Firefly and Serenity

[fleetfootmike]

The more I watch, and read about, Joss Wheedon's 'western in space' Firefly, the more I have to admit I would dearly like to strangle FOX TV.

Here's a show with an ensemble cast of characters that just gelled, each with their own personality quirks and traits, that hit the ground running and fully formed from the pilot on. A pilot that FOX in their infinite wisdom decided shouldn't be aired as the pilot, but instead got aired pretty much at the end, after FOX had basically reached into the bag of 14 episodes that had been recorded and pretty much hauled them out at random for airing (and leave three unaired). And then wondered why the show didn't take off.

DVD sales of the show managed to land Wheedon with a movie contract for 'Serenity', for which ALL the cast made themselves available. I don't tend to do the whole 'if you haven't seen this, you really should' thing unless I mean it. This time, I do. :)

Comments

[highstone.livejournal.com]

Amen. Saw 'Serenity' last night, and I have pretty much become an evangelist on the quiet for the show and movie...

[mnemozine.livejournal.com]

I felt the same way when I was watching the show the first time around on Fox and saw the pilot/end show. Dips.

[paul-c.livejournal.com]

http://www.livejournal.com/users/paul_c/6935.html


:O)

P.

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

Even I can't make name "Joss Whedon" scan to "John Peel", but I can imagine him in hot pursuit of this FOX, and with rather more than his horse and his hounds in the morning.

And, after seeing Enterprise pull the "time-travelling evil aliens helping the Nazis" plot, I can't help thinking that the American TV networks are dead from the neck up.

[mamishka.livejournal.com]

I actually read recently that Universal picked up the rights to the movie before the huge DVD sales windfall thing, which actually just makes it all that much more extraordinary.

The real problem was that FOX didn't want Firefly. They wanted a Joss Whedon TV show. What they got was Firefly, and they totally didn't get it at all. So they said that the pilot was too dark, not funny enough, and didn't have enough action. Make another pilot, only an hour long, with more funny and more action! And then they scheduled it on Friday night and kept pre-empting it with sports stuff. They had something cool and they didn't know what to do with it, so they threw it away.

They have since, apparently, admitted that if they had shown the pilot first, the show probably would have been more successful and not cancelled. Duuuuuuuurrrrrr, ya think?

[ci5rod.livejournal.com]

Strangely, a lot of the TV shows I like are short-lived affairs that were cancelled by Fox. No understanding of quality or scheduling at all, those people.

Not that Joss always gets it right first time. The unaired pilot episode that escaped onto the net a while ago isn't nearly as good as the eventually double-episode, and not just because they hadn't yet cast Alyson Hannigan. More or less everything needed a little tightening up, and got it by the time "Welcome to the Hellmouth" was filmed.

[thisnthat.livejournal.com]

We caught Firefly the first time around on Fox and just couldn't get it. A off-kilter 'pilot' episode, and irregular showing times meant that the first words out of my husbands mouth were "I think that sucked, but I'm not sure..".

Netflix, on the other hand, became Firefly's savior in our books. We rented the DVDs because our favorite web-comic artist, Scott Kurtz (www.pvponline.com) raved without end about it. And because we could get it every couple of days without having to shell out for an entire series we weren't entirely sold on. Now I might go back and buy the set for myself.

We had a babysitter two weeks ago to see the movie, and they got back from their soccer game late, meaning we ended up 15min late and even with 10min of previews, I informed my husband I was NOT willing to miss the first 5min of the movie. So we had a fantastic dinner out. Now we have another sitter tomorrow and I'm finally (baring any further mishaps) going to get to see Serenity.

I'm SO EXCITED!!!