Firefly, Joss Whedon's short-lived space western from 2002, has been in the news lately, with fans getting extra revved over the announcement that The Science Channel would air reruns of the show. After Nathan Fillion made an offhand comment about wishing he could buy the rights, fans launched a campaign to do just that; Fillion gently told them to calm down.
Why all the hubbub? Perhaps it's because for many, Firefly represented the best of Whedon's gritty, funny worlds, with commentary on government control, religion, and morality. Perhaps because it's his show with the shortest run. (Even Dollhouse got two seasons on Fox, from 2009-2010.) But as evidenced by charity screenings and comic continuations, the Browncoats' love will never waver.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette got a chance to chat with Gail Berman, who served as the Fox Entertainment president during Firefly's run and had to be the one to cancel the show. Despite her personal connections to Whedon--indeed, she's served as executive producer on Buffy and Angel--Berman knew that she had to make the painful decision.
"Canceling Firefly was as difficult as anything I'd ever been involved in because Joss and I had been creative partners at one time," she said. "I worked with him very closely on this particular show and when it didn't perform [in the ratings], having to cancel it was very difficult."
Firefly's inability to hook viewers on the first try--even I wasn't a convert until nearly halfway through the 14 episodes--is often blamed on Fox's decision to air the episodes out of order. But Berman isn't sure that starting with "Serenity" would have improved the show's chances: "If I had to do it over again, I might have reconsidered it but I'm not sure it would have changed anything. It was a numbers things. It was a wonderful show and I loved it and I loved working with him on it but that was a big show, a very expensive show and it wasn't delivering the numbers."
To that end, Jack Moore argued in his Top Five Shows Whose Cancellations Are Wrongly Bemoaned that Firefly fared better as the 2005 film Serenity, where Whedon had the necessary budget but an enforced time constraint. Now, if only we could get a sequel to the movie...
[Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]
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