Whose Fault Is It? by Riv

GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

Whose Fault Is It?

POSTED BY: RIV
UPDATED: Sunday, October 20, 2002 17:25
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VIEWED: 1264
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Sunday, October 20, 2002 10:37 AM

FireFly isn't doing well in the ratings. (Last week it was 2.7) So, I began to wonder whose fault is it that the show is doing so badly.

Is it Fox's? Fox who hasn't really done anything with it. I think I see a preview for it once every two weeks or something.

Is it Joss's fault? His fault for having the show on Fox. Maybe he shoud have stuck with WB or UPN. (We know those guys ax nothing. Then, we wouldn't have to worry about our new fav show)

Is it the viewers? They may not wish to watch the show thinking that it will be just like Buffy or/and Angel. Thinking it will be this "teen show" as some call it. Or maybe they think it's a western? These people really should just watch the show and see that it can be witty, dark, funny, sad, strange, and just fun.

I know I don't watch Buffy thinking it will be Angel. Or Angel thinking it will be Buffy. And never watch Firefly thinking it will be Buffy and/or Angel.

Ok, I'm done. I just needed to vent. Sorry

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Sunday, October 20, 2002 12:20 PM

DELVO

It's the fault of the system by which the ratings are derived, for not being representative of people's actual viewing behavior anymore (if it ever was).

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Sunday, October 20, 2002 1:37 PM

HAKEN

Likes to mess with stuffs.

First, I'd go with the Nielsen rating system. I believe it's utimately flawed and not 100 percent accurate.

There are probably a bunch of guys in a backroom somewhere who are very well versed in mathematics and statistics that would say that I'm wrong. But, in the end, no one there really knows (other than maybe my cable company) what I'm watching and when I'm watching it.

Heck, I can turn my VCR on right now and watch an episode of Firefly and no one other than me will know. If several million people did this, not FOX, not the advertisers--no one--will know. The fact that TIVO subscribers has Firefly as their second most recorded show says something about how our viewing habits have changed with technology.

That said, Firefly's inability to grow an audience could be attributed to simply there being no audience to grow. Firefly falls in some gray area between Sci-Fi and Western. Both are very small television niche markets (I don't think Western even has a market) and only a limited number of viewers for either one with Sci-Fi being the larger of the two genres in terms of viewership.

So, one has to wonder, what happens when a show that belongs to two very small niche genres, gets shown on a night with very little viewers for which it targets, on a network that is trigger happy about killing new series when it under performs, by a talented and critically acclaimed writer who has beaten all odds in the past.

Talk about suspense. Your guess is as good as mine.

P.S. If everyone in the nation was to watch Firefly, but none of the Nielsen families do, does that make Firefly a failure? Hmmm....

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Sunday, October 20, 2002 5:25 PM

PEDME84

well, fox is not helping by shelving the original pilot which i found to be very exciting.

i found that i needed the pilot to get any kind of good grip on the characters. other viewers who may just be sci fi fans tuning in out of curiosity aren't as deep into it as us and don't know to download the pilot. they may not know that anything's missing. i don't think they're going to be able to dive right into these charcters.

even with the original pilot under my belt, i still feel fuzzy on some of the characters, and they're giving us episodes from act two where we're not supposed to be fuzzy. i esp. don't know much about zoe, and that one's making me crazy. i don't understand the motivation for some of her actions. and when jayne offers to trade his gun, very funny but i don't understand why he would value that girl so much to trade his very favorite gun. he names his weapons. he probably pets them and sings to them. he can dip his wick into any old girl whenever they land, why does she matter that much?

the answers to these questions could very well be in the two episodes that they skipped over.

there are other reasons an audience might not be able to get into firefly.

before the fantasy genre took off with lotr and harry potter, my professor told me that one of the problems with the fantasy genre is that an audience can't believe the stakes a character has to face since none of it's real or relatable to their own lives. i totally disagree with that. a person's emotional vulnerabilities never change no matter what culture they live in, and to me fantasy is about writing characters who live in a different culture that you get to make up.

but as a writer you have to be mindful of this and be sure to write characters that an audience will be able to relate to or at least find familiar.

the writers on firefly have done a wonderful job of making the voices of the characters sound like they're from the old west, but maybe that's the wrong way to go. things have even been posted on this fan site showing that people aren't all recieving it well. this voice might be excluding audience members from the firefly world.

i wouldn't get rid of this voice, but i'd really tone it down.

now, this is just a guess. i love joss and can't possibly know how a layman will react to the show.

i just mean that i wouldn't put all the blame on fox. fox is evil and not helping, but not solely responsible.

- emily

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