What might have helped Firefly? (Hindsight is 20/20) by JavidRho

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What might have helped Firefly? (Hindsight is 20/20)

POSTED BY: JAVIDRHO
UPDATED: Friday, July 11, 2003 06:37
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VIEWED: 5093
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Tuesday, July 8, 2003 5:02 AM

One of my friends asked me what I thought might have helped Firefly stay on the air (besides more advertising and a better time slot). Having worked as a script consultant in the past, I thought about this, and here is what I came up with:

All future science fiction series should start off as a miniseries - say five 2-hour shows or ten 1-hour shows. Something like that. The miniseries would end with the conclusion of a particular story arc, but still leave you with a feeling of wanting more. Think about the ending of almost all major SF movies these days - they always leave room in the plot for sequels.

To me, this would solve two issues.
1) A miniseries becomes a "TV event" which separates it from the regular TV lineup. The ten hours of the miniseries would allow people to get to know the characters much better (very important for a character-driven show like Firefly). If it ends up doing well (ratings wise) after the series ends, then it could picked up as a regular episodic show later in the year. If the miniseries comes out in the summer (good time for it), then the regular show could start in the fall.

2) If the miniseries does not bring in high enough ratings when it ends its ten week run, then the show can be remembered as a great stand-alone miniseries by those who loved it (even the lowest-rated shows have huge fan-bases). In addition, when it is later released on DVD, the fans would have the sense of completeness when the DVD ends.

I think this might have helped a show as unique as Firefly. Moreover, if it didn't help, at least the fans would feel slightly better about the series ending. After all, if you looked at it as a miniseries right from the beginning, with no promise of a continuing series, then there would be less of a reason to be upset. After all, most of the best movies (and books) have not had sequels made of them, and we still remember them forever.

Just my two-cents worth - any comments?
Any other ideas?

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Tuesday, July 8, 2003 7:14 AM

JAVIDRHO

As a follow up to why I think that Firefly would have made a great miniseries, here is a description of what exactly a miniseries is - as quoted from The Museum of Broadcast Communications (link = http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/M/htmlM/miniseries/miniseries.htm)

"...the miniseries, at its best, offers a unique televisual experience, often dealing with harrowing and difficult material structured into an often transformatory narrative... The extended narrative time offered by serialisation makes possible the in-depth exploration of characters, their motivations and development, the analysis of situations and events."

Doesn't this describe Firefly?

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Tuesday, July 8, 2003 7:37 AM

SERGEANTX

Makes sense to me. I wonder if Fox would yank a miniseries before it completed its run... assuming the ratings weren't up to expectations? Doesn't seem likely given that they'd probably have all the episodes finished before air time, but they did can Firefly after ordering three more epsisodes.

SergeantX

"..and here's to all the dreamers, may our open hearts find rest." -- Nanci Griffith

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Tuesday, July 8, 2003 8:07 AM

JAVIDRHO

Quote:
Originally posted by SergeantX:
Makes sense to me. I wonder if Fox would yank a miniseries before it completed its run... assuming the ratings weren't up to expectations? Doesn't seem likely given that they'd probably have all the episodes finished before air time, but they did can Firefly after ordering three more epsisodes.

SergeantX

I'm quite sure the network would still cancel a miniseries if the ratings were too low, but I think that miniseries, in general, get more press than regular series. Also, I think there is more desire to keep watching a miniseries once you have started it, since it is a serial (continuing story line) and you know that it is on for a limited time (i.e. you don't have to watch it all season if you don't really care for it). That might boost rating and allow enough people to get to know the characters.

You know, I was just thinking - if the two-hour Serenity pilot was launched as a "Movie of the week", it probably would have done much better, especially if it had lots of hype and maybe was shown a couple of times. Let the characters sink in awhile, then launch the series later on. Another thing that would have helped is having more informative commercials - maybe a bunch of short ads with Joss saying some of the quoted sayings that appear at the top of this site. Maybe explaining that this is not your average science fiction show. Maybe explaining that it is NOT a space western.

Okay, there are alot of things they could have done differently. Can we all just snap our fingers and go back a year and try this all over again. Okay, first we build a way-back machine, then...

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Tuesday, July 8, 2003 10:33 AM

NIGHTTRAIN

Quote:
Maybe explaining that it is NOT a space western.

Could you explain to me how it is not a space western???
1. Locations, characters, style, wardrobe, themes, dialogue, and plot of so many episodes are so clearly influenced by the western genre.

2. they live on a spaceship......in space.

So if you put the previously mentioned facts together, you'd find out that when you watch your old Firefly episodes, you are in fact watching a space western.

Signature?? I DONT HAVE TIME TO THINK OF A SIGNATURE!!!!!!

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Tuesday, July 8, 2003 3:29 PM

VETERAN

Don't squat with your spurs on.

You have a lot of good ideas. I think 4 two hour episodes would be enough of an introduction. Showing the pilot as the movie of the week is an old idea, but showing it a couple of times might help the show work it's way into peoples' minds.

The only point I disagree with is that the Show is a Space Western. That's how Joss and Tim billed it.

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Tuesday, July 8, 2003 6:37 PM

ANUSBOB

I wish to be american cowboy. I see horse on Firefly and space. Tell me science too.

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Tuesday, July 8, 2003 8:13 PM

MICRONAUT

I like your ideas. I was bitching about a few things along the same lines in a different thread ( http://www.fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=2&t=2245 ).

As I mentioned in the other thread, I think that some kind of preview coupled with a DVD set is the only viable future for serialized sci-fi. Conventional TV is just too "instant fix" and/or tempermental to tolerate high concept fair like Firefly.

People (i.e. the ADD affected, unwashed masses) want fast food TV - quick laughs, quick drama, quick action, quick sex, quick tragedy and quick payoffs so they can go back to their mundane little lives without being too upset or challenged by what they just watched.

They say ignorance is bliss... that must mean there are a lot of happy campers watching Survivor....

"Just remember... all success is illusion: what has really been accomplished is the displacement of an area of specific failure to somewhere else... or is it the other way around?"

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Tuesday, July 8, 2003 9:24 PM

TALONPEST

Considering that Firefly ran 13 episodes (counting Serenity as 2 parts) before Fox yanked it, I doubt they'd cancel a low-rated 10 part miniseries before it finished.

That being said, while the miniseries idea may have helped, it would be completely unnescessary if Fox had done a few things differently:

1: Give the show a timeslot other than Friday at 8, when even hard core scifi geeks go out.

2: Don't preempt it every other week for baseball.

3: Give it some decent advertising.

4: Run the episodes in $@#*ing order.

If they'd done that, ratings would have been significantly higher, and right now we'd be getting ready for season 2.

Come to think of it, Buffy and Angel seasons are essentailly miniseries in themselves, with a season-long Big Bad.

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Wednesday, July 9, 2003 12:28 AM

JAVIDRHO

Quote:
Originally posted by NightTrain:
Quote:
Maybe explaining that it is NOT a space western.

Could you explain to me how it is not a space western???
1. Locations, characters, style, wardrobe, themes, dialogue, and plot of so many episodes are so clearly influenced by the western genre.

2. they live on a spaceship......in space.

So if you put the previously mentioned facts together, you'd find out that when you watch your old Firefly episodes, you are in fact watching a space western.

NightTrain,
You seemed to miss the point of this thread and concentrated on one small sentence in my original post. But, since this is a free world (and web) I will divert slightly off topic and respond to your post.

Okay, some valid point made - so maybe FF could be called a "space western," but the reason I mentioned it, is because I have read so many rants (on other sites) about how that single term put off so many people when the show was first being advertised. In fact, when I first heard the term, I thought the show would be really stupid (I was happily wrong).

With the term space western, I expected;
1) Everyone to be wearing cowboy hats (no one does)
2) Everyone wearing western clothing (a few do, but Wash wears Hawaiian shirts, and Jayne wears T-shirts.
3) Lots of shows involving cattle (only one show had cattle and that was a small part of the plot)
4) Everyone riding horses (some ride, some have ATVs, others have hovercrafts)

Being an old timer, I remember way back when the first Star Wars came out, the film reviewer, Roger Ebert, said it was simply "The Wizard of Oz in Space". Sure, there was a Tin Man (C3PO) and a scarecrow (Chewy), or maybe chewy was the lion, I don’t know. The point is, by giving a new type of show a moniker that simply mixed up two genres (space & western), it belittles the show (IMO). It’s like the way some people describe a new taste by saying it “tastes like chicken” – well, no, it does not taste like chicken, it is simply a new taste and you are having difficulty describing it.

So, having said all that, I guess I would have preferred a term like “frontier science fiction” which I think is much more appropriate. Even the term space western would have been okay, if someone had explained it better in those early days before the show first ran.

Back on topic - the reason I like the idea of a miniseries for SF shows like Firefly, is that most shows make or break it based on the pilot. A miniseries is considered sort of a really long pilot and I think people would give it a little bit longer before deciding if they like it or not. Maybe I'm wrong. I do think, however, that I would prefer to see Firefly come back as a miniseries instead of a movie. Two hours is just not enough time to explain this show to new people.

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Wednesday, July 9, 2003 6:03 AM

TRAGICSTORY

Honestly, I don't see a mini series as the answer. Mostly because if you miss 1 or 2 episodes you really get lost (ie. like in 24) The ABSOLUTE BEST way to have done it would be BIG SCREEN movie --> Movie shown on TV --->2 hour pilot---> Season 1 and so on. (Of course I am following the timeline of M*A*S*H* and to a certain extent Band of Brothers.

I think this system works because A. there is alot of advertising in movies. B. Word of mouth is one of the best promoters of movies. C. Movies are shown numerous times a day every day so find a timeslot that would fit your schedule would be easy. Once people see the movie, they will be hooked, see it when it comes on TV, see the pilot and see the season.

TRUST FUX TO GET IT BACK ASSWARD!

-----------
"Societies are supported by human activity, therefore they are constantly threatened by the human facts of self-intrest and stupidity." --Peter Berger

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Wednesday, July 9, 2003 7:51 AM

JAVIDRHO

Quote:
Originally posted by TragicStory:
Honestly, I don't see a mini series as the answer. Mostly because if you miss 1 or 2 episodes you really get lost (ie. like in 24) The ABSOLUTE BEST way to have done it would be BIG SCREEN movie --> Movie shown on TV --->2 hour pilot---> Season 1 and so on. (Of course I am following the timeline of M*A*S*H* and to a certain extent Band of Brothers.

I would completely agree with your statements if we were talking about any other show. Maybe it is just me, but I wasn't that impressed the first time I saw Firefly. It was something that slowly grew on me, over the course of several episodes, and only now that I have been able to download all of the episodes and watch them repeatedly, only now do I have an overwhelming love for the show. So, to me, a 2-hour movie would not have hooked me enough to demand that it return.

Then again, maybe if I had seen the REAL pilot, Serenity, instead of Train Job, maybe I would have been hooked from the beginning. Maybe that would have helped others as well. Maybe that was the real tragedy...

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Thursday, July 10, 2003 1:23 AM

DRAKON

The biggest problem I think with Firefly was the cost. Science fiction is expensive, compared to other genrie because every bloody little thing in your world has to be designed and built. You can't just swing by Walmart to pick up a set of salt shakers. They have to be futuristic.

Firefly did a pretty good job, with a lot of low tech stuff and burrowing from western era. But the ships, the guns, all of that has to be designed and built. And that is expensive. Hence the high price tag per episode.

Short of going to a Doctor Who budget, the cost for initially constructing the sets and buying the props has to come from somewhere. A movie or miniseries might provide the initial starting capital to cover most of those needs.

With lower production costs, the ratings become less of an issue. Not unimportant, but a low rated inexpensive show has a better chance of survival than an expensive show that not enough people are watching.

"my kind of stupid."

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Thursday, July 10, 2003 3:23 AM

JAVIDRHO

Quote:
Originally posted by Drakon:
The biggest problem I think with Firefly was the cost. Science fiction is expensive, compared to other genrie because every bloody little thing in your world has to be designed and built. You can't just swing by Walmart to pick up a set of salt shakers. They have to be futuristic.

I agree with Drakon completely. If you think about it, the only science fiction shows that have lasted on TV, are ones where they can keep the cost down while keeping the quality high. StarGate-SG1 is a perfect example. They only travel to other Earth-like planets (which all happen to look like British Columbia, Canada, where it is filmed), the only real prop (beside the home base) that they had to build is one StarGate - which they just place on each new "planet" of the week.

If you want a space-based show, you can't get away with cheap special effects these days. People expect things to look real and believable. Unfortunately, this means that maybe space-based shows will never make it on TV, even cable. They are just too expensive for the limited audience that science fiction attracts.

I personally like the fact that Firefly "wasn't for everyone." Shows that are so middle-of-the-frigging-road, so as to attract the largest audience, usually bore me to tears. So, where does that leave those who want this type of programming? Direct-to-DVD (as has been suggested here before), or my choice, we replace network TV with Pay-per-view TV. You want it, you pay for it. If the audience is small, and/or if the show costs more than average, then you pay more. This gets rid of commercials, and the ratings wars they create, completely. Simple and sweet...

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Thursday, July 10, 2003 8:47 PM

DRAKON

One added comment. The advent of computer graphics have lowered the cost of science fiction special effects incredably. It still takes talented technicians and artists, but the tools available to those artists are coming down in price. Which is one reason we have seen so many science fiction shows lately (Stargate, Space Above and Beyond, Farscape, Babylon 5, not counting the various incarnations of Trek.)

As costs come down, we should see more such shows.

I wish Firefly was for everyone. Not dumbed down to appeal to the lowest common demoninator, but I wish more people were as fanatic about Firefly, saw and liked the show as much as I did. Part of this is that a larger audience base would have kept the show on the air, and part of this is not liking feeling so diconnected from the rest of the world. Custer still means something to me.

"My kind of stupid"

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Thursday, July 10, 2003 11:27 PM

JUTIN

I agree that the cost had to have been an issue, but why produce three episodes and not air them... that's wasted money. I think everyone that comes to this wonderful site agrees that FOX is made up of morons. I believe that the biggest and only problem with Firefly was that it was ahead of it's time. I've been watching TV long enough to come to the conclusion that everything successful is a retooling of some older televsion show. Most viewers want remakes of The Dating Game or Star Search or Happy Days or The Twilight Zone... what is Firefly? It's original... it's not Star Trek, it's not Bonanza. I'm willing to say that it's not a mix of either. I always thought that it had similarities to Star Wars... but that couldn't be more farther from the truth. The main thing that could've helped Firefly was more advertising, airing in their real order, talk show appearances (as not to just meet the actors but to give people glances at entire scenes). I love Firefly and I talked about it's originality endlessly while it was still on air and have talked about it even more once it got cancelled and I'm talking about nothing else than Firefly since I found out that there will be a film made. Hopefully, if we all keep telling everyone we know about the show and getting them into watching a few episodes, the DVD sales will be big (and also DVD rentals, don't forget), hopefully the US Sci-Fi channel will pick up the episodes, and we can all create such a big buzz about the impending film and that we can all see sequels come our way too.

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Friday, July 11, 2003 12:55 AM

DRAKON

"why produce three episodes and not air them"

The answer to this, besides the obvious that Fox's upper management is populated by morons, is simple economics. The trouble is that simple economics ain't

In simplistic terms, ratings = money. The difference between cost of producing an episode and how much advertising revenue the network gets from the time slot is the profits. An expensive show, with low ratings does not generate enough profit to make it viable. So you switch to a cheaper show, that is possibly more popular, to garner higher profits from the time slot. Even if that means not airing episodes and eating those productions costs, the overall effect of higher profits on the new show can offset that loss.

Also, by not airing the episodes, you increase the (perceived) value of the DVD box set, thereby increasing the price you can charge and make higher profits that way. To overcome the original outlay in production costs.

Never ask me a rhetorical question. I can bore the ears off a gnat at 500 paces.

"My kind of stupid"

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Friday, July 11, 2003 1:02 AM

JAVIDRHO

I've had this belief even before Firefly was yanked. Let's not blame FOX, per se, let's blame the whole gorram commercial TV system. The only way we, the people, will have any say in what is put, or kept, on the air, is if we pay for the shows we want. As I mentioned earlier, this would be direct to DVD shows, for now, but would have to evolve into pay-per-view TV - completely replacing so-called "free" commercial TV.

As long as networks rely on commercials to pay for their salaries and the stockholder's retirements, then of course they are going to go with shows that give them the most money per hour. That is simple economics. If you buy stocks, do you go with the companies who are doing great things, but loosing money? No. If you have money to give away, then you might help out those companies because you like what they do. You certainly don't invest in them if you really want to make money (this is unfortunate, but true). Network TV is a business, pure and simple.

Now, having said that, I do blame FOX, and several other networks, for this new trend of giving new shows only half a season (or less) to find an audience. Back when I was a youngun, networks always gave new shows at least a full season. It was during those long summers, we would wait to see if our favorite show was picked up for another season. Now, many shows are cancelled after only 3 or 4 episodes. If you look at the numbers, MOST new shows these days do not make it a full season. Survivors are rare.

Maybe that is the fault of the stockholders, no one wants to invest in the future anymore. No one wants to allow a show to find its place and grow. They all want big returns, and they want them NOW, or it's NO SOUP FOR YOU!

To sum up this long rant:
1) Commercial TV is the Alliance
2) Browncoats need to fight for a change
3) That change will help all shows, not just FF
4) I should never post right after drinking a large double-shot iced mocha...

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Friday, July 11, 2003 6:26 AM

TRAGICSTORY

Quote:
Originally posted by JavidRho:
Quote:
Originally posted by TragicStory:
Honestly, I don't see a mini series as the answer. Mostly because if you miss 1 or 2 episodes you really get lost (ie. like in 24) The ABSOLUTE BEST way to have done it would be BIG SCREEN movie --> Movie shown on TV --->2 hour pilot---> Season 1 and so on. (Of course I am following the timeline of M*A*S*H* and to a certain extent Band of Brothers.

I would completely agree with your statements if we were talking about any other show. Maybe it is just me, but I wasn't that impressed the first time I saw Firefly. It was something that slowly grew on me, over the course of several episodes, and only now that I have been able to download all of the episodes and watch them repeatedly, only now do I have an overwhelming love for the show. So, to me, a 2-hour movie would not have hooked me enough to demand that it return.

Then again, maybe if I had seen the REAL pilot, Serenity, instead of Train Job, maybe I would have been hooked from the beginning. Maybe that would have helped others as well. Maybe that was the real tragedy...

Thanks for agreeing with me but I have to point out that if you saw the Firefly movie (and it did not suck) then you would most likly check out the pilot and thus get the show started. I would just have to point out the number of times this formula has worked:

M*A*S*H*
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Stargate
Superman

Finally I could point out the number of movies we would like to see made into series.

(of course this debate is pointless because fox has already F**ked it up for us)
**Note to self: Finish TIME MACHINE and fix timeline**

-----------
"Societies are supported by human activity, therefore they are constantly threatened by the human facts of self-intrest and stupidity." --Peter Berger

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Friday, July 11, 2003 6:37 AM

JAVIDRHO

Quote:
Originally posted by TragicStory:
Thanks for agreeing with me but I have to point out that if you saw the Firefly movie (and it did not suck) then you would most likly check out the pilot and thus get the show started.
...

I hope you (and others here) are correct, and that Firefly can return as a successful and long-lasting TV series after the movie comes out. Afterall, isn't that what we all want? Isn't that why we all spend so much time here, talking about this show?

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