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Firefly Pix Hit
the Web!
Hollywood May 15, 2002 (eXoNews) - Fireflyfans.net has posted some preview
shots from the forthcoming Joss Whedon show Firefly, due this fall on Fox.
Here are two: Persephone and a shot of the spacecraft Serenity.
(Presumably these pix are Copyright 2002 Mutant Enemy, Inc. and 20th
Century Fox - so don't put them on lunchboxes and sell them to your
brother or something...)
The site also reports that Firefly will debut on October 2, 2002 with the
episode Serenity written (naturally) by Joss Whedon. [Hey! That's my
birthday! Ed.]
That having been
said, Firefly news gets a little more complicated! According to the
trades, Fox has or hasn't decided to dump Dark Angel in favor of Firefly.
Most seem to agree that Firefly is the winner and will be shown on Fridays
at 8PM. On the other hand, Zap2It reports that Fox didn't like the 2-hour
first episode that Whedon shot and Whedon has offered to do a one-hour
first episode in its place. Zap2It still maintains that Firefly will be a
fall show, but Sci Fi Wire reports that Firefly has been delayed until
midseason.
Who to believe? In
any case, Firefly is the only new show on anybody's schedule with
much of a buzz (pun intended) and Zap2It has a full list of all the
newbies and returning shows for those who can't wait until fall to find
out. (Nerds unite!)
[Beware the mask of
Zorro, Joss! Remember what happened to previous Fox sci-fi shows Space:
Above and Beyond and VR5, not to mention Harsh Realm and The Lone Gunmen!
Ed.]
For the rest of the Firefly pix (now possibly obsolete if the show is to
be re-shot) and the latest news and rumors, check out http://www.fireflyfans.net
For the entire
network fall line-up, see the charts at http://www.zap2it.com
Official Firefly
Site Offers Free Show Poster
By FLAtRich
Hollywood June 14,
2002 (eXoNews) - Fox's official site for the new Josh Whedon space epic
Firefly has posted a full-size poster for the show in PDF format, but you
may want to wait until they get the bugs ironed out before downloading.
I've tried twice this week and gotten a corrupt file message from Adobe
Reader both times.
The site does have other interesting features not found on the unofficial
Fireflyfans site though, including pages from the pilot script and pix of
the cast.
Here's a little trivia we dug up on our own about some Firefly cast
members: Nathan Fillion played Private James Frederick Ryan in Saving
Private Ryan (1998); Adam Baldwin played baddie Knowle Rhohrer for the
last couple of seasons on The X-Files; and Sean Maher played the title
role in "Ryan Caulfield: Year One", a show Fox canceled after
only two episodes aired in 1999.
Let's hope the show does better than Maher's last Fox effort!
Fireflyfans - http://www.fireflyfans.net
Firefly Official Site - http://www.fox.com/firefly
What Is Firefly?
By FLAtRich
Hollywood September
29, 2002 (eXoNews) - As if you didn't know, Firefly is an amazing new show
on Fox created by Joss Whedon. If you really didn't know, Whedon created
Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel. Even if you did know, Whedon also
co-produces Firefly with Tim Minear, who was an executive story editor on
Chris Carter's X-Files and later became executive producer of Angel.
Both of these guys
did lots of other things, but we're here to talk about Firefly, and why it
may be destined to become television's latest cult science fiction
favorite.
Firefly is a shoot-em up action show set in the wild west days of space,
when Earthmen have basically taken over the entire galaxy.
There is plenty of
room for humans because there are no pointy-eared Vulcans or blue-skinned
Andorians in the Firefly universe. Whedon has left prosthetic aliens to
the Trek franchise, Andromeda, and Farscape. In Firefly, it's just us homo
sapiens. No vampires either, so crossovers with Buffy are unlikely.
