Now, on the other hand, Firefly...
I decided to move this particular rant to a new thread.
Why on earth did someone decide not to let that thing last more than one season (technically less)!? Was it just too intellectual for everyone? We didn't even find out everyone's cool, mysterious backstories. Just think of the plot hooks!
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Now, on the other hand, Firefly...
I decided to move this particular rant to a new thread.
Why on earth did someone decide not to let that thing last more than one season (technically less)!? Was it just too intellectual for everyone? We didn't even find out everyone's cool, mysterious backstories. Just think of the plot hooks!
The same reason WotC canceled Dungeon and Dragon after thirty-odd years: corporate stupidity.
Basically, FOX thought that nobody was watching it. They pulled the plug without even consulting with anyone, which was a BIG MISTAKE, because Firefly was pulling the ENTIRE Joss audience (read: everyone watching Buffy and Angel). The fan base was also extremely vocal, which caused an uproar on the net. Still, FOX refused to put Firefly back on air. As a result, Joss Whedon sold his idea to a major motion picture studio, which created the moderate film success 'Serenity'.
I still don't know anyone's motives behind the whole gorramn mess, and I don't know if anyone does, but I have to say it's all a damn shame.
Someone said this on the other thread, and I decided that since this one was first I sould repost his comment here:
The network didnt make any real effort to advertise the show. This helped lead the show to its doom. I, for one, loved the show, and i am hoping that they reunite to continue the series on a channel that will make the effort to get the advertising out to the public. Last i read, the actors all wanted it to continue. We can only hope.
Thoth-Amon
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Joss Whedon and all the cast want to do the show but Fox won't let them. I read an interview with Jewel Staite (Kaylee) and she said that Fox owns the TV rights for 10 years.
They don't believe there is any money in the show (I guess 'cause there aren't any shirtless fat dudes who are completely unsurprised and unimpressed that the police just broke down his door. ;) ), so they won't put it back on TV, but they don't want to sell the rights either.
That's dumb beyond imagining! "We don't think this show could make money on the air but we're keeping the rights anyway"?! You'd think that Fox would at least catch on that they could get some $ by selling the rights.
This is a conspiracy. They just don't want good television on the air.
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Joss Whedon and all the cast want to do the show but Fox won't let them. I read an interview with Jewel Staite (Kaylee) and she said that Fox owns the TV rights for 10 years.
They don't believe there is any money in the show (I guess 'cause there aren't any shirtless fat dudes who are completely unsurprised and unimpressed that the police just broke down his door. ;) ), so they won't put it back on TV, but they don't want to sell the rights either.
Are these guys stupid or just out of touch?
I mean, they cancel Firefly after 13 episodes, and renew Survivor for 6 seasons. What's the logic in that. It's complete h~#@@~%!%.
OK, enough downers.
Lets move on to something cheerful, like what about the show we liked.
Also: who here owns the entire series on DVD? I know all my friends and I do. That sort of devotion to the series, and the sales of that may convince Fox to continue the show. Maybe...
I own the box set, as does my friend Pat. It contains one or two never-aired episodes. (the box set, not Pat)
I gave my boxed set to my dad, and I bought another for my brother one christmas. I'll buy another one when I get more money.
I have two. One that my friends can borrow, and one that no one else is allowed to put their greedy paws on. Because of this, three people I know have ended up buying their own sets :)
But it bothers me so much that it was cancelled that I refuse to watch any more Fox shows because I can't take the disapointment again (7-8 of 10 of the shows on my list of top 10 shows cancelled prematurely were on Fox) :(
Lessee, a friend of mine brought over his copy and we watched the opening for the series, and I was hooked. I own both series and the movie. They are some of my favorites.
Someone accurately called it the best sci-fi, best western, and best overall cast on television. I think that they summed it up pretty well. The only other genre benders like it tend to be in anime (as far as I've seen recently).
The quips between the characters, and especially Shepard Book's quotes, made the series quite nice for me.
