Firefly canned?

[Jason Cross]

I read somewhere recently (can't find the link) that Firefly has been cancelled, because basically nobody's watching it.

I wish they, whoever "they" are, would ask ME what the hell I watch for once. Firefly was one of those new shows I gave a shot, immediately thought "well this is actually worth watching," and my opinion of it has increased with every single episode. I've really come to like the whole western-in-space thing they're doing, the dialog is far better than regular network fare, and it totally gets some extra cool points for the fact that there's NEVER any sound in space on that show. EVER. Explosions and all.

The only episode I missed was the two-hour premiere, which I saw on rebroadcast the other week, and it was great.

Did anyone else here watch it?

Oh, and why do they keep making shows for the 18-35 demo and starting them out on Friday nights? And then they're disappointed when they don't catch on?

[Brad Grenz]

I watch as well. And you didn't miss the two hour premiere the first time around, Fox in their great wisdom, didn't like it and didn't show it. They had the producers whip up an alternate first episode in a couple days (well, for writing anyway) and we got the train heist episode. In my opinion the train job was the weakest episode in the entire run, but the suits at Fox just loved it. Whatever. So they did finally show the original pilot, the two hour episode to which you speak, but not until after the show's fate was sown up. There are actually a couple episodes left, but it's doubtful Fox will bother to run them. The show really didn't get half a chance. Joss Whedon (of Buffy fame) got a huge production deal from Fox, Firefly was the first series under the new contract. They seem to have all this faith (at least 20th Century seemed to), give him all this money to make one of the most expensive pilots ever, tell him to go back to the drawing board. Then they give the show the worst timeslot Fox has to offer, primetime Friday night. They keep expecting another X-Files type success, but apparently they don't remember that the X-Files' ratings were never really "good" until the show moved to Sunday. So Firefly premieres with the substitute first ep, and actually gets pretty good ratings for Fox on a Friday, but there's a huge dropoff the next week, unfortunately, when the series gets a chance to put its best foot forward. Fox wonders why they're a fouth place network, well, it might have something to do with their scheduling/programming incompetence.

As it stands now Joss Whedon is shopping the show around to other networks. Maybe UPN or someone will pick it up, but it's a pretty expensive show. They're also working on getting the series on DVD, at least what's been shot.

[balut]

Fuck the Fox Network.

[Jim F.]

I missed the first few episodes because, well, it was in the horrid Friday inght time slot and I'm rarely watching TV then. But I managed to catch an episode a few weeks into the season and I just had no idea what was going on.

The impression I got was the it's a lot like the Babylon 5 or Farscape storylines, where if you miss more than a couple of weeks, you're screwed. It wasn't necessarily that the episode was confusing, but the people were. I had no idea who they were, what they were doing, why there was this guy and woman who were obviously out of place flying around on what I assume is an outlaw starship.

[Ben Sones]

Sci-Fi Network might grab it, though they may not have the money. They had to cancel Farscape because it was too expensive to produce.

I like Firefly a lot, "western in space" theme and all. It's a shame that good shows like that get kicked off the air while crap like Joe Millionaire gets all the attention.

[Mike Cathcart]

Firefly is my favorite show on TV, so of course it's going on "hiatus". Bastards. I don't agree with Jim F. about having to see every episode, though. I jumped in half-way through, and while I didn't know every detail about every character, I knew enough to follow the plot. The dialogue and the fact that these people were so much more believable than most of the characters on TV kept me interested long enough to find out all of those details. Besides, do you really want a TV show with characters so shallow that you can sum up their life story in every episode?

[Anonymous]

The pilot was very expensive because they built the whole ship. The actual episodes are quite cheap, especially compared to something like Enterprise, or Ed for that matter. And then Fox decided not to show the pilot.

Possibly the best dialogue of any show on the air right now. The episodes from 'Arial' -- the one where they rob the hospital -- onward have been spectacular.

It is cancelled on Fox, but the creators/actors/crew really love the show and are desperately trying to keep it alive on another network. Even if it survives though, many of the crew will have already moved on to another job, they can't just hang around not working.


There are 3 more episodes which are finished, but have no air dates. Let's hope fox shows them at 3 AM or something at least. I really wonder about the Nielson ratings sometimes. I've never known anyone with a Neilson box -- just how many are there? Can they really be that accurate with such a low sampling? It would appear that a single Nielson boxer must be worth 10,000 watchers.

[Ergo]

The moral to this story is never get attached to any show that you like if it airs on Fox. Chances are it'll be axed. I learned this a long time ago.

[balut]

"The Tick" anyone?

[Brad Grenz]

The pilot was very expensive because they built the whole ship.

Yeah, the initial sets are always really expensive on these sci-fi shows. Especially if they look good. This ain't Cleopatra 2525 we're talking about.

Space: Above and Beyond was another one of my favorite sci-fi shows Fox killed. It's ratings didn't justify the expense either, I guess. One episode was actually at the time the most expensive hour of television Fox had ever produced. Again, it was a huge set they built for just the one script.

[Anonymous]

The moral to this story is never get attached to any show that you like if it airs on Fox. Chances are it'll be axed. I learned this a long time ago.

Same goes for the Sci-Fi Network, which seems to prefer incredibly awful, incredibly low-budget horror films to actual science fiction.

examples:

The Invisible Man
Good vs. Evil
Farscape
Babylon 5: Legend of the Rangers
First Wave (okay, it kinda sucked, but Traci Lords, dude)
Secret Adventures of Jules Verne

I didn't like "The Chronicle" that much, but compared to what they're showing now, it's genius.

[Lunch of Kong]

I've never known anyone with a Neilson box -- just how many are there?

Not sure. A couple hundred thousand, at least. They are a complete random sample. People who are in the Nielson panels aren't supposed to tell anyone that they are in the Nielson panel.

[Anonymous]

I checked out the Nielsen Web site:

>>Nationally, there are 5,000 television households in which electronic >>meters (called People Meters) are attached to every TV set, VCR, >>cable converter box, satellite dish or other video equipment in the >>home.

They also do mailings and stuff.

That's not intractable at all. Why, a rabid, err, dedicated, fan could track down 100 boxes and making a pretty huge dent in the ratings singlehandedly. 100 rabid fans could totally topple the ratings.

The great thing about the pay networks is that shows survive with ratings that would have killed them after two episodes on advertised tv. On a pay network, it doesn't matter (so much anyway) if overall very few people like a show, as long as a smaller group of people really like the show (enough to influence their decision to continue to pay for the network). I wouldn't be very sad if advertised supported television died completely. That 40 dollars a month could be better spent on an HBO equivalent anyway.

[dannimal]

It's also possible that UPN will pick up Firefly, having a decent relationship with Whedon and Mutant Enemy from the Buffy ratings bonanza (well, for a 4th place scrub network like UPN) of the last 2 years.

The last two (unaired) episodes of Firefly are going through post production, either so they can be aired when the show is picked up, or for when the short run is put on DVD (which Joss wants to do)

[Ergo]

[quote="Ted Raimi]Same goes for the Sci-Fi Network, which seems to prefer incredibly awful, incredibly low-budget horror films to actual science fiction.[\quote]

Or piece-of-shit conmen like Jon Edwards.

[Ben Sones]

Yeah, Stargate SG-1 is the only decent sci-fi series on the Sci-Fi network now... or at least it will be, once Farscape finishes its run. Too bad.