matgb | So then, have you watched Firefly?

So, last week while she was down, we had one of those "what DVDs to watch" discussions on our one (semi-planned) evening in. It turned out that

snapesbabe hadn't seen Firefly. At all. Now it appears that

tinuvielberen hasn't seen it either (but has now seen the light). This bothered me, y'see, when I first got an LJ, it seemed everyone was a fan, there were Firefly icons everywhere, being a fan seemed like something akin to a cultural norm. Now, of course, I know that's not true, but it sure seemed that way, and for two self-confessed SF fans to have not seen it? Weird. So, poll time:
[Poll #1030452]
Because, y'know, Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, does a proper Sci-Fi series, and Murdoch's Fox network messes him around, but the DVD sales are so good that Universal spring for a mid-budget film anyway? Plus, it's funny. Oh, and one of the opening lines is We're not going to die, y'know why? Because we're so very pretty... Which, y'know, is mostly true. So, via Amazon (UK, don't have the US search installed) the series is £15, the film is only £5.

Oh, and after a bit of pestering, here be a link to my Wish List, which I've started updating again; I used to use it as a handy "to buy" list, but then, y'know, finances collapsed. I guess it makes sense to post it, I'll be 33 in less than five weeks. Ouch.

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Oh, I'm quite happy that people dislike it having seen it—

paulatpingu wasn't impressed when he borrowed my copies, and we normally pretty much agree on shows; it's the SF geeks who haven't seen it thing that mostly bothered me.

And derivative in terms of plot I'll at times give you, but OTOH, how many different plot ideas are there anyway?

But yeah, I've said before in more than a few places that the worst people to have on 'your' side are obsessives and extremists, can be a little too embarassing at times.

Heh; one of the other shows we watched a bit of while she was down was BSG-TOS, I'd forgotten how early some of the really awful episodes were; most Brits have only seen about 12 episodes, because that's what the BBC repeated ad-nauseum, the poor plot-free eps get skipped...

* has already brain-bleached those episodes of BSG:TOS *

God, it was terrible.

Yes, yes it was. And, just so you know, there are many near the end that are much worse.

At some point I may devise a drinking game for them; at one point Apollo gets transported by godlike beings and acts as an angel to avert nuclear war. Scarily awful...

Surely you'd need to have done the drinking game BEFORE watching those episodes?

Well, probably, yeah, but you normally have to be fairly drunk before agreeing to a drinking game anyway.

Could make for some interesting evenings in the pub anyway.

We're surely not going to have an "are you drunk enough to withstand BSG:TOS" night, are we? We want SOME customers...

I was thinking we could do it every so often as a challenge night; guaranteed people will travel for a monthyl(ish) night of SF geekery on the big screen in the pub; we could do an occasional "pile-o-crap" night, or even just finish the evening off with something awful.

Because, y'know, drinking games aren't going to hurt sales once we've got them there already...

drinking games aren't going to hurt sales once we've got them there already

This is a good point.

That reminds me: I have to post part 2 of my "re-watching TOS BSG: Lost Planet of the Gods, Part 2"

Hey! You wanna talk derivative! And crazy fans! I have no room to talk when it comes to Firefly. At all. But in my defense, I was 8. *grins*

But seriously, I get why people love Firefly. I really do. But I also think that it's got that "died too soon" glow around it (i.e., before JW got bored with it and rode the series into the crapper like he did Buffy and Angel) which — IMHO, and in IMHO only — has convinced some critics and fans that the show was a lot better than it really was.

Frankly, I think part of the blame for Firefly's cancellation lies with JW here. He should've sucked up and gone to a small U.S. cable network with Firefly rather than going to one of the "big 6" networks that existed in the U.S. at that time (ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, UPN, WB). Hell, even back when Firefly was airing, the U.S.'s SciFi Channel was already producing its own series and just about every U.S. cable channel was airing some kind of scifi/fantasy genre show.

Granted, the U.S. cable channels would've paid him less (a lot less in the case of SciFi Channel), but he probably would've earned the numbers to stay on the air for at least a full 22-episode season — and a very good chance that he would've scored at least one more full season thereafter. If I remember right, Firefly's ratings sucked for a broadcast network. If it was on, say, the SciFi Channel, they would've crowned JW king and carried him around the world on the network's collective shoulders (witness, for example, how Battlestar Galactica is treated on SciFi these days).

Why he went for a broadcast network — especially FOX which has a habit of putting bullets in the brains of shows that aren't insta-hits? (A reputation that FOX had for years prior to killing Firefly) It's mystery for the ages. Seriously.

I think, overall, you're right; if the series had gone on for too long, it would've become dull, I suspect it had at most two series of plot in it. But it finished far too early, and the last episode was sheer genius in many ways.

I suspect Joss simply believed he had a big hit on the way, and thought he'd get passed Fox's issues simply by being Joss. There's never an ego bigger than the guy who's read his own publicity.

Which is daft given his earlier stated position of preferring shows with 10 committed fans over 100 people who might watch, he knew his ratings would be low but regular. Ah well.

That reminds me

:-D

So then, have you watched Firefly?

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