Who actually cancelled Firefly ? And theTRAIN JOB as the pilot. by BrownBug

GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

Who actually cancelled Firefly ? And theTRAIN JOB as the pilot.

POSTED BY: BROWNBUG
UPDATED: Friday, April 13, 2007 09:19
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Friday, April 13, 2007 2:08 AM

By now it must be accepted that cancelling FIREFLY was a bad idea. It's in the top of every list of "shows they shouldn't have cancelled", the Firefly DVDs seem to top amazon sales lists, so....

who actually cancelled, which one personmade the decision? are they still employed at fox for getting rid of what has become a cash cow? And have they ever said "um.. sorry"?

i dont intend to lynch them, it just interests me if it all comes down to one bad decision by one man/woman.

i will say one thing controversially though, i think i can see why they thought that the train job is actually a better pilot for Firefly.

It introduces a bad guy, it has the action of the heist and then the giving back of the medicine which establishes them as good guys and criminals, ideally the pilot should have been part the proper pilot and part the "train job". imagine for example same opening scenes of the war, then cut to modern malcolm reynolds in the bar fighting the alliance supporter. that would have worked well.

there is ofcourse the slight problem of introducing the new characters, but somemore fancy editing could have combined that.

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Friday, April 13, 2007 3:08 AM

BROWNCOAT1

May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one.

First off welcome to the site BrownBug. We're glad to have you here with us.

As far as if any one person was responsible for the cancellation of Firefly or not, we don't know and will most likely never know. At this point it really doesn't matter. It is apparent with looking at Fox's track record that their execs just don't get intelligent, character driven programming.

I disagree though that "Train Job" was a better pilot. Sure it introduced a villian, but it did not set the stage properly for the show. It barely mentioned the War which was the primary shaping device for several of the characters and which set the stage for the political and economic atmosphere of the 'verse. "Serenity" gave us a glimpse of Mal that is very different from the Mal we see in the "Train Job", a Mal with faith, who is optimisitic and idealistic. The Mal we see in "Train Job" is dark, given up on faith, and is far more pessimistic. We get no explaination for why Mal is this brooding dark "hero", but in "Serenity" we do. Personally I think Joss had it right by making "Serenity" the pilot. Too bad the Fox execs thought they knew better than the creator and man who loves the show.

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Friday, April 13, 2007 4:03 AM

BROWNBUG

Hya, thanks for the welcome good tobe herein a friendlybrowncoatenrionment...

in fairness i did say a modified version of TRAIN JOB would have made a good pilot. I suppose what im saying is if they wanted to change the pilot they could have done a better job by mixing elements of the actual pilot with the train job and it could have turned out quite well.

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Friday, April 13, 2007 4:15 AM

ECGORDON

There's no place I can be since I found Serenity.

I have an opinion on who was mainly responsible for the cancelation, but I won't post it because it is based on hearsay, rumor and innuendo that I have read between the lines in various interviews since then. I could be totally wrong.

I also think "Serenity" is the better pilot, but I can see FOX's reasoning behind wanting a faster plot to lead off with. Don't agree with it, but understand it. In the same vein, I can even get behind the idea that FOX thought they were doing the right thing in changing the order of some of the episodes. Regardless of continuity issues, they felt "Our Mrs. Reynolds" was a stronger episode than either "Shindig" or "Safe," as it had several action sequences, was a good balance between the space scenes and the western-like opening, and also had a very hot lady to attract the attention of male viewers (not that the four regulars aren't hot enough). They already knew that women were responding more than men, and they wanted the opposite for what they had conceived as an action-oriented show.

wo men ren ran zai fei xing.

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Friday, April 13, 2007 4:15 AM

PHOENIXROSE

You think you know--what's to come, what you are. You haven't even begun.

Number one: I think it was a small group of execs, rumored to no longer be working for Fox broadcasting.
Number two: Okay, this has always annoyed me. "Fox wanted a larger than life villain." Hello? Reavers?
The Pilot, as it was meant to be seen, introduces the REAVERS, okay? A huger than life, terrifying force essential to the ongoing storyline of the show. Put Niska next to Reavers. Who wins?
As for returning the medicine and kicking Crow through the engine, yeah that establishes them as good guys, but so does taking on Simon and River, so does the protectiveness the crew has for Kaylee, so do a lot of things in the pilot.
No, The Train Job was not a better pilot. It turned several potential viewers and reviewers off to the show, cuz they didn't get it. It's a good episode to watch AFTER the pilot. It's got some cool moments and does re-establish the characters and with a rewrite would have been a perfect second episode. A lot of people find a show on the second or third episode, that could have worked well. Running it as the pilot? Bad idea.

I'll say it again, too.
Larger than life = REAVERS!!!

Welcome to the obsession

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.