It's 500 years from
now and the Alliance has just won a galactic civil war. The group of
intrepid adventurers aboard the transport ship Serenity were on the losing
side and now they must scrounge for work to stay alive. Sometimes the work
is not so legal and it's tough in the post-bellum galaxy. The stars are
full of carpetbaggers and big bads. Due to their past political
preferences, the crew also has to avoid running into Alliance soldiers
along the way.
Like any Whedon show, there's a whole lot more to Firefly than that, but
you'll have to tune in Friday nights at 8PM for the real story, because
only he can tell it.
The first episodes
of Firefly introduced a rather large cast all at once. Long-time Whedon
fans probably caught the characters immediately, but just for the record
here are their names and their jobs on Serenity.
Malcolm "Mal" Reynolds (Nathan Fillion) is the captain of the
Serenity. He's an intelligent, two-fisted action kind of guy, a little
reminiscent of Angel. None of that dark brooding self-doubt stuff, though.
No time for that in the Alliance-controlled galaxy.
Jayne (Adam Baldwin) is a mercenary soldier who has signed on until
something better comes along. He'd just as soon leave Mal and the others
behind to save his own ass. If Jayne looks kind of familiar, check out
your X-Files reruns.
Zoe (Gina Torres) is a soldier who fought with Mal during the civil war.
She's Mal's Number One, but forget it boys, she's married. You wouldn't
want to mess with her anyway.
Wash (Alan Tudyk) is the Serenity's pilot and Zoe's husband. He's calm,
funny, and content to do his job - probably because he's got Zoe.
Kaylee (Jewel
Staite) is the Serenity's engineer, or "mechanic" according to
Firefly. Good sense of humor, stays in the ship and has great faith in
Mal. A bit like Willow in the old days, and a bit like Fred on Angel.
Book (Ron Glass) is the elder statesman of the crew, and he's a preacher
man. Looks like William Powell in his later years, and he's wise, but not
Giles. Book is searching for something.
Simon Tam (Sean Maher) is a rich kid doctor who doesn't seem to trust Mal
all that much. Good doctor, but he has another agenda. River Tam (Summer
Glau) is his sister and that other agenda, mainly because she's a psychic
and hunted by Alliance evil-doers who want to abuse her powers. Ah,
perhaps there is some mysticism in the galaxy after all!
Inara (Morena Baccarin) is last but certainly not least! This lady is a
babe who could give Cordy a run for her makeup kit! Inara is a licensed
professional courtesan, making her the most respectable member of
Serenity's party by current galactic standards. She has an un-professional
thing for Mal too.
So did I mention that the first two episodes of the show were GREAT and
Whedon's done it again? The critics agree.
Official Firefly site - http://www.fox.com/firefly
Unofficial Firefly
fan site - http://www.fireflyfans.net
Firefly Wins Fan
Hugs
By FLAtRich
Hollywood October 30, 2002 (eXoNews) - It may be too soon, or it may be
too little too late, but Firefly fans have already started organizing to
save the show from cancellation.
Joss Whedon's sometimes brilliant space-western on Fox has suffered badly
in the ratings war for Friday night and as a victim of major league
baseball. Some fans say the show never had a chance to attract an audience
before Fox pre-empted it for final playoff games.
Last week's Firefly ratings between World Series games were up, but not
nearly enough by past Fox standards. Fans of The Lone Gunmen and
MillenniuM remember that Fox Friday night time slot all too well, and LG
overnights were significantly higher than what Whedon and Minear's
gun-slinging spacers are getting now. Lone Gunmen cast members even
compared the two shows' woes in a recent web chat on the Sci Fi Channel
website (see link below.)
In any case, all may not be lost. According to Sci Fi Wire, Fox recently
ordered three more episodes of Firefly and Whedon himself hits the
director's chair for episode eleven, which goes into production on
November 4th.
Perhaps Fox will take a look at their own history and decide to let
Firefly ride. X-Files, still the most popular program to ever air on Mr.
