the roof, I'll give you that, but they haven't necessarily been bad.

Saddly, they have been, they really have been. The final ratings for the show have been approximately:
week 1: 4.0
week 2: 3.6
week 3: 3.3

Even the first isn't good but a 3.3 is less than Enterprise gets and that's a UPN show *shudders*. Ratings of this sort are the type of thing that got THat was Then cancelled. Once and Again got the ax with ratings *better* than this as I recall.

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I belive that Fox has faith in Joss, actually, as silly as that might sound.

If Fox has faith in Joss then why are they doing to him here what TNT did to J. Michael Stryznski with Crusade (interfere in vision, give a completely counterproductive initial ad campaign, show episodes out of order so you have no sense of character development, etc.)? Now you could claim the interference is inherint in networks but the other stuff? Obvious that someone at Fox dislikes Joss.

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He's proven himself capable of building a ravenously faithful audience in the past (something that neither Ben Edlund of The Tick, or James Cameron of Dark Angel had done on television before),

Yes but his following is built on a small-scale "indy" level. Joss has yet to prove that he can "sell" a show to the masses (which a major network show needs to do in order to survive). Buffy is considered a success based more on a comparison to the network its on as opposed to actually being a success (if that makes any sense). Sort of like how Robert Altman's The Player (a movie I loved by the way) ended up being considered a success because it was (more or less) an independent movie and thus had fewer expenses. This despite the reality that it only earned a paltry 21 million or so at the box office (paltry in movie terms anyway).

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My final reasoning: Gail Berman. Gail has a personal relationship with Whedon. She knows what he is capable of, and I have little doubt that she is at least a tiny bit biased (in Firefly's favor, that is). As long as Firefly's ratings don't become absolutely hideous (they're only mediocre right now), I belive we'll see at least an episode 22.

2 things:

1. A 3.3 rating really is very, very hidieous. THat makes it one of the lowest rated programs on Fox (possibly the lowest).

2. As the intenionally (no one could be that stupid to sell a sci-fi drama as stupid camp, no one) counterproductive ad campaign makes clear, Ms. Berman does not call all the shots at Fox.

Its very clear from the networks treatment (they attempted to get out of the signed 13 episode commitment after the initial pilot) of the show that there are elements at the company (and network) that do not like Mr. Whedon's project. IN the byzantine, scheming world of network politics that means there are a million ways to screw the show over leading to ratings falling enough to justify cancelling it (and Ms. Berman cannot be everywhere at once to prevent these from happening).

Quote:

One final thing... It's really bad that you guys are being so pessimistic. If the fans are this ready to throw in the towel, it's not sending a good message to Fox AT ALL. We need to be supportive, and we need to stop all of this "oh, it ha

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MILLERNATE

Tuesday, October 15, 2002 2:21 PM

Quote:

According to a recent Zap2it.com article, "Our Mrs. Reynolds" (the third Firefly episode to be shown) was the highest rated episode to date: 4.3

Actually those numbers are inaccurate as they included the ballgames that preempted Firefly in LA and NYC. This led to a vastly inflated number as the actual rating was a 3.3 (about what Dark Angel got at its absolute lowest).

Quote:

Nielson viewers (of which there are only 1,000 or so official Nielson "families") tend not to watch sci-fi.

But Nielsen sampling is based on advanced statistics and higher math making it the absolute most accurate representation that you'll ever find (supposedly its as accurate as the acturial stuff, and the actuarial stuff is approximately 99% on the money).

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, they need to pay attention to Tivo records

Tivo records exist but are considered less than useless for the following reasons:

1. Tivo users right not even in the early adaptor stage so they aren't representative of the population as a whole because they are so new.

2. Tivo apparently allows users to skip over commercials. This is bad, bad, bad becuase TV stations need the number to show advertisers and if the show is popular among a format that allows skipping over commercials...well that just isn't good.

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internet buzz,

Like Push, Nevada...oh wait

Quote:

C'mon the only thing older and more useless than the Nielson system is the US Electoral College (and look what that brought us).

Actually for all the grief it gave us the US Electoral College is very much still needed. If you want a presidential candidate to campaign in only California, New York, Texas, and Florida then by all means junk the electoral college because they'd end up with even more reason to avoid smaller-to-mid sized states. The system also allows us to isolate problem areas (becuase if we didn't have the "by state" electoral system we would likely end up with one big national election making voting difficulties likely harder to trace).

Quote:

C'mon the only thing older and more useless than the Nielson system is the US Electoral College (and look what that brought us).

