Crazy Like a Fox

You'd think a man who has successfully helmed two successful shows would know what he's doing. Joss Whedon created Buffy the Vampire Slayer and followed it up with Angel. When Firefly came out some three years ago, you would have thought that networks would trust him.

But that's the problem with power. If you can't be the creative genius behind a television show or movie, you can be a network or studio executive and make decisions anyway. Once, Rosie O'Donnell (I think) told Harvey Weinstein, who heads up Miramax, that he should let M. Night Shymalayan to figure out creative stuff on his own, and he shouldn't interfere. He cursed up a storm, insulting her.

Similar, executives at Fox didn't want a television show that had a slow introduction, even though there were nine characters to introduce, an a universe to describe. They wanted a one hour intro, with action and comedy. Whedon didn't have the clout to argue, and so he made Firefly as the network wanted.

The show lasted all of 12 episodes before it was cancelled, and yet is one of the best written science fiction shows that has ever aired. Whedon's genius is his knowledge of genre conventions and his ability to play against what you expect. He leads you a certain way, and you think you know where things are heading, and he veers you off elsewhere.

The fans of the show tried to keep it alive. Brisk DVD sales lead to Serenity, the film. The cast really enjoyed working on the show (though DVD cast commentary tend to be sickeningly adoring) and felt they were working on something special.

On the one hand, people have to hand it to Fox that they greenlighted the series, given that no other network seems to have picked it up.

Now, television shows with ensemble casts, particularly, Lost are not so unusual, and it expects its fans to follow its twists and turns and revelations. It's now in its second season. Firefly should have been allowed to survive this way too.

Frankly, I doubt that executives at Fox thought they made an error. One of the producers of the show remarked that if the show managed a feature film (it was probably in the works even two years before it was released), that some executive would say "Hey, we should make a television series out of that", not realizing, of course, that it was the television series that brought it to the big screen.

It seems executives are the same everywhere.