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Firefly Likely to be Cancelled
rscrawford writes "Zap2It is reporting that Firefly, one of the best science fiction shows to make it on to network television in recent years, is going on hiatus: read, getting canceled. Well, it was an interesting, well-written, provocative and intelligent show on Fox; is anyone therefore surprised that they're doing away with it? It lasted a lot longer than I thought it would. At least they're going to show the original 2-hour pilot in December. (And yet, somehow, Just Shoot Me continues...)"
One of the best ? Honestly, it wasn't that good...they rely too heavily on trying to be a western which just wasn't working at all... the whole show was just a ripoff of Outlaw Star anyway.
-WB
the show was not as good as you thought it was. How many times have we seen recently stories lamenting the demise of (insert sci-fi show) and how the networks just don't understand how good it was.
/. crowd to agree it was good let alone the general public. It's time the /. crowd faced the facts ... the average joe would sooner watch Just Shoot Me than some weird sci-fi show.
Okay, maybe to a small minority (uber-geeks) it was great but you won't even get the whole
Yes, you are a minority and as such big business is not going to care too much about you when they axe the show you love and keep another show you detest but is loved by the masses.
"She's a West Texas girl, just like me" - G.W Bush Iraqis
If this is an "excellent" sc-fi show nowadays, then I fear the entire genre has gone to hell and back. This show was pure crap. It was probably the most boring show on TV, next to Dr. Phil or some other BS. I had the displeasure of watching it twice, decide dot put it on my blacklist after that. Who likes this stuff? It didn't even seem like sci-fi at all, more like a soap-opera in a giant tin can. Oh sorry, its in "a boat". My mistake. (Somehow, calling the ship a "boat" is supposed to make it hip and cool or soemthing)
Fox just shouldn't be allowed to buy science fiction - they have put on some great shows and then they dump them. After that no other network will want to touch them.
;)
It would be different if these shows were like early star trek - each episode can stand on its own. Now shows like Deep Space Nine, Dark Angel etc have plot arcs that run across entire series... when the networks dump them it hurts.
I want to know what happens in the end... more to the point, I want to see Jessica Alba in motorcycle leathers again
It is exactly this sort of thing that is going to drive video on demand via broadband!
Firefly is a great example of a show that runs counter to every trend on tv today. It is not dialogue driven - instead of shooting two pages of script per minute (like Friends), they're content with shooting maybe a half a page. There is no formulaic bad guy vs. good guy, with predictable special effects climax every episode. It is serial - every episode builds on previous episodes to develop the characters, instead of waiting a few seasons to give each character a defining moment.
Basically, it's a throwback to TV of maybe 40 years ago, with a deliberately slower pacing. As a result, it's pissing off executives, all of whom grew up on MTV and who are twiching for more dialogue, more scenes, more explosions. They don't feel that they're getting their money's worth, thus, lots of pressure on Josh to either change the show, or get quashed.
I only hope someone on one of the cable channels (SciFi, or Showtime) picks up Firefly, so I'll be able to catch the rest of the series when they syndicate it...
Mark my words, eventually all you'll see on network TV is Jerry Springer, Judge Judy, and America's Most Dangerous Police Chases, and the crap that they like to pass off as the nightly news. I only hope that we can limit the brain-damaged execs just to network tv, and keep stuff like PBS and cable relatively uncontaminated.
Is that so surprising? The networks don't care about putting out quality shows. Nor do they care about the shows fans. They care about selling advertising. Shows are just filler for the ads. A show could be the highest art ever created, but if no one is watching it, then advertising revenues will be low and the show will be pulled. It's not to their benefit to wait and hope a show catches on. For them it is better to replace it quickly and hope whatever fills that time slot will get more people watching ads.
A Sci-Fi televison show is one of the trickiest of products to sell because the consumer base is much too fragmented. You have your "hard sci-fi" fans, your sci-fantasy/space opera buffs, your military SF fans, your fans who always want a "Politically Correct" message, etc.