Dark Angel's initial ratings for Friday:
4.7
4.5
4.5
4.3
3.7
4.5

All except 1 significantly higher than Firefly's very best. A show absolutely has to receive higher ratings than the one that it replaced for it to survive and Firefly has not.

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

JERRY

Tuesday, October 15, 2002 2:27 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by millernate:
Quote:

According to a recent Zap2it.com article, "Our Mrs. Reynolds" (the third Firefly episode to be shown) was the highest rated episode to date: 4.3

Actually those numbers are inaccurate as they included the ballgames that preempted Firefly in LA and NYC. This led to a vastly inflated number as the actual rating was a 3.3 (about what Dark Angel got at its absolute lowest).

Of course, neither number is really fair, as the 3.3 does not include any viewers in the nations two largest TV markets.

HJERMSTED

Tuesday, October 15, 2002 6:51 PM

Quote:

Actually for all the grief it gave us the US Electoral College is very much still needed. If you want a presidential candidate to campaign in only California, New York, Texas, and Florida then by all means junk the electoral college because they'd end up with even more reason to avoid smaller-to-mid sized states. The system also allows us to isolate problem areas (becuase if we didn't have the "by state" electoral system we would likely end up with one big national election making voting difficulties likely harder to trace).

It all depends on what you replace the Electoral College with. Majority Preferential Voting is a much more enlightened voting mechanism for electing heads of state whereas Proportional Representation is a much fairer way of electing congressional bodies.

The American system as it stands predates ELECTRICITY for crying out loud. Changing the American system of electing leadership is LOOONG overdue.

Quote:

Tivo records exist but are considered less than useless for the following reasons:

1. Tivo users right not even in the early adaptor stage so they aren't representative of the population as a whole because they are so new.

2. Tivo apparently allows users to skip over commercials. This is bad, bad, bad becuase TV stations need the number to show advertisers and if the show is popular among a format that allows skipping over commercials...well that just isn't good.

There are already more Tivo watchers than Nielson families. If networks genuinely want to find out what people are watching, they'll pay attention to this. They'd be foolish not to.

TV commercials are just as much living relics as the Nielsons and Electoral College. I don't see how they will survive the broadband digital age (whenever it actually arrives). People hate those bloody things and eliminate them when given a choice. Fortunately choice, in the media consumption sense, is something consumers have much more of lately.

mattro

MALCOLM

Tuesday, October 15, 2002 9:16 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Jerry:
Given Mal's philosophy that every day you keep flying is a good day, I think that's compatible with the show. There is ultimately only one thing any of us can do to keep the show afloat - tell people to watch it!

Here, here!

-MBS

MALCOLM

Tuesday, October 15, 2002 9:24 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Jerry:
Quote:
Originally posted by millernate:
Quote:

According to a recent Zap2it.com article, "Our Mrs. Reynolds" (the third Firefly episode to be shown) was the highest rated episode to date: 4.3

Actually those numbers are inaccurate as they included the ballgames that preempted Firefly in LA and NYC. This led to a vastly inflated number as the actual rating was a 3.3 (about what Dark Angel got at its absolute lowest).

Of course, neither number is really fair, as the 3.3 does not include any viewers in the nations two largest TV markets.

I think it's even worse than that... my understanding is that it includes the LA and NY numbers in the average -- the number for the 11pm Friday showing in LA and the 4:30pm?? Sunday showing in NY!!!!! Wouldn't that sink it even lower?

I'm really curious to see how the show does this week without any baseball in any market for the first time ever!

My prediction: a 3.8/7 share and a 2.7/9 for 18-49.

-MBS

TINYTIMM

Wednesday, October 16, 2002 1:53 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Hjermsted:
It all depends on what you replace the Electoral College with. Majority Preferential Voting is a much more enlightened voting mechanism for electing heads of state whereas Proportional Representation is a much fairer way of electing congressional bodies.

Remember, this incompetent Empire started out as a Republic, a representative form of government considered more stable than a Democracy. The Electoral College is the last safety device. Of course this assumes a competent and educated citizenry. Something this country no longer supports.

Jeff
Who, like Londo, is an old republican...

GATORMARC

Wednesday, October 16, 2002 2:40 PM

In theory, a straight majority vote would make sense. However, there are so many flaws in the general voting system that it still isn't feasable. Every state had voting irregularities in the last election and a recount could have made either major candidate president.

I think runoff options should be made available too. Say you are told "if you are not voting for one of the two major candidates (defined as candidates of the two parties who received the most votes in the previous election), choose one as a backup in the event that neither of the major candidate recives a majority of the vote in your state."

I have a feeling that we're going the wrong direction with regards to educating the public about the elections and voting rights. Have you seen this campaign finance reform bill in congress?