Murdock's network, spent more than one season in the bottom 50 of the
Nielsens before rocketing to fame. Similar slow start-ups plagued
countless TV classics, including Star Trek, M*A*S*H, Cheers and Mary Tyler
Moore.
The thing is, Whedon's shows are different and they take a while to sink
in. No Allie McBeal meets Charlie's Angels formula here (as in Fox's
"girls club".) Firefly is a distinct leap away from any other
genre offering this year. Hopefully Fox will let Captain Mal and his crew
find their niche. Even Whedon's own Buffy had to wait a while for a mass
audience to understand just what it is that sets Ms. Gellar and company
apart from the vast wasteland, and Firefly is made of the same stuff.
But if Fox tries to
shoot down Firefly, the fans will be ready! So check out the Firefly
Immediate Assistance site right now at http://www.fireflysupport.com
Official Fox site - http://www.fox.com/firefly
Firefly Fan site - http://www.fireflyfans.net
Lone Gunmen Chat on
SciFi.com - http://www.scifi.com/transcripts/2002/bh.tb.lonegunmen.html
Firefly's Last
Round-up?
By FLAtRich
Hollywood November 13, 2002 (eXoNews) - Welp, it sure does look purdy,
Captain Mal, but the fact is the Old West is a dyin'. Ain't much we can do
about it, I suppose, but let's think on it a bit anyway.
Folks are just
plain shying away from Firefly. Maybe they just need a little history
learnin'.
Some say the idea
of a sci-fi western is just too radical, but truth be told, there been
lots of sci-fi westerns afore Firefly. Probably
some silent flickers started it, but old timers hereabouts still recall
when Gene Autry himself went up against them Muranians down below Radio
Ranch in The
Phantom Empire. That
was back in 1935, when there weren't hardly no telly vision to speak of at
all.
Science fiction and
westerns always been kin. Don't know exactly when they started calling
outer space adventures "space operas", but you can be danged
sure they got it from "horse operas".
Used to be a whole
lot of them horse operas! TV and the western had a great romance starting
in 1945 when Hopalong Cassidy movies first hit the tube. Hoppy
had his own show from 1949 to 1952. Gene
Autry followed Hoppy to TV in 1950.
Roy Rogers started
making movies with the Sons of the Pioneers in 1935, and Roy
and Dale grabbed TV by the gun belt from 1951 through 1963. After
that, westerns were everywhere.
The wagons kept
rollin' for decades, from Death
Valley Days and Annie
Oakley to Have
Gun Will Travel and Maverick.
Bonanza
ruled the range from '59 to '73, and shows like The
Virginian were big all through the 1960s. Gunsmoke
ran from 1955 to 1975!
Time was that there
was a western on TV every night in almost every prime time slot. You never
saw so many cowpokes trading lead! It was a glorious day for wranglers!
Now I know we was
talkin' about Firefly here, so I want to make it clear that one of the
first successful television westerns had a cowboy flying around in the
clouds.
Weren't no space
ship, mind you, but Sky
King started on radio in 1947 and did an honorable run on TV in his
single engine plane from '51 to '56.
Some folks still
remember being raised up eating them Kraft Cheese Dinners and watchin' Sky
and Penny and Clipper save the range from the Big Bads.
And heck, when Jim
West and Arty showed up on the big screen recently, nobody was surprised
to see them. Will Smith fans all know that The
Wild, Wild West was really just a science fiction show set on the
frontier.
Hard to believe it
was only new from '65 to '70 - especially since it's still running out
there in TVLand. The Wild, Wild West is probably the most repeated western
in television history.
Star Trek did sci-fi
westerns a couple of times too. In 1968, when a few westerns still ruled,
the Melkots transported Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, and Chekov to the OK
Corral in "Spectre of the Gun". The episode had a typical
Roddenberry twist, finding a peaceful solution to the big gunfight, but
not before Chekov got gunned down in the center of town.
