Firefly I'm Pissed!!!!

[buzzard]

Well, they cancelled The Tick after a very short run in which they changed the showing time three times and pre-empting it twice.

Few shows get any chance to develop an audience -- unless they are expected and mainstream, they are doomed.

Yes, but in the case of The Tick, it was a mercy killing. I'm a big tick fan (comics and cartoon), but dear lord was that show horrible. I wish you hadn't reminded me of tha abomination.

buzzard

 

[Silver Moon]

As to the movie, is there any new dirt on what they might be doing with it? I'm hoping against major deviations from the show, a la Mission Impossible (SPOILER:

Spoiler

Jim Phelps -- a bad guy. What a load.

)

Yeah, well that was why (SPOILER:

Spoiler

Peter Graves refused to do the film, and they had to cast Jon V. instead - I wish they'd changed the name of the character! The rest of the original cast also opted out when they found out they were all going to be killed in the opening reel.

. But, despite that the Mission Impossible films have become a hot property for Tom Cruise, so go figure.

 

[Silver Moon]

double post

 

[Silver Moon]

Yes, but in the case of The Tick, it was a mercy killing. I'm a big tick fan (comics and cartoon), but dear lord was that show horrible. I wish you hadn't reminded me of tha abomination.

Good, I was starting to think I was the only one. I was amazed at how bad it was, given the material available and a pretty good cast. The cartoon series was amazing, remember the episode "The Tick vs. The Tick", with the superhero bar and the sidekicks being sent to a shack out back! Great stuff.

 

[Darrin Drader]

noretoc, I wasn't the biggest fan of Firefly, but I feel exactly the same way about the cancellation of Crusade. I almost feel sorry for the TNT customer service reps that had to read my email diatribes... Almost.

I really wish there was some option for fans to bankroll the series they wish to keep. If you get 200,000 fans of a cancelled scifi show willing to contribute $100 each, how many episodes would that pay for? With most shows that should pay for a whole season. I think there are certain series' that could pull that kind of money from its fans if it means staying in production.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

From what I've heard, Joss wants to stay within "series reality" while still making it something that will play for the big screen. Especially since Joss is writing and directing, I don't think any need worry about wierd changes to the characters or plotline.

Then again, Joss is the guy who wanted to put Jesse in the opening credits of the premiere of Buffy just so he could make people think he was a regular on the show and his subsequent vamp-ification would be that much more shocking. He did the same thing with Amber Benson, IIRC.

So expect things to change, in any case. Joss loves to screw with his characters.

 

[The Goblin King]

Excellent...saves me the trouble of starting a thread. First of all, the rant was spot on. We, too, got the DVD for Christmas and have been watching a DVD a night since New Years Eve. I can't believe how much I grew to care about the characters -- all of them -- in just a few episodes. And such unrealized potential. What was the deal with Book? How much damage was done to River, and of what stripe? What was the deal with the Reavers? The dialogue, the characterizations, the setting -- this was exactly my kind of sci-fi show.

I know. I didn't like that it was cancelled for the same reasons. Maby there will be a movie someday that will answer those questions.

 

[trancejeremy]

Well, bear in mind, it's not as simple as just how many people watch it. Who watches it also matters, as does how much the show costs.

Ever since Fox put Simpsons up against Cosby on Thursdays and lost, it seems to have taken a tack of putting anything on Thursday, basically ceding it to the other networks.

Thursday is important because it's the big day for movie advertising (among other things). So networks like to put their best rated stuff on it. But Fox is at a disadvantage vs. the big three, because it has fewer affiliates. So it will never win agains the top competition. So after their try with the Simpsons, they gave up. (That's also part of the reason Cops and American's Most Wanted have lasted so long - the ratings suck, but they're dirt cheap to make).

So, Tru Calling probably survived because it was much cheaper to make than Firefly, and their expectations are much much less from it. And it's probably got better demographics, at least where advertisers are concerned.

Anyway, IMHO, the big problem with the show was it had too many characters, and many of them look alike. I tried watching it, but could never tell anyone apart except for the guy that was on the X-files and the captain. Especially the women - they all have the same hair color.

 

[Wombat]

Good, I was starting to think I was the only one. I was amazed at how bad it was, given the material available and a pretty good cast. The cartoon series was amazing, remember the episode "The Tick vs. The Tick", with the superhero bar and the sidekicks being sent to a shack out back! Great stuff.

See, I love the comics -- ran across those when I lived in NH. Then I loved the cartoon. I liked the live version, too -- but I liked all three for different reasons. Saddest thing is that the cartoon was killed off by Ben Endlund, rather than FOX, because he refused to keep to deadlines.

I was and am no fan of Firefly, but I think both shows could have found much better fan bases if the the networks had given them half a chance.

 

[Ranger REG]

What pees me off is this:

Firefly: 4.6 share (not at the bottom) on a Friday!

Tru Calling (stinks) 3.9 share on Thursdays.

They keep Tru Calling.

There is no justice in the world.


<sigh> Keep Flying, my friend.

To be fair...

Firefly debuted LAST season (2002-2003) along with John Doe (which was a surprise hit to me, IMHO). But Firefly got cancelled right before Christmas 2002, and soon Joe Doe followed after. Did FOX made a mistake putting them on Friday night timeslots where most people usually don't stay home at the start of the weekend, I don't know. The X-Files debuted on Friday night on a good note that was later moved to Sunday night during its waning years.

Tru Calling just started up after FOX hosted the MLB World Series ... THIS season (2003-2004). But from the look of it, it is not holding up well, so Yet Another Genre Show (a long line that includes MANTIS, The Millenium, Space: Above and Beyond, The Long Gunmen, etc.) may be going to the guillotine. AFAIC, it's good enough for me, but then again, I'm an Eliza Dushku fan.

Let's face it, FOX is no longer a good platform for genre shows since the ending of X-Files.

Was I pissed then? Yeah. It took me one whole year to lament. But I'm glad it is being resurrected in a DVD set, with a movie to be followed.