/d
I was sold when Fillian kicked a prone baddie into an engine. Hmm... different kind of hero.
I was sold before the teaser was over.
I was sold when Fillian kicked a prone baddie into an engine. Hmm... different kind of hero.
Truth be told I was sold when I first heard that the show was being developed because when I heard the F sound begin the word firefly I thought I was about to hear a naughty word on TV.
The exact same effect overtook me when a friend told me, with a speech impediment, that he heard a Firefly movie was being developed called Sh-erenity.
(waiting for someone to counter)
"Well, when baby Nate was born I found myself instantly curious to see what great things this boy would do one day. Swaddling him close to my chest I just knew..."
Chief Technical Officer
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Fox was working really hard to screw it up before it even aired. The opening two-parter—you know, the one that introduces the setting and the characters and such—was deemed by the network to have "too much exposition," so they were actually the last two episodes Fox aired, only scheduling them after the show had already been cancelled.
They continued to disregard the producers' intent after that, shuffling episodes around for no apparent reason, and occasionally confusing continuity by doing so. (Specifically, they debuted with episodes 3 and 4, then skipped ahead to 7, 8 and 9, then came back to 5 and 6, then moved on to 10 and 11, then jumped way ahead to 15, finally finishing up with 1 and 2 (and never even bothering with 12 through 14).
That's the kind of crap they do. Some around here want Jericho to stick around. Jericho was getting high enough ratings... until CBS decided to put it on hiatus. It returned from hiatus to low ratings. Brilliant, gents. Brilliant.
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They continued to disregard the producers' intent after that, shuffling episodes around for no apparent reason, and occasionally confusing continuity by doing so. (Specifically, they debuted with episodes 3 and 4, then skipped ahead to 7, 8 and 9, then came back to 5 and 6, then moved on to 10 and 11, then jumped way ahead to 15, finally finishing up with 1 and 2 (and never even bothering with 12 through 14).
Ahhhh, continuity errors.
For example, the episode in which River states "I can kill you with my brain" was aired before the 'Ariel' episode (where it is revealed that the Alliance/Hands of Blue frigged with her brain), so audiences were left skritchin' their heads as to why she said that. Also, the same thing goes for Jayne referring to River 'reading his mind'.
Even worse was the fact that (at least around where I live), the 'War Stories' episode was aired AFTER the 'Objects in Space' episode, so Kaylee's comment about River shooting the guards with her eyes closed MAKES NO SENSE.
I was hooked when you see Wash playing with the plastic dinosaurs.
It is a fertile land. We shall rule over it and we shall call it... this land.
I think we should call it your grave!
Curse your sudden yet inevitable betrayal!
Ha ha! Mine is an evil laugh, now die!
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Fox was working really hard to screw it up before it even aired.
I think by the time it started airing here, it was probably pretty much all over in the US - which is maybe why the network that screened it here (Australia) seemed to decide that it wasn't going to rate before it even started, and treated it as such.
It started with a really crappy late night time slot and pretty much no advertising, and the network would continously change the time slot, change the day, start the show late or early, or just decide not to show an episode that week if say there was tennis or cricket or something to show instead - all with no warning or explaination.
It really screwed up my enjoyment of the show, and despite being a huge Joss fan via Buffy and Angel, I never really got into Firefly until I watched a few eps after it stopped airing
Wow, you got screwed out of it even more than we did.
I personally did not get into the show until the Sci-fi channel did its cover of it to advertise Serenity (that channel being pretty much the only one I watch). When I realised that no, there would never be another season, I got really pissed. It was probably one of the most interesting shows I have ever watched.
Just a thought:
Most tv works by catering to the lowest of the low via idiotic plots, mindless violence, and nudity-teasers.
Could Rebecca Gayheart (Inara) leaving have convinced Fox that there was just more intelect than stupidity in the show, and that this was not acceptable? I know her part was hardly vile and base, but it was teasingly controversial.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Back when I was getting certified to teach English, I studied a lot of what they called "sub-literature": romance novels, comic books, adolescent girls' books, horrible "Flowers in the Attic" thrillers, and westerns. And westerns have a number of genre conventions, not just in setting but in themes, and in what's considered "the right kind of decisions."
