Time for Paramount to look for a new franchise? Perhaps Firefly? by Haken

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Time for Paramount to look for a new franchise? Perhaps Firefly?

POSTED BY: HAKEN
UPDATED: Tuesday, March 18, 2003 18:46
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VIEWED: 5663
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Sunday, December 22, 2002 7:20 PM

Likes to mess with stuffs.

Just read the news that ST: Nemesis crashed at the box office this weekend earning a total of about $26 million for a movie that cost a little over $100 million to produce and promote. Perhaps this will give Paramount an incentive to rest the franchise for a few years.

In the meantime, Firefly might be the way to go for Paramount. Imagine, Firefly ending up as a five year series and then Firefly the movie. Yeah. That could happen.

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Monday, December 23, 2002 2:21 AM

MYCROFT

As a long-time science fiction fan and loyal Star Trek supporter (painfully continuing to watch "Enterprise"), searching for entertaining and intelligent television programming, I have to agree that it is long overdue for UPN to upgrade. "Firefly" is an excellent show, whether labeled as sci-fi, soft or hard, Western, morality play, drama, etc. Besides "West Wing", television is disappointing me on a routine basis. "Farscape" has broken my heart, much like "Moonlighting" many, many moons ago. Now I find myself disappointed once again with the loss of "Firefly." I at least had three or four seasons of any TV show I became attached to. This cancellation is incomprehensible.

I'm new to the board realm, and not familiar with what makes an interesting post to the readers, but I am thrilled to read intelligent comments and know there are others who are well-read in science fiction yet enjoy the formats of television and movies which give a different medium for my favorite literature.

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Monday, December 23, 2002 7:16 AM

ALLRONIX

All the more reason UPN would be needing to take it on. They aren't dumb- they know their franchise is out of fuel. they also know Buffy's in trouble, and Smackdown won't earn them respect.

A living dog is better than a dead lion says an old quote. Roddenberry's the dead lion. could Joss Whedon be their living dog?

Co-founder of the Evil Writing Crew - causing hell, one hero at a time!

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Tuesday, January 28, 2003 8:21 PM

HAPLO721

In the case of Star Trek and Firefly, it's trading a dead dog for a living lion...

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Sunday, February 16, 2003 2:06 PM

