Was Firefly just ahead of its time? by Geezer

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Was Firefly just ahead of its time?

POSTED BY: GEEZER
UPDATED: Monday, March 21, 2011 08:56
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Sunday, March 20, 2011 5:09 PM

Keep the Shiny side up

Considering the success of 'Lost", "V", "Fringe", etc. did Firefly just come before the audience for that type of show was ready for it?

I'e been watching the Science Channel's episodes on Sunday night, and it really seems to fit right in with what folk would watch now.

Did it just jump the gun?

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Sunday, March 20, 2011 5:52 PM

GWEK

Certainly LOST was a very successful show, but I think grouping it with V or even FRINGE isn't particularly fair. I'm not sure about FRINGE's ratings (the move to the Friday night death slot is not a big show of faith by the network), but V's ratings are questionable enough that's it's constantly on the bubble of not being renewed.

Having said that...

I agree that FIREFLY was ahead of its time... not necessarily in show type, but in audience appeal. It's important to remember that FIREFLY aired about a head after 9/11, and that even had a huge imact on the American viewing audience (and arguably beyond).

Joss himself addresses this in an interview (I wish I could find the source), with an interchange that goes something like this:

FOX: Hey, Joss, we'd love to work with you. Do you have something straightforward, lighthearted, and patriotic?
Joss: Well, I've got this idea about a bunch of morally ambiguous criminal types living at the edge of poverty in the deeps of space.
FOX: Sold!

It's not hard to imagine that the timing was all wrong. In 2002, much of the viewing audience was looking for a very different kind of escapism. If the show aired today (or in recent years), with the economy in shambles and mistrust of "big government" and the establishment at an all time high, it would find a very different audience waiting for it.

I also think that the FOX/Joss interchange shows very clearly the foundation of another serious problem with the show--the creator and the network were not on the same page. While it's very popular to blame FOX for everything, Joss as much as admits that he was peddling a product that the network didn't really want.

Considering those outside factors, the eventual outcome is not, I suppose, a huge surprise despite the high quality of the show.

www.stillflying.net: "Here's how it might have been..."

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Sunday, March 20, 2011 6:11 PM

WISHIMAY

Yes, your mission-should you choose to accept it- Is to go back in time to the day they decided to cancel FF. Steal the Lassiter(ya didn't know it was a timeline weapon too, did ya?) and load it with Higgs singlet particles and point it in the general direction of a Fox exec and you will automatically restore our timeline to the one where Joss is ruler of this planet and has superpowers to protect us from oil spills, tsunamis, earthquakes, mad dictators, evil mortgage companies and the general suckiness of this perverted century....

Now to answer your actual question...No, I don't think FF wasn't ahead of it's time, WE were behind on ours. I don't watch shows that don't make it to season 2 and I'm bettin' I'm not the only one. WE weren't given the time to fully realize Firefly's awesomeness... If it had made it to season 2 she'd still be runnin' today!

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Monday, March 21, 2011 5:59 AM

BYTEMITE

Quote:
Certainly LOST was a very successful show, but I think grouping it with V or even FRINGE isn't particularly fair. I'm not sure about FRINGE's ratings (the move to the Friday night death slot is not a big show of faith by the network), but V's ratings are questionable enough that's it's constantly on the bubble of not being renewed.

To be fair to V, ratings are not necessarily an indication of show quality... They are a determination of success, but in a predetermined way. A show isn't going to have high ratings it you take it off air a couple weeks of it's broadcast, whether you see that as causing a viewer hemorrhage or something else. Same is true if it's intentionally put in a trouble slot, when it hasn't had the chance to attract viewers in a regular slot yet.

Frankly, considering how inconsistently Nelson families are chosen and where the rating pools are drawn from, well, I might argue that ratings don't actually mean anything. I might even argue that there's cherry picking and even made up numbers as opposed to actual statistics.

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Monday, March 21, 2011 6:35 AM

GWEK

Oh, I definitely agree that ratings are not an indication of quality (in fact, there is very rarely a correlation).

But the original post referred to the "success" of V (grouping in with LOST and FRINGE). Based on everything I know about V, including ratings, the opinions I've heard from others, and (I'll be honest) my own inability to stomach more than a few episodes of it, I'd be hard-pressed to call it a "success" on any scale--and certainly wouldn't group it with LOST, which was a social phenomenon (rightly or not).

