OK, here is why Fox sucks.

Fox is like, well, imagine you go and buy a beautiful puppy. You have grand plans for this puppy. It is going to be the best dog in the whole wide world. Everyone looks at the dog and can see its greatness. But then you ignore the puppy. Sooner or later you are kicking it. Then, once you are good and ready for it to be a good dog, the dog doesn’t respond in kind because of all of the abuse. Be a great dog, you say. How, the puppy says? So you drive the puppy out into the middle of the woods and do him Ol’ Yeller style.

Of course I could be talking of a good many shows right now. Like the delightful greatest show ever, Arrested Development. But today I am speaking of Firefly. Fox totally screwed the pooch, so to say, on this one. I have to admit, I wasn’t one of those people who gave it a shot. I watched the first 30 minutes or so of the first episode, thought it kind of lame, and gave up on it. Give me a break! I had a girlfriend. Sex won out.

What I didn’t know was that I wasn’t actually watching the first episode though. See, Fox was being Fox. Instead of showing us, oh, say the two part pilot, which happens to probably be the greatest pilot I’ve ever seen, Fox thought that it didn’t have enough action so they skipped up to episode three. See, you think they’d know when they decided to work with Joss Whedon that his shows, despite the sci-fi or horror setting are really about character. Come on, no one remembers the fights in Buffy. They remember Willow and Xander and everyone else. Likewise, Firefly is all about character. Instead, I’m thrown into a world I don’t know with characters I don’t yet care about with a plot that, let’s face it, wasn’t THAT exciting (train robbery? Yeah, lots of action Fox). The title I still don’t like. Firefly? I like Serenity as a title a lot more. Yeah, I gave up on it. My fault. Or Fox’s? Yeah, I think it’s more Fox’s.

Thank God Serenity did get made and I did go see it and thought it interesting enough to take a chance on the boxset of the (unfortunately) complete series. I’m halfway through and loving every minute of it. Thanks again Fox. You know that I’ll be pissed when it is all over too soon.