XED

'Twould certainly be wonderful if UPN were to pick up (resurrect) Firefly and perhaps gracefully retire the Trek franchise for a few years. For a variety of reasons, this almost certainly won't happen.
One issue involves the Trek power structure. At the very top you've got Majel Barrett and the Paramount brass -- the Paramount execs tend to come and go, as studio execs in Hollywood do nowadays... But Majel Barrett, like the Energizer bunny, just keeps going...and going...and going.
She appears to have given her blessing to Brannon Braga as heir apparent to Berman, while Piller is now pretty much out of the picture. (In fact all of the best Trek writers have left, mainly due to Braga's ascension.)
Sadly, Brannon Braaga remains one of the least competent writers ever to scribble a screenplay. This guy couldn't write his way out of a pay toilet. Braga's ascension to the very top ranks of the Trek empire consequently has dragged the entire show into the dumper -- indeed, the entire Trek franchise.
Braga has only one script in him -- the time travel paradox, appallingly trivial, and shockingly devoid of human interest. If Firefly were to come into the Paramount stable it would surely fall under no-talent Brannon Braga's thumb (think: Braga = Sauron, Firefly = the ring of power) and that would rapidly spell the end of Firefly as a watchable show. Every episode would soon involve some trite time-travel paradox and all the characters would soon acquire that trademark Brannon Braga deadness. Braga couldn't write an interesting charcter to save his life. Braga's dialogue sticks to the ear like congealed bacon fat, while his plots startle with their lack of versimilitude to real life. To put it bluntly, Braga is to screenwriting as Dan Quayle is to spelling.
In particular, Joss Whedon (who has genuine writing talent, and who can write excelelnt screneplays, unlike Braga) wouldn't last 10 seconds under no-talent Braga.
So it would be an ugly spectacle indeed if Paramount were to temporarily retire the Trek franchise and drag in Firefly under Braga's Touch Of Death.
This analysis assumes that the current power structure in place overseeing the Trek franchise would remain in place. I think that's a sure bet. Trek has made so much geld for Paramount that the suits are not likely to jettison the people entrenched it he Trek power structure. That means Whedon and comany would have to grovel under no-talent Braga's Reign of Error. A grim scenario indeed.
However, Firefly represents a serious misfit with the Paramount Trek legacy for other reasons.
Trek remains a river of gold for Paramount because it dishonestly offers a candy-coated view of the future. No wife-beaters on board the Enterprise. No alocholics. No drug addicts. No embezzlers. Indeed, none of the people in the Trek universe apepar to suffer from any recognizable human flaws whatsoever.
Compare with the character is the Firefly 'verse.
Clearly Firefly represents in many ways the anti-Trek. The people at Paramount would run screaming if they were ever faced with the prospect of having to put on the air a set of characters as realistically human as the Firefly crew. Of course, very quickly the Firefly crew would be "corrected." Jayne would no doubt begin doing social work in his spare time, he'd adopt a big-eyed orphan child, he'd give away Vera and take up macrame, and he'd start wearing GIVE PEACE A CHANCE shirts.
Zoe would immediately start to speak up for the cause of saving the whales, by way of anti-gay discrmination..and no doubt she'd volunteer to nurse AIDs patients at a local hospice. Meanwhile, Wash would start a local PETA chapter and campaign against eating meat. Mal would naturally admit the error of his ways and run for a senatorial seat in the Alliance, remarking "Can't we all just get along?"
...well, I can't continue. You get the idea. If Firefly were ever to come under the ominous sphere of influence of Paramount (which, in its black glass L.A. office tower, tends to act like the Monolith in 2001 but in reverse -- when you touch it, your intelligence DROPS), the results would be hideous to behold.
What made Firefly superb was its gritty reality. Anyone see even the slightest scintilla of gritty reality in any of the Trek series? Even a jot? Even a tittle?
Gimme a break. The Trek universe offers us a whitewashed Republican country-club fairy-tale view of the future, and Firefly being taken up by the suits at Paramount who have given us so much mindless feel-good future boosterism --- well, that's about on the level of Rush Limbaugh dropping acid and cranking up some feedback guitar at a rave. Ain't gonna happen, bubba.
The other issue involves the general approach the Trek franchise has taken to storytelling. Although they did make a half-hearted stab at using longer plot arcs (the Founders in DS9, and the temporal Cold War in Star Trek: Enterprise) Whedon's basic approach to an arc-driven series like Buffy or Angel or Firefly remains completely incompatible with the each-episode-as-a-self-contained-story approach favored by Paramount. The Trek approach is still to toss in a couple of arc episodes per season, then end with a quickly-resolved cliffhanger each season. That's completely different from Whedon's approach, which centers around extended prolonged intensely connected arcs lasting at least 7 or 8 episodes.
Commercially, Paramount's decision remains the smart one. If each show remains a self-coontined story it's much easier to syndicate the series. Viewers don't get baffled or lost if they tune in mid-arc. Whedon (and before him Stephen J. Cannell, arguably one of the founders of the arc approach to dramatic TV series in Wiseguy) took real chances in stringing out a plot over 8 or 9 episodes at a time. History seems to show, given the relatively lower prominence in reruns of shows like Wiseguy, that series with self-contained individual shows largely sans arcs keep raking in bigger rerun bucks.
The last but perhaps most telling point remains hard cash. Everything Paramount does in connection to the Trek franchise revolves around hard cash. All the suits' Trek decisions boil down to how much cash they can milk out of the franchise.
Since Trek: Enteprise still produces cash, however feebly, what incentive have the Paramount suits to dump it? As along as they milk it, they will. They'll milk the Trek franchise right into the ground...and beyond. STAR TREK: METER MAID. STAR TREK: PLUMBER. STAR TREK: DOG CATCHER 9. You name it, they'll just keep squeezing it for bucks until the last Trek viewer has bailed at some distant point in the future.
Moreover, Firefly is not a feel-good show in the same mindless way the Trek franchise has been since STTNG. Firefly challenges viewers. It upsets preconcptions. It mixes comedy with drama, it mixes genres (western and sci-fi). This tends to throw the audience off balance.
The Trek audience, and the audience Paramount seems to be aiming for in general, appear to prefer sinking back into a blissful torpor in their barcaloungers. Such an audience appears to want the same-old-same-old. Firefly is NOT the same-old same-old.
The Paramount Trek audience appears to want nice fairytales before going to sleep. (Arguably with their eyes open, while watching the show.) "The economics of the future are different from those of your time," says Picard in the unintentionally ludicrous scene in Trek: First Contact where he explains why no one in the 24th century has to worry about getting their ass fired form a job or winding up homeless in the street. (This scene is so badly written and so ridiculous that I am willing to bet hard cash it was written by no-talent Brannon Braga himself.)
Pardon my French, but that's a crock of sh*t. I don't care what century you're in, people will still have to worry about fired or becoming alcoholics or tangling with ugly fascistic governments and creepy gommunit bureaucrats.
The Trek franchise has prestidigitated those inconvenient aspects of real life out of existence, the better to lull its viewers into mindless narcolepsy. (And I say this a rabid Trek fan who sent away as a kid for an autographed photo of Nimoy in 1966!) Firefly maintains a cold clear gaze at these ugly realities. In fact that's what makes Firefly worth watching, and it's why the Trek franchise has gone into the porcelain facility. When was the lasxt time anyone in the Trek franchise had worry about something real, like, oh, say...I dunno, keeping a job? Or paying the friggin' rent? Or a government tax audit? Or (you name it -- any of those harsh realities you and I have to deal with ona deaily basis but the people in Trek-land NEVER do)...?
What chance is there that Paramount would pick up Firefly in preference to the current somnambulistsic mindlessly feel-good "don't worry, the future's gonna be nothing but glorious and starfleet will kiss it all and make it better" Trek franchise?
Three guesses.

