I think most people were put off by the “western” style, even Americans did. When I first watched Firefly, I hated it for that reason alone. Only when I literally pushed myself to watch more of it I liked the universe and its characters.

Another problem was that FOX aired “Serenity” 1 year after it was completed (the pilot of Firefly). The 90-minute pilot was by far the best episode of all 14 (quality-wise). By not airing it first, viewers didn’t know what to expect and what was really going on.

> 2. Was the marketing poor?

I think the marketing was fine. I didn’t use to watch much TV back in 2002, and yet I did learn about it and watched the first 3 episodes (which I disliked for the reasons I explain above).

Maybe FOX crucified the show by not giving it a better timeslot and air its pilot when it should have, but the ultimate decision to cancel the show in May 2002, was the right decision business-wise.

Firefly was a good show overall, but this was not enough. Anyways, DVD sales are still rocking. After 3.5 years, the complete series DVD is still in the top-100 of Amazon and it has sold over 1 million copies. This is possibly the most sold TV series on a DVD, ever. It has a ratio of buyers 1 in 5-8 viewers, which is extremely high. Yet, FOX didn’t bring that show back.

1. Was it a quality implementation of something that nobody wanted? Some serious, depressing movies are excellent, but do regular people want to spend their Saturday night and money watching them? Some do (like me!), but many people want to simply have a good time, which is a lot of the reason a fun, silly comedy will tend to make more money than many critically-acclaimed “serious” movies.

Similarly, when you look at things realistically, a science-fiction based show is probably going to have a harder time getting a large viewer base than something with more popular appeal. (Yes, there are exceptions.) As you mentioned, network TV shows need a huge number of viewers, and this probably explains why there aren’t a whole bunch of outer-space-themed shows during prime time TV.

2. Was the marketing poor? Without having read most comments, I think this is the area in which most people blame Fox. Fox has a pretty good history of canceling shows that people believe (how accurately, it’s tough to say) would have been popular with the right marketing / timeslot. Look at Family Guy — the DVD sales were so high that Fox actually brought it back from the dead.

Certainly, Firefly was an expensive show, and since it obviously wasn’t pulling a profit, it made sense for Fox to cancel it. I doubt most people are disputing that. Rather, I think they’re saying that with better marketing and a better timeslot, they believe that it would have been successful. Right or wrong, that’s a different question. (And the same idea also goes for the movie, of course.)