With such multipolar market psychographics, the tendency is to try to be safe and give the show "something for everyone". Of course, the result is invariably a fragmented mess of a show, and the viewers stay away in droves: thus Firefly. Occasionally, a television show will be able to pull off the trick of satisfying most if not all of the sci-fi consumer market, Star Trek: TNG being the classic example, but such instances are far and few between.
A simpler strategy is to go for a single segment of the target market, and hope that a cult following develops, one which may even blossom into a mass following. These types of show are usually seen in syndication or on smaller networks. Successful examples of this type of show include Buffy The Vampire Slayer (target market: Goths) and Xena, Warrior Princess (target market: Lesbians).
In retrospect, it is obvious that Firefly was much too ambitious a show. The producers of the show took a big chance, and they failed big-time. It didn't help matters that the show was badly written - they couldn't even get the title right: how many sci-fi fans are going to get excited about watching a show called "Firefly"? - and shown in an unfriendly time slot. Television programmers developing future sci-fi shows would do well to pay better attention to the people who watch them.
Shows like Firefly give bad name to scifi genre. I've seen every episode of the show except for the pilot and everyone of them was a shameless ripoff of a 50's spaghetti western show dressed up as scifi. It is difficult to translate good science fiction literature to film and even more difficult to translate it to TV series because the best scifi (IMHO) deals with a new ideas and how these ideas shape the environment and behavior of people. I consider books by Neal Stephenson or Vernor Vinge to be in this category -- they are popularly known as hard scifi. The other end of the spectrum are the books that use unusual setting like space ships or exotic planets to suspend disbelief in order to expose fundamental and unchanging elements of human behavior by putting characters into unlikely situations. Solaris which is coming out on big screen is allegedly this kind of a movie. Succeeding in this category requires a truly gifted director who can get the most out of actors and the human elements of the script.
The audience was supposed to immediatly get all the tounge and cheek humor etc etc right off the back. [...] I could write more about this piece of trash but instead I'll write another letter to SCIFI begging them to keep farscape.
Anybody else catch the irony of this? At its best, Farscape was known to crack pretty wise, Peter.
Look at the view from orbit. Farscape had strong characters, conflict, a little sexual tension, humor, and muppets. Firefly has (had, whatever) strong characters, conflict, a little sexual tension, and humor; it lacked muppets, but it more than made up for them with its strict "no sound in space" policy and absolutely kick-ass production values.
Arguing that Firefly sucked while Farscape rocked just doesn't hold water. You're entitled to your opinion, natch, but don't try to dress it up as anything other than "I liked the Aussie show better."
I write in my journal
I'm dissapointed in two things, actually- first that Firefly is getting mistreated by Fox, and second that the majority of the posts on here are anti-Firefly.
Seriously, the writing for this show is great. I like the dialogue, and I think the acting is passable even at it's weakest moments. I happen to LIKE the Buffy sense of humor- it's dark, sarcastic, and funny as all hell. The only problem with it that I notice is that they're a little inconsistant with when they use their southern drawl, but if they actually get a fair run in a decent time slot I'm sure they'll clean that up.
They've got some pretty ingenius stuff in there that no one else has the guts to do: for example, every so often the characters will break into a little rant of Chinese. And they're the only scifi show I can remember that's actually done the no sound in space thing. It's not formulaic at all- it doesn't steal from Star Trek or Star Wars, though it's closer to Star Wars out of those two. It's the best example of genre-blending I've seen in a long time.
Some individual responses:
Blacklist Blacklist: Sounds like you just need to learn how to use your Tivo- Firefly's on Fox, Everybody Loves Raymond is on CBS, and Just Shoot Me's on NBC. Oh, and King of the Hill is lame.
Leonbev, Anoynymous Coward #1, It's the first bloody season. Let them work out the kinks before you condem them based on the first episode. As for the sword fight, fencing has been a sport for hundreds of years, and I don't see it going out of style anytime soon.