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Sunday, February 16, 2003 2:38 PM

TVDIR

I would love to see Firefly continue as much as anybody. But, the bottom line is UPN is Paramount; Paramount has Star Trek. Forget about it and move on! Lets hope Joss still has a plan of somekind.

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Sunday, February 16, 2003 7:24 PM

HJERMSTED

I can't foresee any situation where Whedon would give the Firefly concept over to some corporate suits to "re-tool".

Even with Fox's meddling, Firefly is still Whedon's child.

mattro

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Sunday, February 16, 2003 7:36 PM

MILLERNATE

Now we get into why I don't like you, that you claim to have the correct knowledge of why something happened but your information is completely wrong. Let us count the ways (since UPN has passed let's look at a theoretical situation in which UPN had picked up Firefly):

Quote:

One issue involves the Trek power structure. At the very top you've got Majel Barrett and the Paramount brass -- the Paramount execs tend to come and go, as studio execs in Hollywood do nowadays... But Majel Barrett, like the Energizer bunny, just keeps going...and going...and going.

Actually this is completely and utterly false. Majel Barrett (the former Mrs. Roddenberry) has no say at all in anything that Paramount does and merely receives a percentage for any Star Trek project. Now, in the matter of "Gene Roddenberry's [Show X]" that appear through Tribune in syndication she has quite a bit of input. But she has not had any real say in Trek since Gene died, though I'm sure she is quite happy to take the checks.

Quote:

She appears to have given her blessing to Brannon Braga as heir apparent to Berman, while Piller is now pretty much out of the picture. (In fact all of the best Trek writers have left, mainly due to Braga's ascension.)

You are right in that Piller's out of the picture, he's doing Dead Zone on USA. Though, again, her input doesn't really matter on this. Though I wonder how certain Braga's job is considering that there appears to be heavy debate on dropping Enterprise (as well as rumors about a Jonathon Frakes led revolt to have him Exec. Produce a totally different Trek show, though that rumor is far from reliable). It is entirely possible that, given the falling ratings, Enterprise will be cancelled come next season (or that Braga could be let go).

