Why And How FOX Hates Science Fiction

Well, because they can.

That's simple enough, hey?

But seriously, ok, here's what happens when a TV exec doesn't like a particular show.

The show gets put in the Friday Night Death Slot. It gets pre-empted for other stuff. They play the episodes out of order. There are breaks of as long as 3 weeks between episodes.

Then, after a few - less, often, than ten - episodes, the network announces that the show is cancelled due to lack of audience interest, and *poof* gone forever.

Right.

Fox is possibly the worst offender, here, but this is conduct all the networks are guilty of; they buy interesting shows with creative, new ideas, try everything in their power to keep people from watching them, and then cancel them.

Now, this is a new phenomenon. In The Olden Days, (read: the 1980's and prior,) when a show got cancelled it was because NO-ONE WATCHED IT. Thus, no other network would pick up a cancelled show for new episodes, because no-one was watching it anyway. But today, shows get cancelled on the slimmest of justifications - shows that would find a glad home in, for example, the Sci-Fi network, and yet BECAUSE THEY WERE CANCELLED, they can't - and then they simply vanish, never to be seen again.

Let's talk about an example of this.

FOX aired a great show a few years ago called "Firefly." It was written and directed by Joss Whedon, who was responsible for Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel; surely, that's a recommendation, right? It has cowboys in space, horrible bad guys, conflicted good guys, comedy, drama, romance, combat, the whole bag. Screams - just SCREAMS - SCiFI!!! (Note that this is not exclusive to Sci-Fi, but an AWFUL LOT of the cancelled-too-early shows are SF in nature.)

Right. So, first it goes into the FNDS; then the episode swapping and pre-emptions begin; then FOX declares it a failure and cancels it. Now, after a cancellation like that, you'd think that another network, seeing that the show would appeal to their core demographic - I'M LOOKING AT YOU, SCI-FI - would leap at the opportunity to grab up the show and start up new episodes again, but instead, no. There are two reasons for this; one is that SCI-FI execs apparently think to themselves "Gee, it got cancelled, it must suck then." This, despite the fact that the audience was strong enough to get a full-fledged, theatrical movie released over two years after the series' cancellation. The other is that, in many cases, FOX - or whatever network cancelled it if it wasn't FOX - refuses to sell the rights to the show, even after eliminating it.

Now, obviously, FOX is not the only network to do this, but the thing is that of the major networks, FOX has the most willingness to buy Sci-Fi shows, so the majority of them show up there, prior to their inevitable cancellation.

Want to see how bad it is? *deep breath*

Tru Calling: Fox, 26 filmed / 25 aired (October 2003 - March 2005.)
Point Pleasant: Fox, 13 filmed / 8 aired (January - March 2005.)
Firefly: Fox, cancelled after 14 filmed / 11 aired. (September 2002 - August 2003.) Followed by a feature film, Serenity.
Dark Angel: Fox, cancelled at the end of season 2. (2000-2002.)
The Lone Gunmen: Fox, 13 episodes (March - June 2001.)
Fastlane: Fox, 22 episodes (2002-2003.)
John Doe: Fox, 21 episodes (2002-2003.)
Wonderfalls: Fox, 13 episodes (March - December 2004.)
Jonny Zero: Fox, 13 filmed / 8 aired (January - March 2005.)
Killer Instinct: Fox, 13 filmed / 9 aired (September - December 2005.)
Justice: Fox, 13 filmed / 12 aired (August - December 2006.) (But not officially cancelled until MAY OF THE FOLLOWING YEAR.)
Standoff: Fox, 18 filmed and aired (September 2006 - July 2007.)
Vanished: Fox, 13 filmed / 9 aired (August - November 2006.)
The Wedding Bells: Fox, 7 filmed / 5 aired (March - April 2007.)
Brimstone: Fox, 13 filmed and aired (October 1998 - February 1999.)
V.R.5: Fox, 13 filmed / 10 aired (March - May 1995.)
Drive: Fox, 6 filmed / 4 aired (April 2007.)

And then, similar adventures off the FOX network:

Surface: NBC, 15 filmed and aired (September 2005 - February 2006.)
Threshold: CBS, 13 filmed / 9 aired (February - September 2006.)
Invasion: ABC, 22 filmed and aired (September 2005 - May 2006.)
Odyssey 5: SHO, 20 filmed / 14 aired (June - October 2002.)
Crusade: TNT, 13 filmed and aired (June - September 1999.) Note that the Sci-Fi Channel DID in fact attempt to pick up this spin-off of the successful Babylon 5, but was unable to afford it.

Right. I guess what I'm getting at is that there oughta be a law saying that any broadcaster that cancels a show forfeits rights to SUBSEQUENTLY PRODUCED CONTENT, and retains only ownership and distribution rights for the originally aired episodes; this would allow other stations to pick up and run with shows that, like Firefly, have a great audience, but just need a new home.

FOX: Get your heads out of your fourth points of contact, for God's sake, and stop buying Sci-Fi shows, since you clearly have no intention of actually airing any of them.