Sci-Fi Channel Picks Up Firefly

An anonymous reader writes "Firefly, a science fiction series that was canceled midway through its first season on Fox, has found a new home on the Sci Fi Channel. Fans of the cult-hit series Firefly will be pleased to learn that the show has been picked up by the Sci Fi Channel--just two months before the release of Serenity, a Universal Pictures film based on the series. Looks like they'll be airing all the ones we've already seen, plus 3 that never got aired the first time around. A bonus - They'll be seen in the correct order."

the obvious question

[Anonymous Coward]

what's the chance of there ever being new episodes?

Awesome...

[brxndxn]

I think it's about time networks start to realize they need to have a 3-season investment, at least, in order to establish a larger viewership. All these reality TV shows score big on their first season and then never add up once the hype is gone.

Also, changing the time every week and having them be interrupted by the 'MJ verdict' doesn't do much for people trying to set up a schedule around the shows. Ya, people have Tivo.. but then again, the networks aren't targeting those people anyway.

old news

[brian0918]

"Fans of the cult-hit series Firefly will be pleased to learn that the show has been picked up by the Sci Fi Channel."

Correction: were pleased to learn... over a month ago.

Tell them I ain't coming back.

[VonSlatt]

You can't take the sky from me . . .

Misleading

[Knara]

Looks like they're just airing the original episodes in-order to help promote the upcoming movie (not a bad thing, mind you). When I hear "picked up" in relation to a TV show, I usually associate it with "making new episodes".

Picked up?

[ErikZ]

When I see "Picked up" I think "Own it and is developing new shows."

It's nice that they will be getting more FireFly awareness out there. But they're just popping in the dvds into a player and broadcasting it.

Not too impressive from where I'm sitting.

Re:Awesome...

[mattdm]

I think it's about time networks start to realize they need to have a 3-season investment, at least, in order to establish a larger viewership. All these reality TV shows score big on their first season and then never add up once the hype is gone.

Which do you think is cheaper: a dozen new hyped-up shot-on-video minimal-effects minimal-EVERYTHING reality shows, or a 3-season investment in developing the fanbase for a quality show?

Re:New?

[AKAImBatman]

I wouldn't give up just yet. Sci-Fi picked up both Sliders and Stargate SG-1, and poured quite a bit of development money into both. Plus, the amount of money they spent of Battlestar Galactica and the Farscapre Mini-Series (another cancellend show, remember?) shows that the Sci-Fi channel will most certainly make new episodes if they smell money.

So everyone with a Neilson device, make sure you turn on every episode of FireFly! We need to make Sci-Fi think that FireFly is the hottest show since the original Star Trek got cancelled! ;-)

For the love of God and all things holy.

[bucky0]

Please, let there be more episodes done. A friend of mine casually showed me the pilot movie (she bought the DVDs). Two days later, I had watched them all and craved more. I'm gonna echo everyone else's sentiment that I really wish that more of this would be on tv as opposed to whatever crap reality show is undergoing it's 15 seconds.

Re:What?

[hoka]

I didn't know what it was, in fact, I posted a question about it when a Firefly article came up and I was modded -1 Offtopic. Not everybody can get cable television or can be up to date on bloody everything, just don't assume everybody is the same as you. We are a very diverse group of nerds.

Re:Awesome...

[AoT]

But what was the last reality show you watched in reruns?

Re:No clue...

[techno-vampire]

Would you be interested in a well written show with good acting? That's what Firefly was, and I've heard the movie is the same. I'm not a fan of the show because it's Sci-Fi, but because it's good, and I doubt I'm the only person who feels that way.

Re:Awesome...

[NanoGator]

"I think it's about time networks start to realize they need to have a 3-season investment, at least, in order to establish a larger viewership. All these reality TV shows score big on their first season and then never add up once the hype is gone."

Actually, they do realize it. The reason why 3 seasons is a magic number is because they end up with enough episodes to make money off of the airing of reruns. For them to cancel it when they did, they probably ran across some VERY bad numbers. Perhaps they realized they could spend that hour on a show that was more likely to succeed. Perhaps the ratings just weren't what they wanted given the cost of making the show. Perhaps a new fad came along that they really wanted to tap into.

It's hard to say. Sci-fi, however, is notoriously difficult to hold on to for a long period of time. It's expensive (compared to a reality show, for example) and, let's face it, sci-fi doesn't have the mass-market appeal we'd like it to. Shows like Star Trek and BSG are the exceptions, not the rules.

Yes, these shows get unfairly dumped. However, you have to remember that TV's a business, not an art form. It's a business built on the whims of a constantly changing mass-market audience. The original Star Trek series, for example, wasn't all that popular. Years after it ended, the 'space race' happened, and suddenly there was interest again. A few years later, bam, Star Trek: The Motion Picture came along. *That* wouldn't have happened if not for the success of both Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third kind. (It was quite a shock that either of those movies did so well.) It wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that the numbers these guys use to figure out of a show is worth the risk or not are about as accurate as a Magic 8-ball. With the millions of dollars involved in producing a show like FireFly, I can't say I'm all that shocked they'd pull out when they did.

