Firefly Discussion (Merged)

Heretic Apostate said:


I don't remember the Flash. Was it THE Flash? As in, the fastest man alive? Or some other guy?

The Flash as in the DC super hero. It was a good show, but dies fast it seemed. Sci fi ran the reruns a while back, so they might run them again.
 

log in or register to remove this ad


Mistwell said:
Don't forget The Tick.

Never forget The Tick!

Thanks for the nielsen sites.

I LOVED The Tick! Both the cartoon series and the play-action series!

I loved the Tick's rambling. It was so great. And Patrick Warburton's acting shows he can be a good actor. (Better than Mr. Putty in Seinfeld and the one-hit-wonder sidekick in MIB2.)

Now, if I can just find a .wav of the Mad Bomber's monologue from the Tick cartoon....
 

Heretic Apostate said:


I don't remember the Flash. Was it THE Flash? As in, the fastest man alive? Or some other guy?

The Flash was a great series. You should check it out if you can find it (if you live in an area that has comic cons, you should be able to find tapes of the episodes).

Actually, the pilot movie was released on video years ago, and the two Trickster episodes where released theatrically in Europe as The Flash 2 (I think it was subtitled "Revenge of the Trickster" or something like that).

I'm not sure if the "sequel" ever made it to video in the US, though.

It's really a shame that there wasn't a 2nd season. According to Mark Hamil, who played the Trickster, the season premiere was going to feature a team-up of the comic villains who appeared in the first season (Trickster, Captain Cold, and Mirror Master).

Hamil also said that he wrote or was writing a script for Gorilla Grodd or Vandal Savage (who would be such an easy villain to do...his only superpower is immortality).

Heretic Apostate said:
As for Brisco, I LOVED that show. Brisco and Lord Bowler, they were great! I seem to remember some woman, as well. But when it got all techno-temporal, it started going downhill.

I was enjoying the anachronistic western feel of it, but when you start in time travel and stuff, that's a bit too weird.

Are you sure it was only one season?


Brisco is tied with Nero Wolfe as my favorite series of all time.

The woman in question was Dixie Cousins. Here's something interesting about the actress from the imbd.com:

"Kelly Rutherford has been and still is a famous celebrity in Turkey. Her role in the short-lived, but highly acclaimed, TV series, "Generations", made an impression in the cultural psyche of the Turkish people so much so that allusions to "Sam," her character, are commonly applied in daily life and if you ask the devout fans they'll readily attribute the success of the drama entirely to her presence. She followed her fame by recording various commercials for the Turkish market, and even appeared in a nationally broadcast music festival. Rutherford's kindness has very much endeared her to the Turkish people."

I wonder if she puts "big in Turkey" on her resume? :)

BTW, I, personally, like the Schwenky (sp?) Sisters. Do you remember them? They were the buff, German blacksmiths.

One of them was portrayed by the woman who played the buff warrior woman who had a crush on Hercules back on his series (I think her name was Atalana).

She eventually ended up as the girlfriend of Prof. Wickwire (John "Gomez Addams" Astin), and doing oiled up blacksmithing stage show with her sister.

How come they never told us about this stuff in our American History classes? The education system in this country is a disgrace!
 
Last edited:

THE FLASH TV series

Funnily enough, the actor who portrayed The Flash (John Wesley Shipp) also appeared on Dawson's Creek as Mr. Mitch Leery, Dawson's dad.

Damn, I'm old.
 

At last! I think I may have a glimmer of good news regarding Firefly!

You may have heard that ABC has announced the first round of shows to be axed for this season.

Despite this announcement, it looks as though Firefly is still in production. Episode #8 now has a title, a writer for the script and director. This is a good indication that the show may be going back into production now that the season’s first break is over.
 


I was surfing a Firefly fan site, when I ran across some exciting news. At least I thought it was exciting, but apparently not everyone thought so.

I have clipped two separate quotes from fireflyfans.net

First, the good news.