Zaren:
What you saw wasn't the real pilot, Fox is just retarded. That big bad guy hasn't been in any of the other 9 episodes, or even mentioned. And I for one thought it was hysterical when the big buff guy got kicked into the engine. Dark humor rules.
Snoopy77: I think a more likely explaination is that it is every bit as good as I think it is, but people watch too much Friends and trash like that to be able to appreciate it.
Bowie J. Poag: Um... there's one black chick. Other than that, there's eight white people. You dazzel me with your intellect.
Brunes69, you like Enterprise... I just don't know how to classify you other as than someone with no taste whatsoever. Lemme guess, you liked Voyager too? What're you, 12? These last two shows have nearly killed one of the greatest franchises of all time with lame ass writing. Enterprise couldn't even come up with an original ship design that fit into the era it's supposed to take place in- they just stole the design from the Akira Class. They have way too much technology too. I could go on for pages about why Enterprise sucks.
Jpt.d, Andromeda was something they fished out of Gene Roddenberry's trash pile.
Ko5mo, I don't know what show you've been watching, but there's been virtually nothing BUT character development.
Ppetrakis: You're just bitter 'cause they canceled Farscape. The ONLY thing this show shares in common with Buffy is the humor, which, as I said before, I find very funny.
Xagon7: John Doe is a ripoff of The Pretender. It was ok... but it didn't really grab me after the first couple of episodes like Firefly did.
Ok, I've given my 2 cents. It's a good show, dammit!
The first episode of John Doe was interesting. The second was disappointing. By the third episode, the show was downright annoying. Solid writing? Try cringe inducing instead.
Step back. Breathe. Now chill out a bit.
Being the kind of guy I am, when a likely potential presents itself, which does not depend on me thinking the worse of other human beings, I will tend to latch on to it in the hopes that such common sense thinking will prevail.
Let's look at another likely occurance here before throwing up the age old (but experience-proven, I will grant you that) addage of the average intelligence of your network executive and *gasp* give them the benefit of the doubt here for a second.
Firefly episodes will run thru December.
Farscape, which also airs in that exact same "Timeslot of Doom" will begin its run of final (Yes. I know. That argument is neither here nor there. Save it for 2003. I'll be there in the trenches with you.) 11 episodes starting in January.
Can we see a pattern here?
So a hiatus with the provision that the show will return in a different timeslot than it's main competition in the genre this year makes a bit of...well..sense, doesn't it?
Quite possibly Firefly will move to Monday's at 9pm, but I don't know how well that will fit, with Boston Public likely to stay in the preceeding timeslot. But as long as I don't have to compete with Farscape and Firefly on at the same time, my scheduling duties will be that much less of a hassle and if this prooves to be true, I will be grateful to the execs at Fox...
That's assuming we all aren't right back here again within 6 months.
Experience-worn truths are usually that way for a damned good reason.
My big gripe is that the dialogue was horrible
Mmm-uh? Just about the only thing that everybody universally agrees on is that the dialogue-- and the scene-level writing in general-- is some of the best on TV. How is that that this is the first thing you latch on to with which to find fault?
the plots, despite the fact that the show made a painfully obvious effort to not be Star Trek, were so obviously lifted from Star Trek
Which would that be? "The Train Job?" No. "Bushwhacked?" Also no. "Our Mrs. Reynolds?" Hell no. "Jaynestown?" No, most definitely no. "Out of Gas?" Maybe... ship blows gasket, crew abandons ship, heroic captain acquires new gasket and saves the day, but that episode wasn't driven by plot. It was driven by flashbacks, and was more inspired by Pulp Fiction than anything else (there was even an explicit homage). "Shindig?" Heh. No, definitely not. "Safe?" Nuh-uh. "Ariel?" Bite your lying tongue. I don't recall any episode of Star Trek in which Kirk threatened to blow Spock out the airlock... and really meant to do it, too, up to the very last second.
There are a lot of legitimate gripes out there about Firefly. Calling it derivative of Star Trek is definitely not one of 'em.
