Fox Friday tv spots, and promos for Firefly. by OPPYH

GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

Fox Friday tv spots, and promos for Firefly.

POSTED BY: OPPYH
UPDATED: Friday, September 7, 2007 19:46
SHORT URL:
VIEWED: 1508
PAGE 1 of 1

Wednesday, September 5, 2007 9:47 AM

I just finished compiling all the tv spots, bumpers, and endings(next week on an all new Firefly segments), from vhs to dvd. I'm now exhausted. One thing is for sure though, Fox was trying to promote this series as a straight comedy. Watching the tv spots was like watching The Tick live action promos(very quick, and funny) and no drama or action.

So if you were remotely thinking of a sci-fi series to watch, judging from the tv spots, you would probably look elsewhere. When it aired starting with The Train Job, I tried convincing all my friends to watch it, but most thought it looked goofy, or wasn't their type of show(3 of them now consider it to be their favorite show since released on dvd) but I believe most of this was the fault of the lousy tv spots created to sell the show to audiences.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, September 7, 2007 5:24 AM

EMMAZULE

Quote:
Originally posted by OPPYH:
I just finished compiling all the tv spots, bumpers, and endings(next week on an all new Firefly segments), from vhs to dvd. I'm now exhausted. One thing is for sure though, Fox was trying to promote this series as a straight comedy. Watching the tv spots was like watching The Tick live action promos(very quick, and funny) and no drama or action.

So if you were remotely thinking of a sci-fi series to watch, judging from the tv spots, you would probably look elsewhere. When it aired starting with The Train Job, I tried convincing all my friends to watch it, but most thought it looked goofy, or wasn't their type of show(3 of them now consider it to be their favorite show since released on dvd) but I believe most of this was the fault of the lousy tv spots created to sell the show to audiences.

Making it even worse, the original pre-premiere promos made the show look like it was way too derivative of other shows, and hyped up the "from the creator of Buffy and Angel" angle. Oh, and putting it on Friday...

Several things were wrong with Fox's promotion of the series as far as I can see. Let's leave out the "aired out of order and constantly preempted for baseball" bit, because we all know that song all too well. Let's focus on the other stuff, some of which ya'll may or may not have thought about.

Friday: despite the infamy of the Friday Night Death Slot, not all shows do badly on Fridays. X-Files started on Fridays, after all (though they eventually moved it to Sundays), and that was an SF hit for Fox. Similarly, CBS' Ghost Whisperer is still going strong, apparently, and just look at the killer (for cable) ratings that SciFi Channel gets with their SciFi Friday lineups.

However, to do REALLY WELL in Friday slots, the following seem to be criteria:

1.)Promote it well.

2.) Air it CONSISTENTLY.

3.)Don't spend too much making it (I wouldn't have Firefly any other way but its beautifully cinematic, movie-quality visuals, but it would have been costly to produce), because then it's harder to make money off of ads and subsequent DVD releases, and therefore harder to "justify" keeping it on the air.

4.)Make it fairly family-friendly. Especially if it's airing at 8 PM eastern, because that's who's most likely to be home then on a Friday.

We can see how smart Fox was for putting Firefly there, now can't we?

They were probably hoping that Joss' built-in fanbase would carry over and provide a boost - sort of like how NBC didn't immediately cancel Las Vegas after moving it to Fridays, because the fanbase followed it, you know?

They forgot, however, two key things:

1.) Firefly ain't no Buffy spinoff; I love Buffy, I do, it's witty and great but Firefly? Firefly is actually much more grownup. People who liked Buffy may very well like or love Firefly (I know I did), but I have met just as many people who liked one and not the other (particularly those likign Firefly more, I suppose because it's a little more mature). Buffy can certainly be appreciated by grownups (it seems to have grown on my family, for one, and I still enjoy watching it), but it's AIMED at teens, whereas Firefly it's the exact reverse: it can be enjoyed by teens (I believe I was not yet 20 when I first became a fan, for one), but it's AIMED at grownups.

2.) Buffy may be famous and the originator of a devoted fanbase, and widely acclaimed and successful internationally, etc., but it's had more TIME to get there, and while it was a success for both WB and UPN, let's not forget that nobody considers either of them to have been a "major network"; they had lower expectations for ratings to begin with. Even now, even with the integration into my generation's pop culture, Buffy really is still somewhat of a cult hit. Let's also not forget that for those who haven't given the show a chance, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" sounds like a really awful or stupid or silly thing to name a show, ergo BtVS must be silly and/or stupid, right? (I know that was my mom and I's reactions before we tuned in out of curiosity and discovered how much better it was than that).

The third mistake as far as I can see?

The pre-premiere promotional spots.

"...and a girl in a box!" just screamed "wheeeee look at us, we're ripping off fellow Space Western series Outlaw Star!" to just about any anime fan back in 2002. Other of course than the fact they gave away a huge spoiler (and then didn't show the episode they spoiled for AGES), they also neglected of course to make it clear that while the show homages the naked-girl- in-a-box intro of Melfina from Outlaw Star (kid you not, if you'd seen both, you'd notice it), the two characters are completely different (Melfina's a frickin' robot, for one) and they even subvert their own homage by having River subsequently wake up screaming in terror and shock.

That last one especially stings for me, because I've been an anime fan since about 1999 or so, and I used to watch and enjoy Outlaw Star quite a bit. The ads made me NOT want to give it a try, because I wasn't a fan of Joss yet and really just thought the network was ripping off a competitor's imported show, without even the decency to change the genre much. I know for sure that a huge segment of the anime-watching fandom at the time was outraged by the implication of the ads (nevermind the fact that ideas can't be copyrighted, and that it turned out it wasn't a copycat at all), and I went with the tide, because it really, REALLY looked like they were ripping it off, and damnit, I LIKED Outlaw Star. I, like them, refused to watch the show at all.

It wasn't until later, after I'd gotten into Joss' other stuff, heard some intriguing things about it, and gotten a chance to see it for free when it reaired on SciFi, that I gave it a chance and fell in love.

Needless to say, I want to SMACK the person who thought it'd be a good idea to advertise the show with the Girl In A Box bit.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, September 7, 2007 5:29 AM

WYTCHCROFT

http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance/search/firefly/video/x22vxy_firef
ly-series-trailer-1st-place-wi_shortfilms

you may have seen this - but i watched it again recently and - whew! - it sure shows everything fox missed!

stay shiny

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, September 7, 2007 7:46 PM

OPPYH

Quote:
Originally posted by wytchcroft:
http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance/search/firefly/video/x22vxy_firef
ly-series-trailer-1st-place-wi_shortfilms

you may have seen this - but i watched it again recently and - whew! - it sure shows everything fox missed!

stay shiny

First time I seen it, and ...WOW!

If this is what Fox used to promote the show, we'd be watching season 6 this Fall.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

YOUR OPTIONS

SHARE THREAD

NEW POSTS TODAY

USER	POST DATE

USER

POST DATE