[Trek Irony: most
Trekkers know that DeForest Kelley was Morgan Earp in director John
Sturges' 1957 western classic Gunfight at the OK Corral. Ed.]
In 1992, The Next Generation gave us "A Fistful of Datas".
Worf's son Alexander convinced various Enterprise crewmembers to play with
him in a Western holodeck program that went awry (of course!) Cut off from
the rest of the ship, Worf, Deanna Troi and Alexander fought off Data
clones in full western gear.
Some say the 70's Battlestar
Galactica was a space western. After all, it did have Bonanza's Lorne
Greene leading' a kinda wagon train home to Earth. The Galactica crew wore
gun belts too.
So yer darned
tootin' there's a tradition in genre bending westerns and science fiction
and there's no doubt that Joss Whedon had a good idea when he saddled up
Firefly.
Question is, why
the Sam Hill doesn't Firefly have an audience?
Well, I heard tell that back in 1993 when Fox's new fall line up premiered
The X-Files following The
Adventures of Brisco County Jr., Fox executives were betting on the
western.
Turned out that
Mulder and Scully's pursuit of aliens far outweighed Brisco and Comet's
search for the mysterious orb, even though Brisco became a cult favorite
rerun after it got the axe and it helped make Bruce
Campbell a star.
There's a clue here, though, because The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.
was really the last TV western on any network with a gun-toting, hard
riding hero and an intelligent horse. Puttin' Comet out to pasture was a
sign of the times.
CBS launched Space
Rangers in 1993. It was a Trek clone with western overtones - the
Rangers used lead bullets instead of phasers - but audiences failed to
tune in and CBS canned the show after six episodes.
In 1994, Full Moon Pictures produced the sci-fi western feature Oblivion,
staring the likes of George Takei, Meg Foster, Julie Newmar and Isaac
Hayes. The
movie had some fun moments and inspired a sequel in 1995, but did nothing
at the box office.
Other feature films
have come on like space westerns, but the only recent one worth mentioning
is 1998's Soldier
from director Paul W.S. Anderson (Resident Evil).
Kurt Russell did a
great John Wayne pilgrimage in Soldier, which is a wonderful shoot 'em up
that is mostly sci-fi, part High Noon, part Shane. Unfortunately,
Soldier was no blockbuster.
The bottom line is that there is nothing wrong with Firefly. It has a
great cast, intelligent scripts and direction, and imaginative production
and effects.
Maybe it's true that Fox should have let Joss Whedon start with his
two-hour pilot and explain the Firefly universe, but sci-fi fans already
have a history with the sci-fi western concept. Fox may have screwed up by
launching Firefly at the height of baseball season, but that wasn't the
real reason Firefly didn't pick up an audience.
The problem is that Firefly is a western at heart, ma'am, and 21st Century
television audiences don't understand westerns.
Like the real Wild
West, modern times have eclipsed TV western traditions. Today's breed of
fans don't know how to react to simple morality tales with heroes in white
hats. The infamous 18-49 demographic have no cowboy stars to idolize
outside of Toy Story.
They need to be
taught to ride, but most of them have never even seen a live horse.
Hoppy is forgotten and the Sons of the Pioneers have faded into the
sunset, buckaroos. If Firefly really is a-heading for the last round up,
it has noble company, but western heroes never give up without a fight.
Old Windy Halliday said everything has a way of comin' around again.
Maybe Fox just
needs to remind viewers of the heritage that Firefly celebrates.
So tune in while you can, dad blammit! Spread the word! And happy trails,
pardners! Until we meet again.
Watch Firefly on
Fox Friday at 8PM / 7C - http://www.fox.com/firefly
Find more eXoNews
stories on Firefly using out handy Search
engine or check the weekly eXoNews
Genre page.
Firefly On
Hiatus!
Hollywood November
28, 2002 (eXoNews) - Zap2it.com confirms that the Fox Network is putting
Joss Whedon's space western Firefly on hiatus for now.