#22 at present.

[Grendel Drago]

Currently #22. For a DVD released in December 2003, that's pretty goddamn impressive.

If it's not worth it to Fox to bring back something this popular, then the economics of television production are seriously fucked.

--grende drago

Re:Awesome...

[ceejayoz]

Why would they care?

They can make ten new seasons of a reality show for the cost of that single season they're running reruns for.

Re:What?

[ceejayoz]

If people got that obsessed over Enterprise, they should this show.

I think a lot of the people who obsessed over Enterprise did so because of the words "Star Trek" before it.

You could make "Star Trek: Dog Turd" with a static shot of (literally) a pile of crap and you'd get people fighting cancellation, but the same folks would look at Firefly and go "wtf no technical manual? no technobabble? lame!"

Re:Awesome...

[Keeper]

For them to cancel it when they did, they probably ran across some VERY bad numbers ...and I bet showing the episodes out of order, frequently pre-empting the show with sports, and placing it in the worst time slot on tv had nothing to do with it... /me wants to shoot Fox execs

At times I wonder why they even bothered producing the series in the first place.

Re:Awesome...

[ErikZ]

Normal Sci-fi sets require a lot of design, complex building and dramatic lighting.

Firefly outdoor scenes:
a brothel in the middle of the desert.
A tent.
A rock in the middle of a desert.
A reusable western town.
A corral...For cattle.

Fraiser may save on the cost of the scenes, but I'm sure the actors and writers salaries make up for it.

Re:Firefly Won't Be Returning To TV

[AaronStJ]

What you said flatly contradicts the story, as well as news posted on scifi.com itself [scifi.com] saying the episodes will air on fridays, starting July 22nd. So somehow I doubt you're correct.

Re:Awesome...

[Dzerzhinski]

Television drama is an art form. Television broadcasting is a business. Television production straddles these two sides. There is always a little business in art, and there is often a little art in business. But the screenwriter can't forget that he is paid to be an artist, and the network executives can't forget that the commodity they deal in is art. And you can't forget that Fox torpedoed Firefly from the beginning. The first episode aired was the second (or third, if you count the pilot as a two-parter) episode of the story. I had tuned in to see the series begin, but the second ep was a pretty shitty introduction to the series and I was turned off. It wasn't until long after it was pulled off of the air that I watched the rest of the series on a friend's recommendation, and now I am a pretty rabid fan of the show (Watched it back-to-front three times, own the DVDs). I am willing to bet they lost what could have been a big chunk of their base this way. I am sure they had reasons, but this turned out to be a poor business decision.

Re:Firefly Won't Be Returning To TV

[Anonymous Coward]

OTOH, just keeping it off the air earns them exactly $0.

This simply isn't true.

For example, maybe they have decided that putting it on the air would make them less money than putting other things on the air instead. Hence, they make more money if they keep it off the air.

That's stupid! you say. If they're not going to show it, why not sell it?

Answer: because maybe letting someone else put it on the air would lose them money. Believe me, their accountants are NOT stupid, and they DO know more about making money than Kjella, who would not be posting on Slashdot if he'd made his fortune and could afford to spend his days lounging by the pool while a selection of supermodels begged for the privilege of fellating him.

In this case, presumably they've calculated that letting Sci-Fi show it will make them more money than refusing. And presumably they've also calculated that making more episodes would lose them more money than it would make them, and that the same would be true of letting other people make more episodes. So they won't.

Re:Pass

[bhima]

So... in Africa the laws of physics are some different and it makes sense to use a space ship to transport 50 cows to another planet to get a better price and dodge the sales tax?

or is it: only in Africa do they drive a star destroyer around looking for people who have absconded with less energy bars than I could put in the trunk of my car?

Re:New?

[Xibby]

You forgot to mention that Farscape was cancelled by Sci-Fi itself. Bad example.

After how many seasons of get Crichton, sexual tension, we're so screwed (x3), narrow escape, it was quite possibly time for Farscape to end. Going from weekly to ocasional mini series was quite possibly a very good idea.

Now if only you could get Sci-Fi to stop spending their money making "original" pictures and stick to what they do well...

I didn't watch it because. . .

[Fantastic Lad]

I had no idea when it aired and didn't bother to check.

I didn't watch an episode of Buffy until second season. If it weren't for friends with video recorders, I'd never see anything. And these days, without a television in my life, this is more true than ever before.

Doesn't mean Firefly wasn't good. It just means it wasn't marketed very well. That slack has been picked up with the DVD release. It's going to do fine.

-FL