In Westerns, conflicts are settled one-to-one (when teams meet to fight, characters pair off to fight "their opponent"), and bravery is an important factor. Heroic decisions, doing things because they're right, even though the character knows there'll be bad consequences, are expected.
The protagonists do things for the common citizens, but are never really part of the common citizenry (for example, "Shane"). Indeed, the common folk will often turn their back on the protagonist just when he might need them. (for example, "High Noon.") The protagonist is also separated from the common people by some unusually high degree of skill. This skill is usually gunplay, but it doesn't have to be. (O. Henry's short story "A Reprieved Reformation" is a perfect example of a Western with a different kind of skill: safe-cracking.)
Just being set in the Western Territories during the 19th Century doesn't make a story a Western. "Little House on the Prairie" is not a Western. (Neither the book -- which is a classic example of a different genre: the girl's book -- nor the TV show.) Neither were the TV show "F-Troop" nor the movie "Dances with Wolves".
We've had Western films which were set in Australia ("Quigley Down Under") and in outer space ("Outland").
Firefly was a Western, as well as a SF show. In particular, it was an early, post-Civil War Western.
That served two purposes. First, it gave us watchers a easy-to-decode hook on the setting: the society and expectations. The culture has just gotten over a major, bloody war; Mal's side lost; there's a frontier out here, with little towns surrounded by lots of nothing; life is hard, and dangerous; there's reavers / indians who'll kill you if they can catch you; people are self-reliant; people live by individual moral codes; there's probably a couple of fortunes in treasure buried out there somewhere, their locations lost in the war; etc.
Secondly, it gave us an expectation about genre. There would be heroes, and villains. People would be wounded, and people would die. (I didn't mind Wash's death in the movie; it's the way folks die in Westerns.) The important combats would be one-on-one. Courage and talent would count.
Even "high-tech" episodes like "Ariel" had some good Western touches. Jayne's behavior, and Mal's reaction to it, are fine examples of the genre. Jubal Early, from "Objects in Space", is a bounty hunter, and however else that episode goes off-genre, the encounter with a bounty hunter is at its core a Western plot.
The Serenity movie isn't a Western. The opening heist is a good Western motif, but otherwise, Serenity is only a good SF movie, stuck in Western wardrobe. The Operative doesn't make sense in a Western. (That may be intentional. One of the reasons he's so devestating is his shocking breaking of taboos, his "sins".) The Pax work the Alliance did on Miranda, the kind of misbehaving Mal decides to do ("We have to get this information to The People!") and the majority of the scenes in the movie just wouldn't happen in a Western.
The particularly glaring problem, was, for me, the character of "Mr. Universe." In a setting which is half futuristic and half 19th-Century, Mr. Universe is neither. With his TV's, and his robotic sex toy, his wardrobe, and his willingness to betray Mal for money, he's a 21st-Century anomoly. What are we supposed to make of him? How does he fit into the post-war culture?
Could the role have been envisioned as a war veteran / comm officer? Alternatively, a thoroughly futuristic character from the Alliance who'd owed a favor to Book, heard about what the Operative had done, and decided to help spread some vengeance?
Anyway, that's my take on it.
One transition from Firefly to Serenity bothered me, but not enough to wreck the movie: the reason the Alliance wanted River, which changed from "she's been trained to be a magically good living weapon," to "she knows a Big Secret." I think that had to change, because the movie had to resolve with the Alliance no longer seriously hunting River (The good guys had to "win.") and the change allowed the bad guys to no longer care about her.
I was sold when Fillian kicked a prone baddie into an engine. Hmm... different kind of hero.
I'm just sold on Fillian. Mmmm.
My theory is that Nathan Fillian was cursed by a voodoo preistess. All of his shows get canceled and he's a red shirt in others. He's a good actor and has an interesting delivery! It's sad.
