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You raise an interesting point (if only indirectly). I wonder how many Firefly fans were Buffy fans, and how many weren't? I think a lot of the stuff I loved in Firefly was better because I haven't seen it before.

Firefly attracted a lot of new people who never got into Buffy (because of the absurd surface concept Buffy presented). At first glance, Whedon and his themes are exceptional, but he tends to play them over and over (and over and over). You can't reheat lasagna 10 times and have it still be great, you know.

Look, I enthusiastically support the notion that Firefly was a good show. It had a nice future, a great ensemble cast, and tight writing. I dug it, and wish it had at least gotten a full season. It did get a feature film send-off, which is more than Manimal and Street Hawk can say.

I still subscribe to the theory that modern one hour dramas owe a HUGE debt to Buffy (Lost, Alias, 24, all of that crap). It was probably one of the five best TV shows ever in it's prime seasons (late 1,2,3,5), and still worth watching in it's "off" seasons (4,6,7). Not only that, it created a spin-off that was a fundamentally different show, and sometimes even bettered it (Angel). So I had seen Whedon's genre offerings well before Firefly. I knew his strengths and weaknesses. Firefly had both.

I got into Buffy at season 4, after my brother's been watching the first 3 seasons. I really dug it, when I saw it all those years ago. 1 year or so after the end of season 7, I borrowed the DVd boxes from a friend and watched it all. Man, that was one fantastic show.

a bit later, I watched Firefly and also liked it very much.

and last years I read the a few Buffy season 8 comics and the Serenity comic. It was so great to read those Whedon Dialogs again, I didn't realise how much I missed Buffy.


it's IMO also an interesting point how much the soap/action mix of buffy influenced TV shows. I tried to watch smallville, becuase I liked the concept, but the action was lame and the soap stuff waaaay too much.



and I never heard of those browncoat fanclub. are they really that bad?

dienekes96 wrote:Firefly attracted a lot of new people who never got into Buffy (because of the absurd surface concept Buffy presented). At first glance, Whedon and his themes are exceptional, but he tends to play them over and over (and over and over). You can't reheat lasagna 10 times and have it still be great, you know.

Yes I could never get with the concept of some skinny girl going Wing Chung Tonight on demons. Weekly.

I was a Buffy fan, dropped it around S3 or 4, then got into Firefly. Firefly was, imho, great sci-fi because it wasn't about spaceships and rayguns. Sure, it had them, but that wasn't the whole show. And the wild west theme was great, since it was the new frontier and all. I found it very creative and entertaining. But, it was no Tick (and I mean the live-action with Patrick Warburton - the cartoon is great in its own right).

I don't doubt that network execs are well educated. That doesn't mean that they "get" a show like Firefly. It was different and quirky, and I know lots of smart people who I respect who probably wouldn't "get" it either. It's the type of show that needed a champion to push along until it found it's audience. Why did Simpsons and X-Files get that chance? Fox was more desperate for anything at the time. That's why James Brooks got a deal that the network has no control over Simpsons episodes - they were so desperate they were willing to agree to terms that were bad for them.

jfrazell wrote:Yes I could never get with the concept of some skinny girl going Wing Chung Tonight on demons. Weekly.

That doesn't begin to undersell the show I could boil down almost any great work into a similar reading.

Plenty of people can't get with the concept of a chick western...BUT IN SPACE, with new words and everything!!

You like what you like. Surface readings will often lead you to miss out on greatness. On the surface, Seinfeld was a banal sitcom. Dig a little deeper, and you find something else altogether.

You know, I thought Buffy was going to be more like 90210
or something (teen soap opera/wish fulfillment through
access to sex, money, and brand name fashions), so I made
fun of the show, too.

Until I watched it.

You were probably judging the show from the movie it was based upon. If that was the case, then you probably wouldn't have been too far off.

However, they made a few changes from the show to the movie (to say the least).

I didn't care for Buffy, excluding "Chatter" (I think that was the name of the episode). I really liked Firefly though. I didn't get to see it until it came out on DVD becuase of the way Fox screwed around with it.

dienekes96 wrote:

jfrazell wrote:Yes I could never get with the concept of some skinny girl going Wing Chung Tonight on demons. Weekly.

That doesn't begin to undersell the show I could boil down almost any great work into a similar reading.

Plenty of people can't get with the concept of a chick western...BUT IN SPACE, with new words and everything!!

You like what you like. Surface readings will often lead you to miss out on greatness. On the surface, Seinfeld was a banal sitcom. Dig a little deeper, and you find something else altogether.

I guess now would be a bad time to note I couldn't stand Seinfeld...

But one liners are great

One liners for shows, often paraphrasing an actual quote

“Yerghh I’m under water with a bunch of stinky men and a bad subtitle machine, and people are trying to kill me. This really sucks.” Das Boot

“Kill the Creature. Save the World. Get the Girl” The Mummy

“What if you were one of the civilians trapped by Godzilla in Tokyo, if Godzilla had a bigger budget?” Cloverfield

“Luke I am your father!” Empire Strikes Back

“This movie sucks but it has lots of special effects.” Phantom Menace

“Live free! (and that Lawrence Olivier can really act)” Spartacus

“Why? The only human to ever defeat a Membari is behind us. You are in front of us. Withdraw or die.” Babylon Five

“Dinosaurs in 1995!” Jurassic Park

“The Names McLuvin” Superbad

“We’re gonna need a bigger boat” Jaws

“Its Wagon Train in Space. With Ray Guns” Star Trek

I loved seinfeld explicitly because it was a show about nothing. It didn't need to have a "story" or "real characters who aren't just archetypes" that those high-horse shows claim to have.

That's ironic, though, since I love marines and the subtext of all their descriptions and actions.

stonefox wrote:I loved seinfeld explicitly because it was a show about nothing. It didn't need to have a "story" or "real characters who aren't just archetypes" that those high-horse shows claim to have.

That's ironic, though, since I love marines and the subtext of all their descriptions and actions.

I think thats what annoyed me about the show. It was essentially about nothing, just circle navel gazing for lack of a better word. but it was popular and I didn't have anything against it. Just not my cup of tea.

Well, as long as you enjoy marine subtext like I do, I think we're good.