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Friday, April 13, 2007 4:18 AM

BROWNBUG

yeh i have to admit shindig is the episode that took me the longest to warm to, it felt originally that those ball scenes went on for an eternity. I love it now though cause it has some of the best lines of the series in.

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Friday, April 13, 2007 4:19 AM

TINADOLL

Hey welcome!

I don't know who decided to cancel firefly but then look at the whole programming department at the F*X network. Its chaotic. They bump good shows for everything under the sun.Some shows are not even shown for three or more weeks even during sweeps month! And they wonder why shows don't grab an audience

They wonder why Firefly didn't get an audience- It wasn't even given a chane- The episodes were shown out of order,it wasn't promoted and it changed timeslots. If they treated Firefly like they treat American Idol-i am sure it would have succeded in the Neilsons

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Friday, April 13, 2007 4:22 AM

GROTZ

I have a dreamgoal, three actually.
After being a gazilionaire i will:
1. Finance the new and improved Firefly series, five seasons not more or less.
2. Built a 1 to 1 model of Serenity to live in.
3. Hostile take over of F*X, and fire every single person that had anything to do with firefly.

I will of course rebuilt Bag End to use in the summer. The Shire actually, not just Bag-End.
All browncoats will be invited to a hobbitstyle shindig.

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Friday, April 13, 2007 6:03 AM

ZZETTA13

Howdy again BROWNBUG :)

I'd like to throw in a couple of coins. First of all I did not see the FF series in the begining when it first aired so if I make any mistakes I hope my browncoat brothers and sisters will point them out and forgive me. I'm confident that will happen.

Now, as I understand it the show began its tv life on friday night. Bad choice IMO. Next the eps were shown out of order and even pre-empted a time or two for other things. What can we expect from dealing with these type of ppl (F*X exects)? To top it off, word was given to Joss about cancellation the night of the cast Holiday party.

Merry Christmas, here's your ruttin pink slip. Can folks think of anything more ice cold than that? Hello!!

Although I think the Serenity pilot woulda been the best eps to start with, don't think it would have made a difference. Joss could have easily named the tiny transport the "Titanic" and maybe even gotten a few extra ppl to watch.

Anyhoo, it's all water under the moat. Now I'm not saying that a show that makes no money and creates little interest shouldn't be dumpped. But Hell, look at the way DRIVE is being marketed now!! I'm seeing DRIVE all over the place and we still have a couple of days before we see its first eps with Nathan.

My thinking is that if DRIVE does become a huge success F*X will claim it's because it's a better show and because they're so smart. Success will have nothing to do with Nathan, Tim, Jubal or any of the actors, day of the week or timing.

As for someone owning up and saying " Yup it was me. I'm the one who stood up and said. We gave FF every chance and it didn't pan out." Well, don't think you'll find that guy.

Z

Blue Hand " You spoke to the prisoners?" ZAP!!!

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Friday, April 13, 2007 6:24 AM

DARKFLY

Quote:
Originally posted by Grotz:
I have a dreamgoal, three actually.
After being a gazilionaire i will:
1. Finance the new and improved Firefly series, five seasons not more or less.
2. Built a 1 to 1 model of Serenity to live in.
3. Hostile take over of F*X, and fire every single person that had anything to do with firefly.

I will of course rebuilt Bag End to use in the summer. The Shire actually, not just Bag-End.
All browncoats will be invited to a hobbitstyle shindig

Your my kinda of Browncoat Grotx

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check out my MYSPACE at... http://www.myspace.com/darkfly7

http://richlabonte.net/tvvote/index.html

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Friday, April 13, 2007 8:38 AM

ROBINHOOD

So, you want to know WHO exactly cancelled Firefly. Frankly I'm surprised no has given you the correct answer yet, I thought it was more commonly known.
Well, here's a name you can remember, Sandy Grushow. He's was chairman of the Fox Television Entertainment Group from 1999 to 2004, he is the man responsible for Firefly's demise.
He didn't like the show from the very start, not understanding why there were 'horses', but no 'aliens' in a science fiction show.
It was he who made that great decision to NOT show the 2hr pilot Serenity, (even though it had cost $10 million to produce) and ordered a 45 minute reworking of it, ie, The Train Job.
He accepted the Train Job as a replacement but non of the following episodes where shown in their correct order, nor was it promoted in any real fashion, and it was moved about to various time slots so it was almost luck if you managed to catch it.
Gail Berman should also bare some responsibility for it's cancellation. She was the executive producer of Buffy and Angel, yet I believe she did little or nothing to sway any of Gushow's dumb decisions in Whedons favour. I don't think she and Whedon have spoken since.
I'm sure there are more detailed accounts of the show being cancelled, but they are the basics of it.

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Friday, April 13, 2007 9:19 AM

TYRANTKILLER

grotz. you rule.

"when you cant run, you crawl, and when you cant do that, you find a friend to carry you!"
-the browncoats

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