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Chief Technical Officer
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Fox was working really hard to screw it up before it even aired.
Oh yeah... and the time slot they stuck it in? It's known as the Friday Night Death Slot.
And in the 14 weeks it was actually on the schedule, it was preempted three times nationally (and more in some markets).
Oh yeah... and the time slot they stuck it in? It's known as the Friday Night Death Slot.
That's odd, Friday is pretty much the only time I watch TV. No wonder all the shows I like are cancelled.
Arrr, Mr. Shiny cannae be postin' righ' now. He be snarlin' an' cussin' in his impotent rage, he be. Arrr... I be wantin' to join 'im.
Cor, I miss ol' Mal... We was jist like best pals, we was...
COME BACK TO OL' PETE, SERENITY! COME BACK!
T.V .........NOW!
T.V .........NOW!
Calm yerself, lest ye wake the dead. Arrr, ye be a strange cabin boy...
OK, enough downers.
Lets move on to something cheerful, like what about the show we liked.
Also: who here owns the entire series on DVD? I know all my friends and I do. That sort of devotion to the series, and the sales of that may convince Fox to continue the show. Maybe...
I own the box set, and the movie.
I have to say that I didn't really watch it when it was on the air, mainly because of Fox constantly prempting it and showing it out of order, etc. I liked it, but I couldn't really watch it consistently when it was never on the same time from week to week.
Anyways, kinda off topic: Does anyone remember the first episode of Family Guy after it relaunched? There was a scene where Peter (?) looks right at the "camera" and deadpans a joke about all the crappy shows that Fox aired in place of Family Guy after it was initially cancelled. Priceless ;-)
Since everyone else is, I will as well. I mentioned having the box set, but yes, I too own the movie. Don't want to come across as unworthy of fandom. ;)
Never really been a fan of Buffy and Angel.
But Firefly now that was a good show indeed!
Sad they are dragging it to the MMO market, its the chracters that made the show, "the show" not the background.
*Raising hand* Yes, I own all the episodes, and the movie, and I really wish Fox had handled it better.
What I liked best about the show? The witty exchanges, the writers were awesome.
Edit: I too wasn't introduced to it until it was too late, I had never even seen it advertised and I watch Fox.
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Chief Technical Officer
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Does anyone remember the first episode of Family Guy after it relaunched? There was a scene where Peter (?) looks right at the "camera" and deadpans a joke about all the crappy shows that Fox aired in place of Family Guy after it was initially cancelled. Priceless ;-)
Peter: Everybody—I've got bad news: we've been cancelled.
Lois: Oh, no! Peter, how could they do that?!
Peter: Unfortunately, there's just no more room on the schedule. We've just got to accept the fact that Fox has to make room for terrific shows like Dark Angel; Titus; Undeclared; Action; That '80s Show; Wonderfalls; Fastlane; Andy Richter Controls the Universe; Skin; Girls' Club; Cracking Up; The Pitts; Firefly; Get Real; Freakylinks; Wanda at Large; Costello; The Lone Gunmen; A Minute with Stan Hooper; Normal, Ohio; Pasadena; Harsh Realm; Keen Eddie; The Street; American Embassy; Cedric the Entertainer; The Tick; Luis; and Greg the Bunny. (On saying "Greg the Bunny," Peter looks at his son, Chris, who's voiced by Seth Green of Greg the Bunny.)
Lois: Is there no hope?
Peter: Well, I suppose if ALL those shows go down the tubes we might have a shot.
Titus; Undeclared;Andy Richter Controls the Universe; Firefly;
Now those I liked.
I own the Undeclared box-set. I highly recommend the show.
I own the box set and the movie. Now if only my friend would bring them back.
*Jumps on bandwagon* Yeah, I also own the boxed set of the series as well as the movie. I think Firefly was the single greatest television show in the history of television shows, and that's an understatement. Funny thing is that I often watch Fox, but I had never even heard of Firefly until after I saw Serenity and a friend of mine told me it had been a show. So then I got the DVDs of the series and watched them all in a couple of days. And then I got angry at Fox...just a couple of years too late.
