Think you were upset when Fox canceled “Firefly?”
Just imagine how it felt to be Joss Whedon.
Whedon says that when Fox cut down his series after just 14 episodes, that his despair was so great that is cut off his flow of ideas and he couldn’t return to create new episodic television for several years.
In an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, Whedon shared that the loss of “Firefly” is “still the greatest grief I have about my career” and that the whole experience made him “the sourest man alive.”
“I stopped having ideas, which for me is an extremely rare experience,” Whedon said. “It was something much more subtle [than losing hope], it took away my ability to think in terms of episodic television. For years.”
Of course, Whedon did eventually come back to television with “Dollhouse.” Which got a second season before Fox pulled the plug.
How’d that make him feel this time?
“Yeah, pretty much. Anger, anger, anger. Anger. Bargaining,” he deadpans. “Honestly, this year with my career, I’ve been going, OK, is it over? Are they done with me, and is it time for me to start doing really small or make a graceful exit? Because I’m OK. I have my family, I love to write, I’ll always write, they can’t stop me doing that. But maybe I’m not going to get my shot to reach a mass audience. But then I got ‘The Avengers’. So, clearly, I’m an idiot.”
Yeah Joss, you’re an idiot, but one that we all love and hope to see putting out your great material for years to come on the small and big screen alike.
How rich to you have to be to buy your own network where you call all the shots? I think a Whedon channel might work quite well.
Dollhouse put the final nail in the coffin for me as far as Joss goes. The fact giving it another season killed SCC is another blow. Give Joss his own station please. Then I can program it off my tv.
I am more than tired of all the implied injustice he’s suffered through as though that isn’t the tv business. I’ve got a list of shows I’d prefer to have back before Firefly or Dollhouse. Face it, if Firefly lasted longer he’d have just killed everyone you cared about off anyway although he might have actually been able to produce an Asian character by season four or something. Maybe. He needs a new “thing”. While he’s sorting all that out there are plenty of people with new ideas out there to watch. TV isn’t like it was in the 1990s and I am not waiting on Joss’ next word. Certainly not after Dollhouse.
Everything that Joss has created is pure crap. I was forced to watch Firefly by my roommate and hated every minute of it. I watched Dollhouse waiting for its potential to emerge but nope, didn’t happen.
Unless you can justify that get back in your corner troll.
I’ve liked what Whedon has produced, though I havn’t got around to watching Dollhouse yet (waiting for a double season boxset), but frankly the man is an idiot, why? Because he went back to Fox. Its a miracle really that he got two seasons out of Dollhouse.
Television tends to tear up writers. Just read about Rod Serling; of Twilight Zone fame, and his experiences with TV executives. Or perhaps Joss should read about Serling and learn he’s not the first writer to have to deal with idiots running a network.
I should cut FOX a little slack. They gave Dollhouse a second season so Joss can’t complain they didn’t give it a chance. He should probably stick with movies for now. If he sells another TV series and FOX buys it, he will only have himself to blame for putting himself at their mercy again.
Well, I guess it’s just comeuppance for Joss . . . perhaps he now has an inkling of my feelings regarding him killing off characters for “effect”.
After all, perhaps that’s all Fox was doing . . . they wanted to impress upon Joss that this was “real”, that it “mattered”, and to heighten the dramatic effect. So they killed off two of his series.
Honestly, if he hadn’t made Serenity, I would think he could have held out for a cable network or some such to offer him a contract for a second season of Firefly. The SyFy channel, for all its crapiness, would have been the perfect place for it. But he made Serenity (which I loved) and killed off a bunch of characters, so a return is sort of out of the question.
That said, I think he should try for another outer-space oriented SF venture, whether in film or otherwise. But that’s me…If anything, he should have learned his lesson about the major networks: they don’t appreciate good TV (Firefly) and will give you more than enough leeway to make crap (Dollhouse).
I dunno there could have been a second season of Firefly if Joss had capitalized on Serenity’s success, I for one would have liked to see how some of the loose threads had tied up. But sadly I think Nathan Fillion is right when he said that everyone has moved on.
I love Joss’ work, but after reading some of the comments here, I still find it amazing that even when people think a show is a waste of time for them, they will waste even more of their time bitching about something they say they won’t watch. It must be the internet equivalent of people who like to hear themselves speak. If you don’t like something, don’t watch it. If you have constructive criticism, others may have interest in reading it. As far as posting hate for hate’s sake, noone cares about those opinions except for the one spreading the hate. It’s like someone hating Star Trek but going to every Trek con around…stupid and pointless.
Should have had those Dollhouse characters “wake up” and realize they were all Rivers “classmates” and that they were in the middle of space. Their job to infiltrate Serenity and get River back…..Than Shazam! They are in the Firefly universe and under contract with those soulless drips at Fox. Mwoehaha!