MovieChat Forums > Firefly (2002) Discussion > Now I know why it was cancelled.

Now I know why it was cancelled.


I am watching this show on the recommendation of Sheldon Cooper. I am 5 episodes in and I have to say it is one of those worst tv shows ever.

Mal is basically a dick to everyone. None of the characters are likable except for Wash.

Why did humans revert back to the 1800's? And the music is not fitting for a futuristic sci-fi.
I think this would have been better if it was an actual western show.

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Long story short - I disagree on all counts.

They reverted to the 1800s because , and i admit this is a stretch, "they dumped colonists on the outer planets with next to no resources" or something , they explain at some piont.

..and then if you buy that , the music is fitting.

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Finally finished it, it was painful to watch. I sorta get it now, it was supposed to be like the old west in space. Maybe season 2 or 3 would have been better. Mal was an A-hole and dick to everyone except Zoe, which got on my nerves and was always calling Inara a whore. That was weird. Kaley was a horndog, which was amusing.

Going to get the movie to see what happens to River and the gang.

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Maybe you'll like the movie then.
It retreads a bit of ground , and then shows you where JoshW was gonna take it , and answers a few questions.
and wraps things up a bit
I'd better not say any more.

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MAL IS AN ASSHOLE AND INARA IS A WHORE...THOSE ARE FACTS,NOT OPINIONS....STILL THOUGH,GREAT SHOW.

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It was cancelled because it was given a terrible time slot that kept changing. They also ran the episodes out of order so it made no sense.

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The timeslot NEVER changed. This is a urban legend

Start here and click '1 week' on the right side. You will show the TV listings for each week where for 9 weeks Firefly was shown at 8pm on FOX for 8 of those weeks. There was a another 2 week break around Thanksgiving then 3 more consecutive week including the a 2 hour showing on December 20th.
http://www.tvtango.com/listings/2002/09/20

They did show a couple of episodes out of order, including and most importantly the pilot.

An 8pm time slot of Friday was not a terrible time slot, the audience for "Firefly" was basically home Friday at 8, then may have gone out but that would be after 9pm.


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Regardless of reality, I remember when it ran. The show was unwatchable until you could get the DVDs.

You have to remember that the truth is not always the truth. Sometimes, it's like the truth.

What I remember is that it conflicted with different programs that I watched. Then it disappeared.

It is not required that it be true. What's required is that is what I remember. If that's my memory, then it's true. Collective memory is a thing.

Once I found a drive-shaft, next to the sauna house at my home. It came up during the winter frost heaves.

Or was it a bucket full of bolts? Did my grandpa really prune trees with a shotgun? Did I ever swap headers on a combine with no knowledge on how to do it? Did I really hit the emergency stop that one time in my story about a CNC mill or did I hit the guys hand to stop it? Did anything ever happen that you believe exists?

Read Herodotus. It's seriously 90% made up, but it's like the truth and is an OK (not great) reference to find where you're going when you research.

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"Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts."

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Wow, you would make a great eye witness for a murder trial.

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I absolutely adore Firefly and it’s in my top 10 tv shows along with The Wire and The West Wing but I watched it when it was first released and I had already been a huge fan of Whedon’s other shows Buffy & Angel.

Tastes change, especially anything with humour in it as comedy evolves so quickly.

If you don’t grow up with something often it’s much harder to relate to and therefore a lot of entertainment suffers when you view it through the lens of time.

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I liked the show just fine but I'm with you in that I have no idea why it's the major geek culture touchstone it is today. It's an above-average, decent show at best, but by no means is it some lost gem or one of the best sci-fi shows ever produced.

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how dare you!
just kidding
its way above avg imho
I cant think of any other sci fi series id like to see another series of more than this one

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I cant think of any other sci fi series id like to see another series of more than this one

Battlestar Galactica (2004)
Doctor Who (before it became Nurse Who)
Star Trek (the original one)
Hard to think another one, though...

Anyway, the exact order can be debated and it's probably a matter of preferences, but it's definitely at the top.

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lost gem or one of the best sci-fi shows ever produced.

THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT IT IS.

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Amen!

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It was canceled because of ratings. I'm almost sure of that. I don't know why it didn't attract viewers. I honestly do not recall it when it aired. I heard about it a few years later, picked up the dvd and I've been a fan ever since. I never thought I would like a SF-western but I did. It worked so well. And it got better and better and better with each episode. Amazingly, they were able to make a superb theatrical film with Serenity, too. And, unlike many SF shows, Firefly works as well on repeated viewings. BSG is a good example of a show that worked very well the first time through but not at all upon a second. And the cast in Firefly is outstanding.

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The release was terrible. The episodes were released in different days of the week, not even respecting the series order. Somebody really screwed it.

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It was canceled because of ratings. I'm almost sure of that.
well , yeah , that why all shows are cancelled . thats the mechanism not the cause.

The cause is .... well .. read any other thread on the subject (which is most of them)

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People were trying to get me to watch Firefly for YEARS before I actually watched it. Space western? No thanks. If it had just been sold to me as a sci-fi I would have been on board immediately. I'm not quite sure what made it so great but I would have to say one big factor was that each of the main cast members was appealing, not just the characters but all the main actors. It's one of those shows where I felt like I would follow any of the actors to whatever their new project was. So, for example, when the tv show Chuck was released, I was pointed to it by someone who just said, "Jayne is in it."

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This show is dumb trash loved by douchebags and low lifes. It was quickly cancelled because it sucks. FACT.

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It actually makes sense for colonists on primitive worlds to have a lot of pre-industrial technology. Science fiction grandmaster Robert A. Heinlein did the same thing in his books. For industrial and information age technology, you need factories, power plants, road and rail and shipping infrastructure, sources of energy, etc., none of which exist yet on a newly settled world. Your fancy hovercar, or high-tech combine harvester you use to bring in your crops, yeah, they're great, until something breaks down, and the spare parts have to be shipped in from off-world at enormous cost, which you, bare subsistance farmer eking out a living on newly cleared land, don't have the income to cover. Horses, on the other hand, will reproduce themselves.

It makes perfect sense for low-tech to be common on these worlds: it will be relied upon heavily until the new planet's economy gets developed enough to support building and maintaining all that high-tech infrastructure and industy that you can't have high tech without.

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I don't get the hype of this show. I watched it a long time ago, and for me still extremely overrated to even bad.

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The people who complain about this show exhibit stage one thinking.

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