7) Firefly's pitch (cowboys with spaceships) sounds completely ridiculous, and may have turned off part of the target audience at first. 8) There are quite a lot of main characters to get accustomed to, perhaps too many. 9) This is a show about a band of outlaws, and the most respectable character is a prostitute, and there are many small-minded people watching TV.
great comment. I enjoyed it on TV but became more of a fan when I was able to see it in order at my own leisure on DVD. As for "Lost" and "BSG" being story arc type shows and not episodic, I believe they "won" with mostly their original audiences or people who went out to buy the DVDs to catch up. Most viewers don't start watching "Lost" or "BSG" tomorrow and become fans.
The album "Thirteen" has another version of it which can be heard + bought here: http://www.vixyandtony.com/music.html Also on that album is "Apprentice", which is about Inara, and "Companion", which is about Doctor Who. As well as a couple based on Greek myth (Siren Song is hilarious) and some errata which is pretty good too.
Welcome, new Browncoat. There are actually two different answers to your question: the biased version and the non-biased version. The non-biased version is this: FOX cancelled the series due to low ratings. The biased - and more in-depth - version is that FOX greenlit FF initially out of a desire to get another series out of Joss, even though they clearly didn't understand what he was pitching. Despite not understanding the concept of FF, FOX put it on the air anyway, but then jury-rigged with the airing schedule so much - either through airing the episodes out of order or pre-empting the series entirely - that the ratings were low, which gave them the perfect excuse to cancel the series outright. BTW, if you're interested in more FF, check out the link in my sig. It's not the same as more filmed FF, but it's about as close as you're going to get.
I'm sorry, but as big of a Whedon fan as I am, I can't let this go unchallenged. All Joss has these days are a couple of comic book serieses with modest sales and a TV series I expect won't run much longer than Firefly did (based on all the "behind-the-scenes" crap that's happened). To Hollywood, Whendon is as dead as Glen Larson is now, or Gene Rodenberry was after Trek went off the air. It's about what you did yesterday, not 10 years ago.
I agree. He is so much for the teen audience. Firefly was the only show of his that I believe had some maturity. Angel some what... He loves using mature actress, Gina Torres but I don't think any of the other actors he likes to come back to once the reach 19 years of age. I can't take watching much of Dollhouse after watching Sarah Connor where all the "on the run and hiding out" characters look like they make time to keep their weekly salon appointments. Although that's a Josh Friedman production it makes a back to back two hour teen action night too much. They should have placed NBC's Knight Rider on with that line up. Speaking of the new Knight Rider, the car with limitless possibilities. Didn't someone say that absolute power corrupts absolutly? Its no fun watching a car that can be anything from a tank to a boat and anything in between. OK off my teen action series soapbox.
One of the reasons they were in a relative rush to go with FF was because they HAD to fill that slot, which was originally intended for the Singer/DeSanto BSG.
My wife and I just found the show not too long ago -although, interestingly, we watched the movie some time before actually watching the series on which it was based. Without knowing too much about it (although enough to get by thanks to Trek BBS) I thought it was a good action/adventure space-based film. The series, in general, might be likened to what a show based on Han Solo's character exclusively might have looked like- with a heavy "western" motif. Now that we've finished the series we plan on re-watching the movie. We thought it was a pretty good show with not too many clunkers in terms of episode quality but then again we love Buffy & Angel so we knew more or less what to expect out of Firefly in terms of how Joss writes characters and we weren't disappointed for the most part. We were disappointed when we got to the end of the series knowing that, aside from re-watching the movie, there is not likely to be any further continuation of the story AFAIK. FWIW "Ariel" (if for no other reason than Mal's "dressing down" of Jayne after learning of his betrayal of River & Simon) and "Objects in Space" are my favorite episodes from the series. Honorable mention for hilarity goes to "Our Ms. Reynolds" and its follow up episode with Saffron. Oh, and Inara was HOT! "I'll be in my bunk..........."
Yeah, Wagon Train to the Stars... I've had to have my arm twisted into watching Whedon shows on more than one occasion. I didn't watch Buffy for three years just because the name sounded so stupid, and our local networks really screwed up young adult programming. They's show them as kid's TV with loads of edits, followed by a midnight uncut version on the part of the BBC. Channel 4 got Angel and they never even bothered showing them uncut, pre-empted them and gave up before the final season. I haven't got satellite, so I missed Firefly, and watching the Serenity movie before the show seemed like a daft idea. I eventually did anyway when I found the DVD in a bargain bucket. I loved the movie, great characters, great story, but there was River kicking ass, and loads of Reavers. I thought the series would be River the Reaver Slayer, so that put me off watching the series on DVD. Until two weeks ago when I found it for £10. It's not a Buffy reimagining. It is however the best Space Opera since the first two seasons of Star Trek. I now have a belated dislike of Fox Network Executives.
Does anyone recall what connection - as heretical as this may sound - "Firefly" has with "High School musical" ?
What do people think of Titan AE? Screenplay by Joss Whedon (among others) Whenever I'll see the Valkyrie now, I'll think of Serenity (not in term so appearance but in terms of disreputable and quirky crew)
Zach Efron, lead in that movie, played the young Simon Tam. A female friend of mine pointed this out on her first viewing of the series recently, I swear I didn't just know that for nothing.