I write in my journal
Check out John Doe. A slightly sci-fi, slightly X-Files, slightly CSI type show that delivers on suspense, mystery, and solid writing.
Did you watch the same John Doe I did? All it does is find horribly contrived situations in which to demonstrate his super intellect which half the time doesn't even make sense, what does leg length and shoe size have to do with a theoretical maximum sprint speed?!? Is it a popular show? Maybe I don't know the numbers, but I have never heard it refered to as a good show. Firefly is a good show, it may not be popular among a wide audience but I'vwe seen very few bad reviews. The advantage of John Doe over Firefly is John Doe has one essentially 1-1/2 dimensional main character and a couple of subcharacters with relatively plot lines so you don't have to get into it. Firefly on the other hand has a pile of major multi-dimensional characters with complex plot lines. When it comes down to it Firefly can never be wildly popular, it's just too complex, too many characters and a too involved plot. Was Babylon 5 widly popular or is Buffy? No, both have a very dedicated audience but never had huge numbers, they were just too involved for the average viewer. Name a single widly popular show with more than a few complex main characters. X-files had 2, the origional Star Trek had about 4, Seinfeld had 4. Firefly is just too complicated not to mention the episodes were out of order on top of it making even harder to get into to ever be popular but this doesn't mean it won't be good.
I stole this Sig
> ... the problem is too much is PC ...
Too much PC?!
You mean politically correct like kicking a bound bad-guy through your engines because you didn't like his attitude?
Or do you mean politically correct like having a prostitute lauded as the most socially acceptable member of the crew?
Or perhaps you meant politically correct like having the captain toss his first mate out the airlock for mutiny? (yeah-yeah I know he changed his mind before he died...)
Or you must mean politically correct like having the "naive" female engineer's first meeting with the captain with her dress around her ankles as she screws the previous engineer?
Yeah, you're right. This show is too timid to do anything that wouldn't be deemed "PC".
You must be watching a different Firefly than I am. I am watching a show with the most 'real-life' characters I've seen on any TV show.
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
Firefly, like Futurama, was something we hadn't seen before at all. What's amazing is how well they were done off the bat.
The Pretender had a strong story line behind its main theme. Sure, Jarod disguised himself as someone to befriend the bad guy and teach him/her a lesson, but the constantly unraveling story of his past(trying to find his parents) and Ms. Parker's drama versus the Centre always kept strong.
That's what made it good. Real shame it was canceled for the flop known as the XFL.
(not some faster than light boat that uses a gear powered engine).
Maybe you can clue us in as to what a real FTL drive looks like?
Why is it so implausible that technology from 500 years in the future still has some mechanical components? Just because Rick Berman and Michael Pillar explode in a jizz-supernova every time their design department comes up with a new neon-tube-covered warp core with no moving parts doesn't make that the authoritative statement on what it would look like in real life, assuming it were possible.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
In how many episodes did they tend cows? I only remember one and it was only in the tail end of the episode (the last minute or two). You're overreacting.
You want to know all of the details? Do you care about the details of a street light? How about the details of your car's air conditioner? How about the portable space heater? How about the fabric blend of your sweater? These are all things that four hundred years ago would have been absolutely shocking and exciting. Light without fire!?! Wow! But in reality, most people (even geeks) just take the light on the streets for granted, think air-conditioner == freon + compressor that keeps you cool, a heater is just an electrical resistor that keeps you warm, and the sweater is 30% cotton and also helps keep you warm. Would you watch a show where they examined the tech behind a streetlight for the whole episode, would you find that terribly stimulating? I wouldn't.
Now remember that Serenity is a simple, not very flashy, old, stand-by workhorse freighter. Are there some details? Sure. The mechanic is always elbow-deep in the details. She's constantly talking about tweaking this and that and the other. But there's a minimum of blinking lights and what widget X or Y gets them faster than light doesn't matter. Let's say they tell you the blow by blow schematics for the faster-than-light drive. Then what? It can't drive a show. It's pointless. FTL doesn't exist and any "explanation" of how it works is useless technobabble that appeals to folks who can't grasp personal interaction.