Quote:

. If Firefly were to come into the Paramount stable it would surely fall under no-talent Brannon Braga's thumb (think: Braga = Sauron, Firefly = the ring of power) and that would rapidly spell the end of Firefly as a watchable show.

Braga only has control over the Trek franchise and, given its decline in ratings, is in no
position to demand input into other shows. Thus another falsehood. Not only that but the show is run through (or would have been if it had been picked up) through the 20th Century Fox company, where Braga has no influence. Paramount would have simply been the network that aired it, 20th Century would have been the owner of the property (again, given an actual pick-up).

Quote:

Of course, very quickly the Firefly crew would be "corrected."
[/qoute]

Only if it came from Fox. If a network's production company owns a show then it is much easier to make changes (just ask anyone who has ever Executive Produced a show for TNT or Tribune Entertainment ), less so when its an outside production company that is as big as you are.

Quote:

The Trek audience, and the audience Paramount seems to be aiming for in general, appear to prefer sinking back into a blissful torpor in their barcaloungers. Such an audience appears to want the same-old-same-old. Firefly is NOT the same-old same-old.

True but UPN also airs Buffy and did air The Haunted, both of which were not really "same-old, same-old" shows. Remember, UPN would merely be the airing network under this situation, they would not have the ownership that they have over Trek. Thus an entirely different situation.

Nathan
"It looks like a great adventure...That's what it is; that's what it feels like. When I saw the pilot, it was really engaging. It was exciting. It was unusual. It threw me off every now and then. I think people will be grabbed by it." - Ron Glass, on the pilot, during an interview with the Indianapolis Star

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Monday, February 17, 2003 6:30 AM

XED

Well, "falsehood" is a pretty extreme word to use for opinions you disagree.
Even by your own count you only cite one (1) point on which you claim my statements were provably factually incorrect. That's not a bad percentage, given the number of facts I cited in my post.
So I think you'd be inclined to agree that you actually agree with me on almost all of what I said, with a few minor exceptions.
Let's recap:
You remarked that I "claim to have the correct knowledge of why something happened but your information is completely wrong. Let us count the ways.."
But the only point on which you really demur from my post is my claim about Majel Barrett's place in the Trek power structure. Now, it's absolutely correct that Majel has no official standing at Paramount or in the current Trek series. She's not in an official position -- she couldn't, for instance, fire anybody involved with Trek: Enterprise, or even approve or disapprove scripts (either in the current Trek TV show or in any ofhte movies).
However, the Trek fans have a great deal of respect for Majel and deservedly so. If she decided to make a big enough stink about something, there would probably be a pretty severe fan backlash against Paramount and the guys who wanted to mess with the Trek franchise.
So in that sense I would contend Majel Barrett has considerable power in the Trek universe, even though you're entirely correct that she doesn't have an official position in either Paramount or the current Trek TV series, nor does she have any official input. But "official" doesn't always tell the whole story...
On the rest of my points, you mainly agreed with my facts and my judgments -- i.e., you agree that Piller is now out of the picture; you agree that Brannon Braga is a big cheese now that Piller left; you appear to agree that Braga is not...let us say...the world's greatest screenwriter; you seem to agree that the current Trek TV series has slid downhill from the previous Trek series; and when I remark that "Firefly is NOT the same-old-same-old" you explicitly agreed with that too.
So the only other issues on which we disagree involve hypotheticals.
Specifically, if Firefly fell into Paramount's clutches, would Brannaon Braga have control over it? We don't know. You believe he wouldn't since he only has control over Trek, whlie my guess is that people who worm their way into positions of influence have a way of sticking around. In TV and the movies, the projects change but the people tend to remain if they've managed to grab positions of power. Just look at Sheldon Leaonard or Glen Larson, for cripes sake. (braga is arguably the Glen Larson of the 90s)
Since this is an entirely hypothetical debate, we don't *know* if Braga would stay and swat Firefly the way he's run the Star Trek: Entperise into the ground. So this is a point on which reasonable people can disagree and we'll never really know who's right. Seems like a pretty nebulous set of hypotheticals to use a word like "falsehood" on, doesn't it?
The other point on which you disagree is the amount by which Firefly would be twisted and warped into a sanitized Trek-ified caricature of itself if UPN got its claws on it. You might well be right -- UPN certianly did pick up Buffy, and that's not a squeaky clean sterile B.S. Trek-type universe. Characters in Buffy actually suffer from addictions (Willow and her magic) and they even die (Angel -- though he came back).
Once again, this is a hypothetical debate and we'll never really know, since as we're all aware UPN passed on Firefly.
Even if we give yo all three of these points for the sake of argument, though, wouldn't you ahve to agree that well over 85% of the stuff I said is accurate?
Namely: Firefly is not Trek-like, Braga is a crummy writer, the current Trek TV series is in the dumper due largely to rotten writing, the Dynamic Duo of Berman and Piller no longer runs things and in fact PIller has booked, while Berman seems to be getting tired of it all and Braga seems to be primed to take over, all the Trek series use a very-Joss-Whedon-like non-arc mode of storytelling, and perhaps my most important point -- which I think it's safe to say you agree with too... Namely, that Paramount has got its pig snout so deep in the Trek trough that they're killing the franchise by milking it to death. Paramount just doesn't give a damn whether the Trek shows are good or bad, as long as they continue to produce that river of gold. Paramount doesn't care whether the guy in charge of Trek can't write worth spit as long as the franchise continues to squirt out a steady stream of cash for Paramount. (Compare Braga to Gene Coon and Gene Roddenberry and Ron Moore. "As Hyperion to a satyr," in Hamlet's words...)
What Paramount doesn't realize, of course, is that by treating the Trek franchise this way, they risk killing the goose that lays all those golden eggs. I would submit that Joss Whedon has a very different view of his work. Whedon doesn't seem to be doing what he's doing solely and exclusively to make lots of money, as Paramount is. (If Paramount could legally make the same money they make off the Trek frnachise by selling crack to babies, I suspect they'd drop the Trek franchise in a minute and start hunting for baby carriages.) I would also submit that this is now the essential difference twixt Paramount and Whedon, and it's the basic reason why Firefly wouldn't make a good fit with the Paramount suits.

