If "Firefly" is so great, why hasn't it been resurrected?

I know, this has probably been asked before, but frankly it’s not as fun to simply go and read old threads.

Both Family Guy and Futurama were popular TV shows that got cancelled, turned into huge successes on DVD and in syndication, and have subsequently been resurrected.

I’m constantly hearing about how Firefly was such a great and popular show- yet despite an eerie legion of Fanboys and Fangirls, a Theatrically Released Feature Film, and so on- it remains the Cancelled Show That Lots Of People Pine For.

So, a question from a non-fan (and don’t try and get me interested in the show, it’s not going to happen): Why, if the show was so great, has it not been resurrected based on its internet popularity?

Maybe it’s been tried but none of the performers, producers or Joss himself are that interested in revisiting stations past?

Firefly had a significant number of sets which cost fistfuls of cash to produce. They were all torn down at the end of shooting. Family Guy and Futurama needed a pencil and a couple of magic markers to be reborn.

I have the DVD set and while I admit the series had certain innovative charms, it went off the rails with the later episodes and the movie, so I’d be happier to leave it than have it come back and continue on that course.

That’s that I thought at first, but the BBC are past masters of creating Sci-Fi sets on no budget at all, and if they can manage to throw together a passable spaceship interior using their own corridors, some neon lights, and people in ex-RAF flightsuits, then I’m sure that CGI could be employed to recreate some of the sets from Firefly on a reasonable budget…

People have moved on, Joss was on the record as saying he didn’t want to do TV ever again (until he got the idea for Dollhouse, of course), and he’ll certainly never work for Fox again (shut up), and a lot of the magic they felt about making the series was tied into the fact that they knew from the very first episode that they were running on one lung and could get cancelled at any moment.

And, really, if they did resurrect it at this point, the amount of fan angsty anguish about the loss of Wash and that other guy would be kind of overwhelming.

Martini Enfield - Joss said on the DVDs that Serenity (the spaceship) was like a 9th cast member for the series. Instead of breaking down into individual sets (bridge, lounge, hold, etc) it was one long running set, the way the ship was configured, so they could show the characters moving through the ship as they might naturally, rather than cutting away from set to set with a few corridor shots between. I don’t think it could be easily or cheaply done. That’s not to say that’s the reason they wouldn’t resurrect the show, I’m just saying that logistically it wouldn’t be easy.

StG

Screenwriter here, with connections and answers for you – but the story is insanely long and complex.

Here’s a short, incomplete version.

Rights. Fox wouldn’t let it go. Joss, at point, vowed he’d never work with them again. Then came Dollhouse… and Fox is in the process of fucking him over with that, but that’s another story for another time – have a look at the deathslot they’ve just given him. Nice! And the changes they’ve had him make to his original idea, the shape/form of the show, all that. But I digress.

Timing. After a certain time, no matter how great, no matter the following, the momentum is just gone. Yeah, there’s a fan base, but it’s just not big enough to sustain the show. It’s just been too long. And, face it, the fan base is actually not big enough to support the show on broadcast… this is a problem Joss has – again, I digress – but cable would be a better fit for a lot of his stuff. 'Course the budgets might not.

The BDM. The Movie did well (as did the DVDs of the series and the movie), but not well enough to spark a new show or a revival. The Movie also tied up some loose ends and made away with two core characters, and that would have required a total restructuring of the old show. Fox was not interested in spending money on development, and they weren’t willing to sell the rights. Impasse.

The Cast. They love the show. They’d do another movie any time. They moved on to other projects. Serial television is time-consuming. Firefly’s time has come and gone.

Producers. There’s been some dissension in the ranks. But that’s all internal kerfuffle. Whatcha gonna do.

Tim Minear. Everything he touches dies. :smiley: I’m mostly being silly… <newt> Mostly. </newt>

I’m glad to hear that’s true and not just a show they put on at Dragon*Con.

It wasn’t all that great, and wasn’t popular in a ratings way at all; the fans tend to exaggerate its qualities. The movie only proved unequivocally that it just didn’t have the numbers.

Exactly, the movie was the line that was thrown the show to see if it really did have the weight to bring the show back or if the love was just a core of we fanboys. The numbers that the movie made didn’t justify bringing it back.

It would be a strange world where popular equals quality. Ms. Hilton is proof of that.

What Firefly fans miss is the series that died far too soon. Buffy started slowly & grew into something quite remarkable over the years. Firefly was screwed over by the network–with episodes shown out of sequence & scheduled oddly. Then it was canceled–even before everything in the can had been shown.

(Not that you don’t know all this stuff. I’m just using your remarks as a springboard.)

I’ll admit I didn’t see the show in its original run–since I hadn’t been a Whedon fan. “Not in the demographic” I thought. But some time off with daily Buffy reruns on FX converted me; then, I checked out his other projects. But I remember the press for Firefly; they compared it to Andromeda. Except they failed to mention that it didn’t suck! (Although Andromeda wasn’t all that bad when it began; it had the luxury of 5 whole seasons to slide into dreadfulness.)

The movie was more of a farewell to the Firefly 'verse than an attempt to start something new. Why else did we lose 2 great characters?