It's kinda like calling TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES or DOLLHOUSE "successes" because they were lucky enough to get renewed once.

www.stillflying.net: "Here's how it might have been..."

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Monday, March 21, 2011 6:42 AM

BYTEMITE

V is a special case for me. After they pulled the vaccine episodes during the swine flu scare, it became hard for me to not support it, regardless of how I felt about individual episodes.

Like a number of people feel about Firefly, so too do I think there might be some authority types who would like to see V dead because of the messages it sends. I know it sounds crazy and conspiracy theory, but I can't shake the feeling.

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Monday, March 21, 2011 6:45 AM

GWEK

That DOES sound pretty crazy. :)

www.stillflying.net: "Here's how it might have been..."

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Monday, March 21, 2011 6:50 AM

BYTEMITE

Well, all I'm saying is, pat-on-head series that say our politicians and security agents are good guys who always get them evil bad guys in the end always seem to pull in the ratings. Whereas series that are socially subversive usually don't. Is it the viewers, are they dumb? Is it the networks and their lowest common denominator demographics? Or is it that society has become more accepting of dumb television and less of smart television because of what's been offered to us and what's shown to be popular in the ratings?

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Monday, March 21, 2011 6:57 AM

GWEK

I gotta be honest, I'm gonna go with "most viewers are dumb." :P

Seriously, though, good, insightful fiction often fails (movies, TV, etc) because people are often looking for entertainment and escapism. I think it's no more "conspiracy driven" than that. And I don't think that most networks have a "political" agenda that extends beyond making as much money as possible (which, yes, means appealing to the lowest common denominator... or at least, the lowest common denominator willing to buy products from the advertisers.

www.stillflying.net: "Here's how it might have been..."

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Monday, March 21, 2011 7:48 AM

ZEEK

Yeah I don't think Firefly was ahead of its time unless there's some time when viewers start craving something deeper from TV.

That being said I do think it could have done well if it was given time. I think most anybody who really gives Firefly a chance can find something they like from it. That would take time and word of mouth to build that type of audience though.

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Monday, March 21, 2011 7:55 AM

GWEK

Yeah, the thing with FOX in those days was that they had become so successful that they forget about their past, when they were desperate. They have always wanted a genre show that could match the success of X-FILES, but seem to forget that the reason X-FILES succeeded was because they gave it time... and they gave it time because they didn't exactly have a lot of other options. Many of FOX's early successes would never have made it on ABC, CBS, or NBC because those networks had more development options, so they would have nixed them. And as soon as FOX had enough success under their belt and money in their pocket, they became exactly the same.

And the cycle continues, of course, with the premium and basic channels now generally being the storehouses of quality program. Give it time, though. They'll eventually giddily cancel tomorrow's THE SHIELD and DEADWOOD and BREAKOUT KINGS and BIG LOVE after six episodes, too.

And then for a while, netflix will probably become the storehouse of quality. Until...

Ugh. :)

www.stillflying.net: "Here's how it might have been..."

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Monday, March 21, 2011 8:45 AM

KPO

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

Maybe the mood of the nation might have been more suited later, and other things like that.

My take on this as I've said before, is that Firefly was quite a special and unique show, that needed time to find its audience. It was never going to be an instant HIT, even if the advertising and scheduling had been perfect, which we all know it wasn't. But it WOULD have gathered steam and ultimately become a critical and commercial success, I believe.

There are other examples of special, briliant shows starting out quietly but going on to generate wide interest and international appeal: The Office and The Wire spring to mind. I think the UK and US versions of The Office were both nearly cancelled early on due to low ratings, but some executives showed faith in them. That was all Firefly needed.

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Monday, March 21, 2011 8:56 AM

BROWNCOAT1

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

Was Firefly ahead of it's time? I believe so. Joss certainly is to a degree. The fact it was thought provoking and sent a strong message of personal freedom over blind obedience to a government body caused it to be bit outside the comfort zone for many. The blend of western and sci fi probably put more than a few people off too.

If it came out now, especially with the exposure that most of the cast has had in recent years, it would be better received. Fox still would not be a good fit for it though.

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