kylehnat
I vaguely remember adverts for it, but never watched it. People on TV.com give it 9.3/10, but it couldn't have been that good if it got cancelled after one season.
That's because you don't know the
real story.
Fox's official statement regarding the cancellation was that the show didn't meet the expected ratings, therefore it was dropped.
What they
don't tell you is that they intentionally destroyed it. Originally, they liked the idea.. cowboys in space kinda thing. But when Joss showed them the pilot episode, they were sadly disappointed. Not because it was a bad show, but because they thought it was "boring". It was more like
Star Trek in that it was mostly character-oriented and put very little emphasis on action and adventure. Basically, not enough explosions and not enough sex to be a proper Fox television show. They declared it dead before it ever aired.
Firstly, they refused to allow Joss to show the actual pilot episode, choosing to start with the second episode. Gone was all of the exposition, leaving a lot of viewers wondering who these people were and what was going on. It made it very difficult to get into. It's like picking up a book and skipping the first half.
Secondly, they made it very difficult to people to actually watch it. They constantly shifted it's timeslot.. this week on Wednesday, next week on Friday, then move it to 9 o'clock, etc. They also pre-empted it every chance they got. They were more than happy to sacrifice
Firefly to show the almighty "MOVIE OF THE WEEK", which was usually something incredibly stupid that probably got lower ratings than
Firefly did.
Then they had the audacity to come out and say that the show didn't get good ratings. And cancelled it after only half a season.
They hated it so much, in fact, that even though they had cancelled it, they refused to sell the television rights, so no other network could pick it up (although several wanted to, including Sci-Fi and the WB). They killed it, swept it under the rug, then rolled up the rug and threw it into a bog. Then they set the bog on fire.
Eventually, mostly due to fan pressure, they released the complete series on DVD. The stupidity of their cancellation was evident in the tremendous DVD sales, and
Firefly remains a top-seller to this day, constantly finding new fans.
Fox is also indirectly responsible for
Serenity's box office failure. Because the show was only on for a short time, very few people were exposed to it, thus seriously shrinking the available audience for
Serenity. The only people who went to see it were fans of the show. Casual moviegoers ignored it, based on the idea (probably started by Fox) that it was a movie based on a cancelled TV show.. "So how good can it be?", just like you said. None of which have ever actually seen the show.
I've seen hundreds of people on various forums fall in love with
Firefly after it was gone. Of all the people who have bought or rented the DVDs, I think I've seen only
one who didn't like it. Everyone else becomes a fan after watching only the pilot episode, and curses Fox for it's stupidity.
Although, in a way, it may be better this way. Because of Fox's treatment, and the negativity thrown at them constantly because of it, the show actually ended up far more popular than it would have been had it continued to air. The show would have trudged along for a few years, eventually fading into obscurity. But now,
because it was cancelled in the way it was, it's become a cult phenomenon.
Nice to see you're becoming "one of us", Famine.
