Is the "f" really that much of a "bomb" anymore? I mean, seriously. Nevertheless, sorry, there it is just sitting in the title. Sorry about that. On the other hand, it's probably time for people to get over the illusion of "work safe" surfing. It was for the purpose of a little verbal jest, a kind of riddle. This is a post about Firefly.
Last night I watched the last episode they ever made of Joss Whedon's (of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel teevee series fame) short-lived science fiction series Firefly on borrowed DVDs. And the whole time I was watching it, the whole time I was watching the entire series, I kept thinking, is it worse, sitting here really enjoying this handful of episodes, getting engaged with the characters and the plotlines and just absolutely knowing that there was no way on earth any of it was going to get remotely resolved, feature length film (that I get to watch tonight) notwithstanding? I mean, there are seasons of material set up there. I'm looking forward to the movie but it isn't in any way going to satisfy me, because it is about 108 hours shy of what I figure would be a reasonable time to really do that show justice. I figure it would cost about $220 million to finish it. That's real money, I admit, it's like a serious medium sized public works project. I personally think it would be worth it, but then I have about three thousand dollars in the bank.
Or would it have been worse to get all excited while it was actually airing (at which time it was something I was vaguely, vaguely aware of, so vaguely I can't recall for sure anything I might have thought about it, though I think there might have been the slightest attention followed by a "space western by that Buffy guy... yeah, no thanks" reaction. I know I never saw enough of any of it at the time to make an impression, good or bad)?
That would have been worse, no doubt.
And you know, it's just a teevee show and I'm not going to wear my black armband. I felt the yen to ponder it a bit. I'm not planning on getting into what I think is right or wrong about the show - I think it is pretty damn near perfect television... for me... but I wouldn't bother to argue the opinion with anybody. Less am I all that interested in talking about why it failed. What is going to take off and what is going to stall in entertainment is really a mystery, even more so in the speculative arena. About the only concrete difference you can say about the speculative is that the brass rings are in even shorter supply, and if you're doing live action the production costs are almost always higher than average, so do the math, it's hardly a surprise. Still, there seem to be some lessons in it. But they ain't particularly pleasant ones.
First off, if you're a quirky show it's got to be a mixed blessing to get picked up by Fox. Fox learned a very simple lesson from The Simpsons: wierdo shit can earn you a goddamned fortune. So they just scoop up as much of it as they can and fling it at the wall. So, if Fox is looking at your project, well, there's gotta be a better than average chance of them picking it up. But the unfortunate converse is, they are ruthless about scraping off anything that doesn't stick fast and firm. Enough of the shit analogy. Toss these sorts of ruthless, profit motive realities in with a bunch of nice, sensitive creative types and you've got yourself the saddest bonus features I've ever seen on a DVD. Of course, I'm a sap, and Firefly was clearly a show for saps.
Lesson number two: from a pragmatic perspective, the geek sap demographic is pretty much fucking worthless. For moral support, ego massage, and internet jibber jabber, fantastic. For mainstreaming a high production value television series, worthless. There are not enough of us and even when our opinions manage to show up on the mainstream radar, they just don't rate. About three times a day I think about something and have this moment of fantasy that the whole uberconnected, smart and worldly and presumably generally well heeled (educated, access to a computer at home or work) could get all together, kumbayah, and make it happen. How hard could it be to raise $220 million?
And then I snap out of fantasy land and remember that Serenity, which was just heavy all over the internet, like a serious free geek advertising phenomenon, basically tanked at the box office. The nail in the coffin, you could say. In fact I'll just go ahead and say it. That movie was the last nail in the coffin, whatever didn't get wrapped up there will never ever get wrapped up, if I know my crappy world. The end. And I don't doubt anyone on the money side involved in it will let a bunch of geek froth enthusiasm persuade them to back a dark horse anytime soon. We're ahead of the curve on the communication infrastructure and that's all, so we sound a little louder from a certain point of view, even a nobody late adopter like yours truly. But in the American Idol universe we don't even fucking matter. And we ought to get used to it. Nothing's changed. And I could go on and on about why that is but I'd be branching rather far afield of the topic. Having embarked on this, I come to realize that the whole topic is kind of pissing me off. I guess nobody likes powerlessness.
No comments:
Post a Comment