What in the world was Fox thinking when they cancelled Firefly? 
“Whoa! Filming this stuff is very expensive! And since the show is not gigantically popular the ad revenue is not bringing a lot of money either!”
Or something along those lines.
Are you sure it isn’t “In what universe. . .”?
I believe I have heard that the network suits thought it would be funnier, like a wacky sitcom, and they could show it out of order.
Remember that at that point Joss Whedon, excuse me, “John Sweden” was known as the writer of a silly comedy about a high school girl who fought vampires. You know, that movie with Kristy Swanson.
“This is a great show, but I didn’t think of it or approve of it, my predecessor did. Therefore It. Must. Die.”
“PS. I am a Giant Douchenozzle.”
I have yet to meet a person who didn’t like that show. Everybody I have ever discussed it with raved about it. Yet I’ve had all of the episodes sitting around on my hard drive for years now and still haven’t gotten around to watching it. Now that all the network shows have ended their seasons, it might be a perfect time to dust the platter off and give them a spin.
They were thinking “Nobody watches science fiction anymore, so lets cancel everything.”
I am no great fan of Whedon’s shows, even Firefly, but it did seem short-sighted to cancel it. I guess it was at the beginnings of the seachange TV has taken, and Fox panicked.
Yes. Good point.
More like, “In what 'verse. . .”.
Exactly. The show had bad ratings at the time. You might like it, but it did poorly in its time slot and didn’t help the other Fox show that night - 24, which was the network’s biggest hit that year. It was a logical choice: put something in that slot that drew more viewers.
It had bad ratings because the network showed it out of order and jumped it around between a variety of different bad timeslots. You’re getting cause and effect mixed up.
What time slot? Fox kept moving it to different nights and didn’t even bother advertising the moves. They never gave it a chance.
Silenus and Chronos explanations combine to sum up the answer.
The show was tossed out to die because the new executives wanted the budget to make their mark with their own shows.
Well, we haven’t met, but I’m not a big fan.
I watched them all new. I thought it was fair. It had good points, it had stupidity. Just like everything else. I don’t own them on DVD, don’t care if I ever rewatch a single one, I never watched the movie.
And I really don’t get the “cult of personality” around the show. According to this board, it is the show that can do no wrong. You’d better not badmouth the show, lest you reveal yourself as unsophisticated.
OTOH, Fox really did everything it could to tank the show, and they succeeded. They did the exact thing with Almost Human - aired them out of order, gave it no support. I think silenus’s theory is the most accurate: “This is a great show, but I didn’t think of it or approve of it, my predecessor did. Therefore It. Must. Die.”