Yet another theory... by suinegagpf

GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

Yet another theory...

POSTED BY: SUINEGAGPF
UPDATED: Wednesday, December 25, 2002 06:51
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VIEWED: 3945
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Monday, December 23, 2002 7:45 AM

Since everybody else is posting their opinion on what went wrong, I thought I'd take a crack at it too.

FOX and Firefly – The Big Picture

I’ve read a lot of posts lately speculating as to the reason that Firefly failed on FOX. Some people seem to think the network executives at FOX have their heads too far up their own posteriors to know what’s going on in the real world. Others have speculated that it was due to the cost of each episode. I have a slightly different theory as to the events leading up to the cancellation of Firefly.

-- SPECULATION MODE ENGAGED --

Let’s back this story up several years to about the time that FOX decided they wanted to get into the television industry. There were already three big well-established networks on the playing field: ABC, NBC, and CBS. From early on, FOX had problems attracting talent to their network. There even seemed to be a fear that if an actor left one of the major networks for FOX and the show didn’t go anywhere that they would have problems getting back onto one of the big three; especially if the show was cancelled in mid-season. FOX had no real budget and was really struggling just to get listed in a respectable place in the Nielsens.

So FOX changed their business model. Instead of going head to head with the major networks on their own turf, they decided to go in another direction entirely. Where the big three were mainly concerned with quality dramas, sit-coms, sports, and news, FOX decided to push the envelope in what could be aired on TV with regards to sex, violence, ethics (the lack there of), and more recently reality. They knew they were going to generate a lot of controversy and they were counting on it. It would be that controversy that would help them attract and define their core audience.

So who is FOX’s core audience? Just wait, we’ll get back to that in a moment.

Now, let’s jump to when Joss Whedon pitched his idea for a new show to the network executives at FOX. Ok, this nice young lad is standing before you passionately describing nine unique characters and one of them is a prostitute and there is an evil alliance and the bloody civil war and the reavers and probably lots of other things that we have yet to see. So as a network executive, what do you do? You research this guy; you find out what other shows he’s done.

You find out that he has two other hit shows: Buffy and Angel. You look at their demographics. You look at their ratings. You watch a few shows. And what do you discover? A couple things really. First, Angel is a clone of Buffy. Second, both Buffy and Angel are shows that would appeal to FOX’s core audience; they’re loaded with lots of high-energy hand to hand combat scenes, people getting stabbed in the chest with pointy wooden sticks, and the list goes on. There’s even a scene where Spike tries to rape Buffy. And how about that scene where Willow’s friend gets shot and she rips the skin off the guy responsible. Buffy draws lots of controversy. There was a question on Hollywood Squares not long ago, “What show has been voted most family unfriendly?” The answer: “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”. This is perfect. This is exactly what FOX wants.

So you sign a contract and give Mutant Enemy millions of dollars to develop what you think will be a Clone of Buffy the Vampire Slayer except set in space. It’s a simple mistake really. You have to remember that network executives are a funny lot to begin with. Rather than simply ask people what they want to watch, they’d rather just guess and once they guess right they clone it as many times as it takes to make people sick of it.

So now the pilot is done. What do you think the network executives were thinking while they were watching it? How about where’s the high energy hand to hand combat? And where is the blood, guts, and gore? And why introduce the reavers and not show them raping people to death aboard their ship? They were expecting Buffy the Vampire Slayer in space and what they got was Firefly. Compared to Buffy, Firefly might seem “slow” and “confusing”.

FOX’s core audience doesn’t want to watch an intelligent, well-conceived, well-developed sci-fi drama. FOX’s core audience tunes into “Mad TV” for the sexual innuendo and raunchy skits. FOX’s core audience tunes into “American Idol” to watch teenage girls with tears streaming down their face get cameras shoved at them and asked questions like “When Simon told you that your voice sounded like a wounded moose humping a dead horse, what was going through your head?” FOX’s core audience tuned into “Married with Children” to watch Al Bundy slam the female gender and Kelly parade around in skimpy outfits. FOX’s core audience will tune into “Joe Millionaire” to find out what was so bad about it that FOX is now being sued by several of the woman who appeared on the show.

