Everyone gets one brush with fame, one chance to brag about their connection to greatness.
This is mine.
I went to junior high school with the man who played Riley Finn.
But I still hate Riley.
On the plus side, this should make the entire run of Firefly fit on just a single DVD set.
And I guess Joss Whedon better take pains to never get in a car wreck in some icy isolated nowhere. Apt to get a fellow hobbled. Crikey. I figure I’ll get around to season 6 in a couple more years when I can rent it through Netflix, but from what I’ve heard it was just an amplification of the overarching theme that it’s okay to do horrible things as long as you’re good-looking.
So it’s the Spike fans being pissed off that is keeping Firefly down? If that’s true, then for god’s sake, give these people a Spike show to be happy with. I remember when BTVS had more than one character on it.
pepperlandgirl, you crazy. There are plenty of people who watch TV who have no friggin idea who makes the show. And tons of people who would turn into a sci-fi show who have never seen an episode of Buffy, or Angel.
Firefly died because it was on Friday-- when everyone tries to get away and do stuff. It also had no marketing support whatsoever.
oh, and the pilot episode which set up the whole show and provided a starting point for the series? Fox vetoed it and showed it in December.
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Some people do actually do other things on a Friday night than sit home and watch TV.
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Firefly had a lot of fans, despite the fact that Fox NEVER advertised this show. Never. You can’t reasonably expect to find a show they’ve never heard about, can you?
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Firefly had a lot of support. It had a lot of viewers. What it didn’t have is the Arbitron ratings points. If you’d like me to go off on a rant about those things I can do so, but let’s just say that Helen Keller would make a better tracker of people’s viewing habits than these misfits of sociological theory and yet those little points are the only things that count for a hill of beans in this crazy mixed up world we call TV land.
Yeah, and there are millions of people who abandoned Buffy after last year and said they would never watch another show produced by ME. Trust me, the built in audience was gone by the beginning of this season. And Buffy is losing viewers every single week. The Buffy and Angel fans knew for over a year beofr Firefly aired that Joss was working on a new show, they knew exactly who produced it, and they said they weren’t going to watch it.
sure there are plenty of sci-fi fans out there, but obviously not enough to sustain a show.
I can only speak from personal experience:
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Friday nights - I’m not home all that often on that night. Not necessarily the kiss of death, as I would tape a show if it were truly that good, but a brand-new show is something I have to be able to catch somewhat frequently in order to be caught up in it.
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That first episode - Sorry fans, but my first and only experience with the series was the first episode aired, and my perception of the show was Sci-Fi meets the Western. Well, I’m not a big Western fan, and taking that concept to the point of having a train robbery, just didn’t interest me. Also, none of the characters made enough of an impact on me to warrant a revisit.
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High (too-high) expectations - Yeah, I’ve become a big fan of Buffy, so maybe I was expecting something as clever as that. Maybe it was, or could have been, but that episode didn’t do it for me. Not a strong series opener, unlike Buffy had. One thing that in my opinion works for a new series, is for there to be at least one character who is “new” to the situation, and thus, someone the audience can identify with. In Buffy’s first episode, we were introduced to Buffy’s first meetings with everyone who would play a role in her life in succeeding weeks. In Firefly, I had no individual to latch on to, no one to be the focus…
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Poor plot hook - I repeat: Train Robbery in Space? Not a terribly great hook to grab viewers with, to be honest. I only watched that first episode because it was from Joss Whedon. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have even made the effort…
[mst3k]Solipsism is its own reward![/mst3k]
Sorry 'bout that. Carry on…
Firefly did have stacks of fans, and would have had more, if anyone ever know when it was on, or Fox had shown the episodes in order. Silly buggers.
Everything pepperlandgirl is saying just confirms my belief that bringing Spike back in Season 4 was the worst thing they ever did on Buffy.
Nitpick. Arbitron ratings are for radio (and apparently now webcasting). Nielson ratings are for television.
Bah. You’re right. How in the world did I get those confused?
Same rant applies to both of those…and Scarborough.
No, turing him into fuzzy puppy Spike was the worst thing. The Spike/Buffy “romance” turned into him into Angel 2.0 way too many times and the show seemed like a rehash of Season 1-2 themes. Watching the Season 2 DVD, Spike was much more fun.
I could live with him being back. I liked his uneven relationship with the Scoobies (while still being pure evil inside), and the insights to the “underground” Sunnydale life. But when they decided that Buffy and Spike would have a romance, the show lost its way. Ratings got even worse, and the shows were aften painful to watch. It was like watching bad fanfic being filmed.
Also, re: Tara. She was not a main character. Not in the credits I believe (until she died). But good loved characters do die on Buffy-- just ask Jenny Calender, Buffy’s mom and Kenda (lamest death ever, IMHO). Oz was very popular, and he was written off. Its part of the show, and always has been. Sure the shippers were PO’ed, but unless the show matched their narrow view that was inevitable.
IMHO: what really hurt the show was several easily seen things:
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Not enough Giles. He played a central role which really was not appriciated until he was not there.
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The move to UPN. The loss of the crossovers, and the lack of the “big event nights” really hurt the show. Also the shows diverged in tone at that point, with Angel getting a more “adult” show in many ways.
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The loss of humor. Simply put, the shows lost the clever pop that they used to have.
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Major plot mistakes. “Life as the Big Bad” :rolleyes: , the three pathetic villians, the tired Spike-Buffy romance which misused 2 of the strongest characters, the horrible on and off Anya-Xander romance, magic as a drug, whiny Dawn, fast food Buffy. It was a pale shadow of the first 5 seasons.
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Too many shows for way too little Joss. At one time he had Buffy, Angel, Ripper, Firefly and the stupid cartoon on his plate. Now with the loss of Ripper, Firefly and the cartoon, hopefully better quality control will return.
I guess we will see. I would like one more season of Buffy to see if they could recover, but I don’t think it will happen. Angel is the better show, hopefully it will live on.
I knew there was a show called “Firefly” because Fox ran promos for it during the MLB playoffs in October.
It’s true that the overlap between baseball fans and SF fans may not be all that great, though.
It’s not surprising the “Psi-Fi” channel would turn Firefly down. I mean we ARE talking about the same network that shot down it’s own successful show - FarScape…
How to kill a television show:
- Don’t advertise it
- Keep changing the time slot
- Pre-empt it for “specials”
- Deny everything
Why do I always become a fan of doomed television shows… Probably because they’re the good ones that go over the heads of the lowest common denominator.
hobes
Ripper isn’t lost yet. It’s just been postponed a bit. Last I heard, BBC said it’s still a go.
The fanfic is better than the show most of the time. At any rate, most of the fans they “lost” in S6 were lost because of Spike true…but because people were tired of being jerked around. The B/S Romance in S6 could have been amazing. And I don’t mean “amazing” as in everybody’s happy and it’s all sunshine and roses. It still could have been darkand painful, but it could have really explored who and what Buffy was, is and could become. After they started to get into those types of themes in Dead Things MN admitted that they didn’t know what the hell they were going to do, and so dropped the ball. Marti was too stupid to figure out how to put up a story that utilized the romance on a metaphorical and literal level. She made everything literal and it pissed everybody off. Also, she’s not big on consistency.
I don’t have much to add to the discussion on why Joss fans wouldn’t tune in to Firefly. I just think it is a shame that people would tune out because of S6 on Buffy when Joss had little to do with it. As far as I know, he just kept tabs on it and provided some direction but left it to Marti with almost all operations. Exception being the musical. But since she had nothing to do with Firefly, I wouldn’t think that would deter people.
It seems petty to prejudge a show before giving it a chance. If they tuned in and didn’t like it or if space-western isn’t their thing, that’s fine. But to dismiss a show because you’re upset with the direction of different show, it just doesn’t make sense.
PLG:
I think Ripper is dead, as the actor has moved on to another series. The cancellation just needs to be made. Besides, with the ratings trouble for the main show, it seems unlikely that a spin-off will actually be produced. Its a shame though.
I agree with your well thought out points on S6. That is why I said it was like bad fanfic. Good fanfic is much more faithful to the previous 5 seasons. Horrible continuity of character with the past seasons, and even within the season. Characters abandoned logic and their pasts. The Spike/Buffy “romance” was horribly done. Dawn was fingernails on chalkboard for most of the viewers. And then came the destruction of the best character on the show- Willow. Sigh. Hopefully this season will pick up speed soon. The first evil was promising as a Big Bad.
What Cartoon?
What did I miss this time?
Re-The Death Of Kendra
I disagree. This is one of my favorite Buffy moments. Drusila kills a Slayer without even trying. Later, she doesn’t brag or even tell Spike. If only Dru could stop talking to stars and dead birds long enough to have a coherent thought, she could be biggest bad of all.
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Suggesting that the quality of season 6 of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” is part of the reason that “Firefly” failed is fatuous at best. The show was not a spin-off, and was a different audience altogether. All of the “Buffy” and “Angel” fans becoming loyal viewers would’ve helped the show, but could never have carried it. If only because Fox is a bigger network than the WB or UPN and therefore requires bigger ratings for a show to last.
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The idea of “millions of fans” seething in anger over getting “fucked around” by a television production company is ludicrous. Try hundreds, although they’re no doubt very vocal. You’d be hard-pressed to find “millions” of people that passionate about anything on TV, except maybe the Superbowl or “Survivor.” (It always bugs me when fans of something overestimate their numbers and their impact on what is essentially a business. Especially when they presume to speak for all fans.)
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“Firefly” had non-existent advertising. I don’t know from TV business, but I can only assume that the show was more expensive to produce, leaving less money for ads? I only heard about the show from this message board, which is the only reason I watched the first episode…
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…which didn’t grab me at all. I had no desire to watch it again, and wouldn’t have seen any more of it if I hadn’t already set my Tivo to record them all. Maybe the sequencing of the shows that were broadcast really did make a difference as people claim. In any case, it didn’t do a thing for me until the episode told in flashback when the ship goes derelict – and by that time, I think it had already lost its chance to make an impression on viewers.
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Friday night is not a big television night. Especially at 8:00 PM. Enderw24 is by no means the only person who’s out doing other stuff on Fridays.
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As much as I hate the fact that the inspid, insulting, crapfest “John Doe” is inexplicably popular, I can’t roll my eyes enough at the idea of “lowest common denominator” television. “Firefly” was not a brilliant, challenging work of art; it was entertainment. Don’t try to suggest that people who didn’t like it just didn’t “get” it. Some people just watch TV to be entertained, not enlightened; if “Firefly” didn’t entertain them, it’s the series’ fault, not the audience’s.
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Kathy Bates’ character in Misery wasn’t nearly as terrifying and psychotic as some of the obsessive fans you can find for just about anything on the internet.
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The death of Kendra was well-done. As DocCathode points out, Drusilla was the important character to establish, not Kendra. Kendra was almost as lame a character as the new slayers-in-training this season, right down to the horrible accent. And, of course, it set the scene for a truly major character.
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As bad as last season of “Buffy” was, at least it had its high points. Even in the worst episodes, the three geeks were good for at least one or two laughs. This season is just tedious.
I’m finished.