Quote:

According to figures posted on The Futon Critic website, Firefly is currently ranked 59th out of 119 shows in generated income at $2,592,000 per episode. FOX's other series, John Doe, which appears on the same night as Firefly, is ranked 38th with an average income of $3,275,200. The much FOX Exec touted Fastlane is ranked 24th, generating an average income of $4,264,672. It's rumored that Firefly cost an estimated $1.3 million to produce. If that's the case, Firefly generates about $1.3 million in profit for FOX per episode.

Here is where Firefly stands against other genre series.

21. Alias - $4,636,480
34. Smallville - $3,566,048
38. John Doe - $3,275,200
46. Push, Nevada - $3,065,984
59. Firefly - $2,592,000
65. Enterprise - $2,284,256
72. That Was Then - $2,091,808
81. Dinotopia - $1,921,216
82. Buffy the Vampire Slayer - $1,889,024
85. Birds of Prey - $1,837,440
87. Angel - $1,779,488
92. Charmed - $1,557,504
97. Touched by an Angel - $1,354,944
103. Twilight zone - $915,616
104. Haunted - $908,800
111. Sabrina, the Teenage Witch - $721,792
118. Do Over - $534,880

It's interesting to note that Push Nevada and That Was Then have both been cancelled.

End Quote

I read this and I thought – Woo Hoo! FOX is making money on Firefly!
Then I read a little further down the page.
Someone else wrote a response to the previous post. And not just any "someone else".

Quote:

You're interpreting the numbers incorrectly here. The ad income minus the license fee does not equal the profit FOX makes per episode on the show. That ad income of $2.59 million per episode is contigent on "Firefly" meeting its pre-determined ratings guarantee to advertisers, that is what FOX assures advertisers a show will do in the ratings. If a show doesn't meet this guarantee (generally the average rating of its time slot for the previous season), FOX has to issue "make goods" or free ads that make up for the show not making its guarantee. So while FOX may take in $2.59 million for an episode, if it doesn't meet its guarantee, FOX ends up paying back money to the advertisers in the form of refunds or free ads, i.e. the show starts losing money for FOX, not making it.

So while it would be nice to think FOX automatically makes money each time it airs "Firefly," that's not the case. And considering FOX averaged just shy of 6 million viewers in the Friday, 8 p.m. eastern time slot last season and the last episode of "Firefly" was only seen by 4.9 million viewers, FOX is already going to have to issue make goods or refunds for the show as it is.

Furthermore, while its nice to say that "Firefly" makes more than "Buffy" or "Enterprise," FOX is seen by 97% of households in the U.S. while UPN only 88% of all U.S. households - FOX shows generally should be doing better than UPN shows.

While I appreciate your enthusiasm for hyping "Firefly" (we're big fans here at the site too), it's also important when talking about things like this to lay out the facts correctly.

Brian Ford Sullivan
Editor-In-Chief
The Futon Critic
http://www.thefutoncritic.com

End Quote:

It sounds like he's saying that depending on FOX's agreement with advertisers, determines whether FOX is making or losing money on a show at any given time.

So is this good news or not? Maybe not terrific news, but it doesn't sound like bad new either, right?

I'm confused. At least, I think I'm confused.

And does anyone remember what show Mr. Sullivan is referring to? What show was FOX airing at 8pm on Friday nights last year that was netting 6 million viewers?
 

Whodat said:
And does anyone remember what show Mr. Sullivan is referring to? What show was FOX airing at 8pm on Friday nights last year that was netting 6 million viewers?

X-files? Dark Angel?
 
Last edited:

Well, the thing to remember here is that production cost is only one of a host of factors to indicate whether or not a series continues or not. Network expectations, reasonable or otherwise, play a large part, as do target demographics. If a show gets good ratings, but not the audience the network's advertisers want, then it may still fail.

Of course, sometimes a network decides to try and build an audience for a show, as well. Shows like say, 'Hill Street Blues', 'X-files' and yes, 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer'. So really, the only way to find out is to wait and see. Irritating, I know, but without a real insider, that's all we can do.
 

Remove ads

Top