A couple of weeks ago, as I was watching FOX, a commercial for “Joe Millionaire” came on. You know the one where the announcer says “And who would give them that idea?” and you see the word FOX on a black screen. I was thinking that FOX must know that they would get sued. Why would FOX want to get sued? And then this whole theory came to me.

When was the last time you saw one network advertise for a competing network? That’s silly, it would be a conflict of interest. Why would you want send your viewers over to a competitor? So what happens when a competing network gets sued for some depravity? Every network runs a snippet on their news and/or entertainment news shows covering it. Why? Because it makes them look good by comparison to their core audiences. What does it do for FOX? Suddenly, they become inundated with mail requesting that the show be rerun so they can find out for themselves what was so bad to justify a lawsuit.

Think about it. The best thing that could possibly happen to FOX as a result of “Joe Millionaire” is that one of the contestants would get so distraught that she would commit suicide and her family would file a wrongful death or equivalent lawsuit against FOX. That would almost assure coverage on every competitor’s station on the face of this planet all for the price of one wrongful death lawsuit. The money that FOX will make rerunning the show both locally and abroad will cover the expense of the lawsuits several times over.

So what about Firefly? FOX would have asked Joss to redo the pilot and add more action; make it more like Buffy. At about the same time more episodes would be filtering in from post-production. FOX sees the “The Train Job” and thinks that it is more likely to appeal to their core audience, so they shelve the pilot and run “The Train Job” instead. As for advertising Firefly, why spend money to advertise a show that you know your core audience isn’t going to want to watch.

DISCLAIMER: AUTHOR MAKES NO CLAIMS AS TO THE ACCURACY OF THE INFORMATION CONTAINED ABOVE. REGARD IT AS PURE SPECULATION.

----
Of course I'm cynical, I used to work for a defense contractor.

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Monday, December 23, 2002 8:09 AM

DARKANGELSLAYER

Didn't Joss have like a 20 million dollar contract to develop shows exclusively for Fox?

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Monday, December 23, 2002 8:22 AM

NOVAGRASS

Quote:
Originally posted by darkangelslayer:
Didn't Joss have like a 20 million dollar contract to develop shows exclusively for Fox?

I'm not sure if it's quite as high as 20mil, but he does have a contract with Fox. Not the Fox network, though... 20th Century Fox. Fox and 20th Cent Fox are sister companies, but Fox does not have priority when it comes to airing shows.

20th Century Fox produces Buffy and Angel... they're on The WB and UPN... they produce Friends too, I believe, and it's on NBC.

So... he has a contract with 20th Century Fox to develop series (though, I think he's only obligated to do one more), from the information that I've heard, but they don't have to be aired exclusively on Fox.

--Dylan Palmer, Pretentious Bastard at Large--

"Oh my god, I'm a hack!" - Joss Whedon

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Monday, December 23, 2002 10:37 AM

CARDIE

I agree about how FOX has situated itself as being raw, edgy, and in-your-face. But I hardly think they had to "research" young Joss, since their production arm produced his previous two shows. There is a growing trend in network programming for networks to want to own the shows they schedule--much better for the bottom line. So I'm sure FOX were very interested in getting the next JW-20th century Fox series for their own network. If they had done research, though, they'd see that JW shows don't pull huge ratings and skew much more toward women than the FOX target demo demands. (That's why both shows were nurtured and prospered on the WB, the girl weblet.) I'm sure they believed that if this were a Western-SciFi hybrid it had to be more like Fastlane. That only shows that they don't understand what Joss is all about. I'm not saying that plenty of men don't adore Firefly, but it's not an instantaneous crowd pleaser with the PlayStation 2 set.

Cardie

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Monday, December 23, 2002 6:06 PM

SUINEGAGPF

I'm not sure that I would believe that one arm in any company necessarily knows what the other arms are up to.
I used to work for a company that had at least 10,000+ employees. Of which, about 3000 worked in the same building complex that I worked in. I could tell you what the 20 or so people that I interacted with each day were working on. As for the other 9,980+ employees, I hadn't a clue.
I don't know how big FOX is, but I would think they would have at least a few thousand employees.