According to Zap2it, Fox Entertainment President Gail Berman still has
hopes for the show and Fox plans to "promote Firefly heavily and wait
to see if there is any ratings growth when the network airs the original
two-hour pilot in December."
"What we know is happening with the show is the great creative growth
that it's experiencing. That's why we ordered additional episodes,"
Berman told Zap2it. "We think that Joss is finding his creative voice
with this show and we need to see how that's going to work for us in
December."
"Because we had already ordered additional episodes, we are going to
have several episodes available when it's out of production. So we'll have
a running start if we want to put it back in production," Berman
added.
Fox will move "Fastlane" from Wednesday at 9 p.m. ET slot to
Friday at 8 p.m. in January.
Firefly fan
response to the threat of cancellation may have played an important role
in keeping the show alive.
The Firefly:
Immediate Assistance site reports that their efforts to support Firefly
and bring in new viewers have raised $4500. Fox recently purchased
additional episodes of Firefly despite poor ratings in the show's Friday 8
PM timeslot.
The fan effort will run a full page ad in Variety on December 9th and has
negotiated 30 comp copies, which will be sent to Firefly's biggest
advertisers, as well as Fox Network honchos Sandy Grushow and Berman.
Gift bags with Firefly Immediate Assistance T-shirts and letters
explaining the campaign were sent to the execs at Fox.
Firefly: Immediate
Assistance - http://www.fireflysupport.com
Firefly Official Site - http://www.fox.com/firefly
Vote for Firefly at
SaveMyShow.com - http://www.savemyshow.com/shows/firefly.htm
Firefly Fan Site - http://www.fireflyfans.net
Firefly Seeks
New Network
By FLAtRich
Hollywood December
13, 2002 (eXoNews) - According to Firefly: Immediate Assistance and
www.timminear.net, the suspense has ended for the cast and crew of
Firefly. Fox has decided not to continue the show.
Firefly got off to a slow start in its Fox Friday night slot, slowed even
more by postponement through the World Series. Fox didn't seem to know how
to promote the space western either, running ads back to back with John
Doe, a series about an amnesiac. The network also balked at Whedon's
original two-hour pilot episode, which set up the premise of a band of
adventurers 500 years in the future.
Executive Producer Tim Minear is quoted on timminear.net: "We did get
word tonight, Fox won't be ordering any new eps. That translates to
'cancelled.' We will finish shooting the ep now in production (I'm
directing, in fact Joss came down to the set to break the bad news to cast
and crew -- we wrapped early, but are back at it in the am), we'll finish
post on all eps, and Fox says they're going to somehow air all eps."
The campaign to keep the show alive continues however, with the new goal
of finding another home for Firefly. The first choice is UPN, where Buffy
lives and rumors have it that the network recently offered Sarah Michelle
Gellar a whole lot of money to play The Slayer for another season.
UPN has also previously indicated an interest in Angel, Joss Whedon's show
on the WB.
The Firefly: Immediate Assistance website is asking fans of Firefly to
start sending postcards to UPN Entertainment President Dawn
Tarnofsky-Ostroff and CBS honcho Les Moonves immediately, asking them to
consider a takeover.
For more
information on how you can help to keep Firefly flying - http://www.fireflysupport.com
TimMinear.Net - http://www.timminear.net
Firefly Fan site - http://www.fireflyfans.net
[Why didn't Firefly
take off? Maybe because nobody remembers the era of great TV westerns?
Check out our previous story - Firefly's Last Roundup! Ed.]
Joss Whedon on
Firefly
By FLAtRich
Hollywood December
17, 2002 (eXoNews) - Sci Fi Wire says that Joss Whedon posted the
following message about Firefly's cancellation to the Buffistas board:
"Don't think for a second that I have given up on this show. I think
it has been mistreated shamefully, but the Fox network has indicated that
they would not stand in the way (which they can) of my finding a new home
for the show. That's no easy prospect. But I will do everything in my
power, as always, to keep this bird in the air. Of course I'll post if
there's any news."
