I think the ultimate cause of the failure of Firefly wasn't anything to do with the show itself, but rather its marketing. For one, the name "Firefly" doesn't really lend any hand in helping people understand what the show is, and what it's about. I certainly wouldn't guess "space western". Now, I don't watch TV, so I don't know how they did for commercials, but I do know that outside of that, there wasn't much advertising. I only heard about the show from friends, and a couple mentions on the radio after it was already being cancelled. In fact, that's what the radio guys were talking about, the cancellation of Firefly. So, the show gets it's best marketing from being cancelled. Does that sound right to you?

Another failure was the order of the episodes Fox decided on. Joss Whedon wanted episode 1 first, but Fox decided to run a later episode first. So, anyone who started watching at the premiere wouldn't really understand what was going on, and wouldn't know the characters. The characters are very important to the show, and the train robbing episode did not focus on character. In fact, it was an episode made solely to appease the tyrants at Fox. Fox wanted an action episode, so they made one. It wasn't a particularly good episode in comparison with the others. So Fox naturally chooses to run that first. I don't think Fox executives should be allowed to make decisions about the episode order of shows. They seem to frequently make bad decisions.

When Serenity came out, some mistakes were repeated. Not a whole lot of marketing. I only heard about the movie from friends. Right now I'm looking at the back of the DVD, and I must say, although I did like the movie, I would not want to see it based on the description on the back. I mean, they make it sound like some crappy B-movie. Here, read this and see what you think of it:

"A passenger with a deadly secret. Six rebels on the run. An assassin in pursuit. When the regegade crew of Serenity agrees to hide a fugitive on their ship, they find themselves in an action-packed battle between relentless military might of a totalitarian regime that will destroy anything - or anyone - to get the girl back and the bloodthirsty creatures who roam the uncharted areas of space. But the greatest danger of all may be on their ship. From the mind of Joss Whedon (TV's Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel) comes a nwe edge-of-your-seat adventure loaded with explosive battles, gripping special effects and fantastic new worlds!"

This isn't a film that Hollywood farted out one day, but the description sure makes it sound like it is. So, what marketing was done may not have been very good. The only good marketing was word of mouth.

One of the great things about Firefly was how they would set up a situation that would normally have a cliche resolution, and then they would make sure not to use the cliche resolution. If they were going to use a cliche, they would let you know in advance. Granted, it's pretty well impossible to get away from cliches entirely, but it's nice to see a show that makes a good effort towards that goal.

Alright, I think I'm done.