I can't decide if that's a terrible shame, or if the short life span is part of what makes it so sweet. (Have you watched the series? It is, in a word, fantastic.)
As it turns out, they only produced half a season's worth of episodes, and only half of those episodes aired. The cast's Christmas party ended up being the series wrap party as well.
I'm in the process of watching the series through Netflix. I've viewed Disc One and have Disc Two coming this week. I agree - it's exceptionally well done.
It will be interesting to see if more movies will follow...or better yet if another network will pick up the series. (You would think the networks would learn a little something from the rabid fandom of the original Star Trek in syndication.)
Networks can learn — slowly and painfully — but I imagine Fox wanted "more of the same" from Whedon, something that would be instantly familiar (and therefore immediately appealing) to the already established Buffy and Angel fanbase. I wonder if Universal picked up Serenity thinking of it as a test bed; if the movie did well enough, a new series would be easier to pitch (and, in the executive mind, easier to justify). As well received as the movie was, I don't think its box office receipts were enough to wow network producers. The story seems to be back where it started, waiting for someone to take a chance on it.
That seems to be the "read between the lines" reasoning of Kathi Maio in the Films column of the most recent issue of F&SF - Serenity did well enough, but without a known star to bring in a larger audience, nobody beyond the series' fanbase seems to have taken notice. I haven't seen it (and tried to avoid some of the spoilers in the article), but Maio seemed to think that Whedon caved in to too many studio demands to make Serenity more action-driven than character-driven. I fear Firefly will always be one of those "Wonder what could have been?" series.
4 comments:
I can't decide if that's a terrible shame, or if the short life span is part of what makes it so sweet. (Have you watched the series? It is, in a word, fantastic.)
As it turns out, they only produced half a season's worth of episodes, and only half of those episodes aired. The cast's Christmas party ended up being the series wrap party as well.
I'm in the process of watching the series through Netflix. I've viewed Disc One and have Disc Two coming this week. I agree - it's exceptionally well done.
It will be interesting to see if more movies will follow...or better yet if another network will pick up the series. (You would think the networks would learn a little something from the rabid fandom of the original Star Trek in syndication.)
Networks can learn — slowly and painfully — but I imagine Fox wanted "more of the same" from Whedon, something that would be instantly familiar (and therefore immediately appealing) to the already established Buffy and Angel fanbase. I wonder if Universal picked up Serenity thinking of it as a test bed; if the movie did well enough, a new series would be easier to pitch (and, in the executive mind, easier to justify). As well received as the movie was, I don't think its box office receipts were enough to wow network producers. The story seems to be back where it started, waiting for someone to take a chance on it.
That seems to be the "read between the lines" reasoning of Kathi Maio in the Films column of the most recent issue of F&SF - Serenity did well enough, but without a known star to bring in a larger audience, nobody beyond the series' fanbase seems to have taken notice. I haven't seen it (and tried to avoid some of the spoilers in the article), but Maio seemed to think that Whedon caved in to too many studio demands to make Serenity more action-driven than character-driven. I fear Firefly will always be one of those "Wonder what could have been?" series.
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