[I went over to Buffistas and lurked around through a bunch of pages, but
I didn't see it, so you'll have to take Sci Fi's word for it or go look
yourselves, I guess. There were almost 10,000 posts when I was there!
:o)>]
E! Online reported these comments from Firefly's production company Mutant
Enemy on the cancellation earlier in the week:
'"Obviously we're very disappointed because we love the show and
think it's one of the best TV shows on the air," says Chris Buchanan,
president of Mutant Enemy, which produced the series. "We will be
exploring every possible way to keep the show on the air, whether it's on
Fox or another network."'
Regarding the efforts of Firefly: Immediate Assistance, the fan group who
recently ran a full page ad in Variety supporting the show, E! also quotes
Buchanan as saying: "We love our fans. The fans are so important to
Joss, and he just wants them to know that we're fighting the good fight to
keep the show on the air."
For more news and
to add your voice to the Firefly fans who are trying to convince UPN to
pick up the show, go to http://www.fireflysupport.com
If you want to join the never-ending discussion at Buffistas - http://www.buffistas.org
For Firefly postcards, banners, buttons, icons, etc., go here - http://fireflysupport.com/banners.html
TimMinear.Net - http://www.timminear.net
Firefly Fan site - http://www.fireflyfans.net
Firefly Takes
The Sky
By FLAtRich
Hollywood December 21, 2002 (eXoNews) - I finally got to see the 2-hour
pilot episode of Firefly last night and it answered some questions for me,
but not all.
The big mystery has always been why did Fox spend (a reported) 8 million
dollars on Joss Whedon's pilot and then decide not to show it?
The answer to that
is probably just a suit, but I did notice some rough spots that might have
made the Fox brass nervous.
Dialogue in the spectacular opening battle scenes was a bit hard to pick
up on. Whedon sets up the Firefly period with dialectic slang, but he also
uses a second language that only someone born 500 years from now would
fully understand.
This is a common
enough science fiction and fantasy device - from Elvish to the Nadsat
language of "Clockwork Orange" to Farscape's "frell"
expletive - but non-sci-fi folk just might not get it or need time
adjusting to it - like UK dialects to the American ear or the
"pigeon" English spoken in Hawaii.
There were also at least two edit points that stopped the film. Both of
these were apparently intended to represent emotional responses from
characters, but they also looked like errors or even those digital stalls
that plague cable subscribers. I think Whedon used this trick in a later
episode, but I can't remember which one because it worked for me that
time.
None of the above explains why Fox wanted Joss Whedon to reshoot the
entire pilot or why Fox thought it lacked action, which it certainly
didn't. The two hours sped us around the refreshingly novel Firefly
universe with enough feisty rough and tumble conflict to make Enterprise
look tame and lumbering by comparison.
I knew the crew by
now, but there were insights into Book (Ron Glass) and Inara (Morena
Baccarin) and even Kaylee (Jewel Staite) that could have helped initialize
audiences. Simon Tam (Sean Maher), Wash (Alan Tudyk) and River Tam (Summer
Glau) were filled out in later episodes, but this original pilot
introduced all the characters far better than the first episode Fox aired
last fall.
There are no rubber
masks or phasers in Firefly, but there is a lot of gunplay and
bushwhacking and Inara is very sexy and Captain Mal (Nathan Fillion),
Zoe (Gina Torres) and Jayne (Adam Baldwin) even galloped across the range
on horses in one scene.
Firefly does the space western genre proud. Let's just hope someone
outside the Fox cartoon comedy reality network agrees and signs Serenity
up for another tour.
Firefly: Immediate Assistance has joined forces with the Save Farscape
campaign and reworked their web site. For more news and to add your voice
to the Firefly fans who are trying to convince UPN to pick up the show, go
to http://www.fireflysupport.com
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