Since then, Fox has cancelled a number of other shows that looked to have potential, like Tru Calling, Justice and Drive. In fact, all of my favorite shows (with one exception) were cancelled in their first season. Of course, my favorite band was a one hit wonder, so go figure...
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Chief Technical Officer
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Just curious—how many Firefly fans watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer?
I think Buffy was one of the best shows ever (although I refused to watch it for the first three years or so because I hated the name). The way Buffy evolved over the first four seasons suggest to me that what we saw of Firefly was just Joss establishing setting and character so that he could really make things interesting in future seasons.
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Just curious—how many Firefly fans watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer?
I think Buffy was one of the best shows ever (although I refused to watch it for the first three years or so because I hated the name). The way Buffy evolved over the first four seasons suggest to me that what we saw of Firefly was just Joss establishing setting and character so that he could really make things interesting in future seasons.
Auuuuuggggghhhh! I HATED Buffy. And Angel was almost as bad.
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Auuuuuggggghhhh! I HATED Buffy. And Angel was almost as bad.Just curious—how many Firefly fans watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer?
I think Buffy was one of the best shows ever (although I refused to watch it for the first three years or so because I hated the name). The way Buffy evolved over the first four seasons suggest to me that what we saw of Firefly was just Joss establishing setting and character so that he could really make things interesting in future seasons.
Complete agreement.
Thoth-Amon
Just curious—how many Firefly fans watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer?
I think Buffy was one of the best shows ever (although I refused to watch it for the first three years or so because I hated the name). The way Buffy evolved over the first four seasons suggest to me that what we saw of Firefly was just Joss establishing setting and character so that he could really make things interesting in future seasons.
Sorry but Buffy Sucks! I watched it and it made no sense and it was stupid to me
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I think Buffy was one of the best shows ever (although I refused to watch it for the first three years or so because I hated the name).
Exactly the same sentiment here, on both counts. Thanks the gods for dvd boxed sets (and prior to that, a friend who religiously taped [and edited out the ads] every episode).
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Auuuuuggggghhhh! I HATED Buffy. And Angel was almost as bad.
No way man. Buffy was awesome. Absolutely no offense meant, just asking a question - did you really watch it? Or, like many people, (me including initially) were you turned off by the name, the association with the movie, some of the schtick, the portrayal of some of the beasties, the fact that "vampire" and "demon" initially seemed synonomous?
Cos if you loved the Jossisms in Firefly, how could you fail to love them in Buffy?
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Auuuuuggggghhhh! I HATED Buffy. And Angel was almost as bad.No way man. Buffy was awesome. Absolutely no offense meant, just asking a question - did you really watch it? Or, like many people, (me including initially) were you turned off by the name, the association with the movie, some of the schtick, the portrayal of some of the beasties, the fact that "vampire" and "demon" initially seemed synonomous?
I did watch several episodes, and for some reason, I just couldn't stand it. It's wierd, but I can't really put a finger on what I didn't like about the show.
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I did watch several episodes, and for some reason, I just couldn't stand it. It's wierd, but I can't really put a finger on what I didn't like about the show.
I watched two or three soon after it started, and really didn't like it. Then about a year later I tried again - and something just clicked, I loved it.
Just curious—how many Firefly fans watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer?
I think Buffy was one of the best shows ever (although I refused to watch it for the first three years or so because I hated the name). The way Buffy evolved over the first four seasons suggest to me that what we saw of Firefly was just Joss establishing setting and character so that he could really make things interesting in future seasons.
I really appreciate humorous takes on the whole vampire theme (Polanski, Leslie Nielsen, etc.), but Buffy and Angel just let me down, although, I admit, I've seen only a couple of episodes...
but those just didn't convince me to give it another chance...
on the other hand, Firefly just blew my mind, I'm a huge fan, even purchased a dvd set of the series on Amazon, because here in Hungary only the movie is available...