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Tuesday, March 18, 2003 7:24 AM

RIVERSIDE

Hmmm...I watch Star Trek (having been raised on TOS), and I have been known to say that Firefly is the greatest show ever....does that mean that my barcolounger has a Keep Flyin' bumper sticker?

(actually, I loved the new ST originally, finding the entire group of characters very likable, and the episodes watchable...been disappointed lately, but I feel that w/ better writing, that I could be happy w/ the show again)

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Tuesday, March 18, 2003 9:08 AM

LIVINGIMPAIRED

I was flipping through the TV Guide the other day, ("If you read the TV Guide, you don't need a TV!") and there was this article to the general effect of "Can Star Trek Be Saved?" Now, Scott Bacula has earned my undying affection because of Quantum Leap, but Enterprise is just lame. SC is pretty much the only reason I put up with the show. I mean, come on, how many "wrongfull" inprisonment episodes can you do? But anyway, TV Guide listed several changes Enterprise could do to make the show interesting. And I swear to god, that list described Firefly to a T. About the only thing Firefly DIDN'T have, was tossing Hosi out an airlock, but as far as I'm concerned, not having Hosi at all is a good start.

________________

EARLY: Then who exactly are we talking to?
RIVER: You're talking to Serenity. And, Early... Serenity is very unhappy.

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Tuesday, March 18, 2003 9:42 AM

RIVERSIDE

If you have a tv guide you don't need a tv?
lol
Someone has been watching Firefly from sunny
Santa Carla.

...although I wish I'd seen that article...I don't have a tv guide. ;)

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Tuesday, March 18, 2003 6:46 PM

LIVINGIMPAIRED

Quote:
Originally posted by Riverside:
If you have a tv guide you don't need a tv?

"The Lost Boys," has to be my personal favorite vampire movie of all time.

________________

"You're a creature of the night, Michael, just like out of a comic book. You're a vampire, Michael! My own brother, a god dammned, shit-sucking vampire! ... Oh, you wait till Mom finds out!"

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