You speak of Picard's ability to reason his way out of a situation. I challenge you to demonstrate a moment on the show where the captain of Serenity was given a simple problem or solved a problem in an unreasonable fashion.
Tractors require fuel. Constantly replenished sources of fuel. Fuel on any non-trivial scale is dependant upon refineries. You don't just hook up a gas tank to a natural oil reserve. So, assuming that there is a ready supply of fossil fuels, they must also build and maintain a refinery. Otherwise they must get their fuel supplies from off-world. They constantly talk about trips from planet to planet taking from days to weeks. If the people on the planet are poor and basically just surviving, how can the costs of transport for that fuel on a recurring basis be handled?
The fact of the matter is that horses are cheaper to raise and maintain than a tractor is. And a horse generates fertilizer. A tractor just spits out fumes.
Right now, you can go just anywhere on the planet within one day. But imagine it took three weeks to get to Japan from Brazil. Supply lines would be much more expensive, communication would be much more limited, casual trips would be rare, and the one without as many natural resources would be reduced to poverty and meager subsistence.
This is why I like Firefly. No rubber ears. No green people. No transporter accidents. Just people trying to make a life for themselves -- and they happen to be in a very plausible future.
Human interaction is and always will be more important than psuedo-tech minutia just as family, friends, my girlfriend, and my community are all more important to me than my computer. If your tech is more important to you than these things, I pity you. I really do.
- I don't need to go outside, my CRT tan'll do me just fine.
Way to put me in my place. I honestly did not think that you might really just not like TV at all; it seems like, if that's the case, this thread is a funny place for you to be posting.
Nevertheless, I respect the way you gave me a taste of my own medicine. The bit about scones really won me over.
If, however, you don't get a kick out of the writing on Firefly, then I have to respectfully stand by my judgment that you are-- and I say this with the utmost love-- a big, fat fuddy-duddy.
I write in my journal
Now, my opinion of Firefly can be easily challenged being that I admitted right away I only watched the first two episodes.
That's a shame. "Our Mrs. Reynolds" is a great one, and the last episode aired, "Ariel," is a better 44 minutes of entertainment than you get out of most movies. Not only are they tightly written, but they're also really well shot and directed bits of filmed entertainment.
Besides, any show that's brave enough to establish a hard-and-fast "no sound in space" rule deserves all the chances they want.
I write in my journal
Sure you don't mean Space: Above and Beyond?
That was a good show, IMHO. Reasonably intelligent plots, most of the time, with enough bangs and flashes to keep non-plot driven viewers interested. It also had the best, again IMHO, space combat sequence I've ever seen in the final dogfight in "The Angriest Angel" between McQueen and Chiggy Von Richoven; the fact that it was preceded by the "God doesn't want to speak with me right now" speech just makes it all the better.
I do think they should have dumped the plot with West and his girlfriend (even better just dumped West out of the nearest airlock) cos that just didn't fit.
"Don't write down to your readers, the only people less intelligent than you can't read" - Sign on Newspaper Office Wall
Overall, this is a great show and consumes space on my tivo on a weekly basis. However, I think it fails to some because it's slow. Not that the plot isn't good or the acting subpar...it's just a character driven show with limited action (which really kills all the ADD kids out there).
I hate the fact that I live in a country that supports crap like the fast and the furious but will down truly good stuff..I fear for our future.
It'll be a shame if they cancel the show. It's not your average show nowadays and I think it's great. Next thing you know they'll say that John Doe is being cancelled...then I'll cry for sure...
Indeed. For another excellent and easy read which perfectly illustrates your point there is the Pern series by Anne McCaffrey, most particularly the Dragons of Pern. Big colony ships high technology, and the establishment of a brand new low-tech society.
Let Microsoft know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship