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I recently finished reading Jill Sherwin's Sailing the Slipstream: An Unofficial and Unauthorized Guide to Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda, and it made me realize something about the studio/network politics that may have underpined Firefly's cancellation.

To summarize, Andromeda began as a really good show that was derailed by a string of disasters (the show-runner [Robert Hewitt Wolfe] was fired from his own show, two different groups of network suits each tried to recreate the show in their image, dumbing the ongoing arc down to a stand-alone weekly "action-hour," they had very little budget to begin with, and it kept getting reduced as the show went on [even as they were being ordered to do bigger and better FX/action scenes], etc). Sherwin identifies the two main problems as budget (as RHW said; not enough money to execute an actual sci-fi show) and the policies of Tribune/Fireworks, the co-producing organizations.

In Firefly's case, budget doesn't seem to have been a problem, but some of Wolfe's comments about Tribune made me see Fox in a new light.

See, Tribune Entertainment (the dominant half of Andromeda's backing) was initially a newspaper company. Even though they diversified into media and entertainment, they still tended to think like newspaper people.

I'm not up on the Fox Network's history, but when I turn on my TV, Fox News tends to be the most-advertised thing they run. Fox News footage turns up everywhere from CNN to Comedy Central. They're the ones with the political commentary, the government apologists, etc. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Murdoch (and probably most of Fox's executives) cut his/their teeth in journalism.

The thing about news is that it's disposable. That's why it's so sensationalized; the point is to sell papers. Then, within 24 hours, they'll be wrapping fish in it, 'cause the next edition is coming out. Staying power isn't a factor. It's not that they don't want it, it's that they genuinely don't understand how it could work that way. Nobody talks about last week's headlines. They aren't looking to make a big impression, 'cause they expect that you'll have moved on to the next big thing by tomorrow (as they will have).

This is where the miscommunication (between Wolfe and Tribune, and possibly between Joss and Fox) comes in. Wolfe and Joss were aiming for staying power. They were both crafting shows that people would be talking about years down the road, and could be rewatched regularly, revealing layers of nuance. Shows that could lead to movies, and comics, novels, video games, spin-offs, the works --they were creating franchises.

Tribune/Fox would look at this an just not consider that people would be carrying over from week to week. Their model of viewership just doesn't work like that. They feel they need the weekly SENSATION!!! to grab people's attention, and the question of whether or not they'll tune in next week just doesn't cross their minds. As Joss said, Fox weren't looking for shows that "unfold" --they want the quick payoff, 'cause next week isn't guaranteed.

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Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey
"Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes.
That way, after you criticize them and they get mad at you, you're a mile away and they don't have their shoes."

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