So–maybe, eventually, another movie. But mostly we’ll watch these talented people in their future projects…

I don’t think that’s the case. The DVD sales over the years have been enormous and unprecedented (this link theoretically lists the historic ranking of the box set on Amazon’s best seller list, but it doesn’t appear to be working right now), and they were what got the movie greenlit in the first place.

Now, you’re right that it didn’t have enough mainstream appeal to make the movie a smashing success, but the necessary audience for a successful movie and for a successful TV show are not necessarily the same. Worse and less-popular shows have survived several seasons. There’s the high probability that Fox’s executive decisions ensured the show couldn’t gain that TV audience in the first place, and had it even just been allowed to air in the proper order it might have become the next Babylon 5 or Star Trek. I’m not going to say it would have, but it seems evident that Fox’s tampering prevented the show from realizing its full potential, even if that potential turned out to be far less than the fans believe.

Back to the OP: Even if the movie was a horrifically smashing success, Joss wrote it specifically to close out the Firefly story. It did the equivalent of a rock star smashing his guitar on the stage. Trying to put the guitar pieces back together would have resulted in a not-terribly-fulfilling show.

I didn’t intend to equate the two. I was only commenting on the popularity aspect.

The quality remark was a personal one.

Nope, it was the last hurrah. People wanted desperately for it to be the success that convinces Joss to bring the show back, but he went into it with a different attitude.

The BBC recreated entire episodes of a half-lost Doctor Who story, The Invasion, using animation and that didn’t sell well enough for them to consider another, not even one of the lost Dalek episodes that I would pay to see (having already paid to see The Invasion.)

And believe me, if there’s one thing more sweaty and feverish than a Firefly fan talking about a possible new series, then it’s a Doctor Who fan talking about finding the “lost episodes.”

One of the aggravating things about Firefly is how many plot threads were introduced that the show just never had a chance to pick up again. The movie killed any hope of seeing most of them resolved–for that matter it killed any hope of seeing the series reborn. I agree that it was more of a farewell than anything else.

The other thing fans fail to realize is that Firefly’s popularity came AFTER the show aired. Fox essentially killed it by:

a) airing the show out of order, making it practically impossible to understand
b) failing to air some episodes that contained some key information
c) shuffling it around all over the place and never giving it a slot of its own
d) not giving it any promotion
e) not giving it time to find its place

Joss didn’t help his own cause in many ways – while the show had a hell of a lot of potential, its multi-arc system is NOT one that can easily survive on broadcast. It does BRILLIANTLY in small fandoms – truly does – but those numbers are too small for survival on network television. That’s just the nature of the business. The average television viewer is just not smart enough to figure out the storylines and hold onto them for that long. Sorry. Trust me, I’ve fought long and hard with network execs over this crap. Hell, we do that weekly. But in the end, it’s NOT what people want or what people watch. I mean, why do you think popcorn-for-the-brain crime shows do so well? CSI and its spin-offs? Criminal Minds? NCIS (bless its cotton socks, it’s kicking ass this season and doesn’t even HOLD the demos)? Because there’s no arc to speak of.

There IS a niche for shows like Firefly. Those shows live on USA Network right now. They used to live on SciFi until Bonnie Hammer (don’t let me go there, I’ll talk your ear off) killed us all. Let’s all pray she doesn’t do the same thing to USA now. But that’s not where the money is. HBO is another good home for shorter-run series. This is where some other, gutsy, small-fan-base shows are going with some really interesting pilots for next year. Stay tuned, GRR Martin fans.

But Joss is after a big big market. Unfortunately, he’s always struggled to keep it. He got the time, with Buffy (up to a point, then got punted). He struggled, with Angel (and got punted around eventually). Dollhouse is suffering the same fate. The show he sold Fox is not what Dollhouse is actually turning out to be. He had to rewrite and reshoot his pilot. He had to change the feel and arc structure of his show for a more action-packed, less long-arc style. He had a Monday night slot, originally, but then got paired up with TSCC and both got punted to the Friday Night Death Slot in favor of House and 24 (I believe), because the Golden Child (American Idol) is taking over Tuesday/Wednesdays.

Dude. Think of the Whedon demographics. Friday Night Deathslot? Oy. Fanbase or no, I’m worried about survival for Dollhouse.

Firefly was a good little show. It had its problems, and it never had a chance to spread its wings. Fox never gave it a chance. That said, there’s also a LOT of romanticized crap going on from the fanbase – all in hindsight at this point. The show’s ratings were crap when it was on the air. So Fox pulled it. The movie DIDN’T do very well, from a business standpoint. It also wasn’t meant as a “let’s rekindle this puppy!” effort but rather as a tribute to the fans and the show. And a way to recoup a few bucks :wink:

They are a fine bunch of folks who really did love working together and who had a blast. They also didn’t get to work together long enough to start getting on each others’ nerves :wink:

This said – they’re also professionals. As much as the fans would love to think their favorite show’s favorite actors (!) would drop anything and run to the sound of the tolling bell should it ever ring, these people have other projects, other plans, and are perfectly happy doing what they’re doing. No, they don’t weep in their Corn Flakes every morning. Yeah, they were saddened to hear the plug got pulled – truly, they enjoyed this project… but there’s always another coming up, ya know? :slight_smile:

(And, once you’ve been used by Joss Whedon, apparently, there’s no escaping. You WILL be called upon to work for him again…)