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Tuesday, December 24, 2002 12:27 AM

HKCAVALIER

Hey Cardie,

slightly off topic but your mention of the Playstation 2 reminded me of something. You know not all the games on that console are violent shoot 'em ups, extreme sports or bloody fist fights. Have you heard of their rpg's like Final Fantasy? The reason I mention it is that some of these games, I would say, share the same, or very similar, genre with Firefly. They often combine cultural elements from the past (whether it be the Dark Ages, Renaisanse Europe, the Age of Exploration or even the Old West) with futuristic technology. Further, these games are often very adult in tone, with complex and mysterious characters struggling against vast, seemingly unasailable totalitarian governments. Some of the story lines are down-right sombre.

Just thinkin'...

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Tuesday, December 24, 2002 12:50 AM

GREYWOLFWOOD

Two words:

"John Doe"

Okay, I've never seen the show, and never watched it. But I know what the basic story is.
It's all x-files'ish. But it's not the typical raunch fest like Fastlane "gag!". Why is it going to still be one....or has it been cancelled.

It pisses me off that "Laap Saap" like fastlane stays on.
I use to think fox was just an idiot's network, but now I think it's a.... well, there is no word to describe their stupidity.

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Tuesday, December 24, 2002 2:00 PM

DELVO

Quote:
As for advertising Firefly, why spend money to advertise a show that you know your core audience isn’t going to want to watch.

Sui, I didn't follow exactly what your theory is. Can you give it to me in one or two sentences?

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Tuesday, December 24, 2002 2:30 PM

CANADIANJON

Yeah! Darn tootin! They mix past and future well, and the great difference between the living
conditions of poor and wealthy. FF7 is only one I see any similarities.

A few of the characters are also reminiscent, with lots of good character development.

Aeris.. the mysterious girl they find and rescue, with feds experimenting on her to get at her wierd powers, pivotal role in story.

Barret.. the man ape gone wrong with a big gun, terrorist at first, honorable and lovable

Cloud... unexplained past, was a soldier, now a semi-criminal sexy hero main character, cares about getting paid at first, snotty, then grows as a person.

Cait Sith.. betrays them so they lose Aeris to the feds, then sacrifices himself for the group.

Tifa... Cloud's little sister-type character
(but he gets with her) who he knew from long ago, beautiful, martial artist, scary strong.

Cid... the cigar smoking rocket pilot, fairly small role in story, married, not very similar to Wash though.

That's all the similarity I see though, and they
are a bit vague, as any group of main characters
can be placed into various catagories.

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Wednesday, December 25, 2002 6:51 AM

SUINEGAGPF

Quote:
Originally posted by Delvo:
Quote:
As for advertising Firefly, why spend money to advertise a show that you know your core audience isn’t going to want to watch.
Sui, I didn't follow exactly what your theory is. Can you give it to me in one or two sentences?

Ok, to sum up:
1) I don't think FOX knew what they were buying. If they did, they would have never given Firefly a chance.
2) I think Joss Whedon was either unaware that FOX could not provide his show with the appropriate audience or he was more concerned with it seeing the light of day.
3) Based on the programming that FOX airs, you can deduce what segment of the population that they are targeting. FOX's core audience would likely be made up of people that have come to expect that type of programming; sex, violence, rude/unethical behavior, manufactured human tragedy, gossip, etc. all packaged into a format compatible with people with short attension spans.
4) FOX's core audience would not enjoy a character driven drama like Firefly so advertising to them is pointless. Besides they'll likely watch the first episode up until they get bored and change the channel.
5) The people most likely to enjoy Firefly either watch FOX a little or not at all. Thus, advertising to those people would range from very difficult and costly to impossible.
6) Most people who don't watch FOX have come to expect a certain level of scum from FOX programming; that's why they don't watch it. Therefore, the fact that Firefly is on FOX may have put off some potential fans.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think that all of FOX's viewers are idiots. I veg'd out in front of a lot of FOX programming when I was in college. I've probably seen every "Married with Children" episode. (Remember when Kelly was the smart one and Bud was the idiot?) Occasionally, I still like to veg out. But if the goal in veg'ing out is to use as few cognitive brain cells as is necessary, then Firefly wouldn't likely be compatible.

----
I think my father summed it up best when I told him about Firefly: "FOX is the National Enquirer of the TV networks".

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