Charmed, Angel, Buffy, all huge hits, even cultural phenomena, appealing primarily to young women, and geeks of all ages and sexes.
(wow, there were a lot of commas in that sentence weren't there)
Then tell me, why did Firefly and Forever Knight both fail miserably? On the surface they should have been equally as successful. They featured good looking, angsty but fun characters, the supernatural, the fantastic, pretty good writing, and cheezy in a good way dialogue.
Personally I blame it on the canadians, but maybe it's jsut me... No really they were both made in canada, and starred mostly canadians, and you could hear the accents and everything. Seriously.
Okay no it wasnt the canadians, so what was it?
Firefly was never allowed to find an audience, which is too bad, because it's some of the best storytelling Joss Whedon has ever done (barring a few particular episodes of Angel and Buffy), and it was expensive because Joss insisted on some very good sets and effects; There was almost no promotion done for it, and no-one could find it in their market...
I could go on and on about why the show didn't work, but none of it has to do with the quality of the storytelling. Thankfully someone else saw the potential of the show, and there is now a three picture deal at Universal with the first movie, "Serenity" coming out later this year. Hopefully the movies will spark a new deal for the show, maybe on Sci-fi if not on one of the syndicates.
Forever Knight was one of the cheaply produced mostly canadian "adult oriented drama" series bought up by CBS to have something to replace Pat Sajak (and thank god for that). They called it "Crime time after prime time" and it featured Sweating Bullets, Silk Stalkings, Forever Knight, and a couple others that I (and apparently no-one else on the net since I cant find it in google) can't remember.
The thing is, as cheezy as the show was sometimes, it was often actually quite well written, and other than the vampire fright takes, was generally pretty well acted. More importantly, it had engaging stories and characters.
I just finished the first two or so (the episodes were in canadian order not U.S. order and so the seaosn were a little mixed) seasons on DVD (god I love netflix), and I think it would work remade today, with a younger and even more atttractive cast, and slightly better effects and production values (In other words a bigger budget).
I still remember my friends in college ranting how LaCroix was SOOO much better than "The Master" from Buffy (I started college in '93, finished in 97, so I neatly encapsulated the Forever Kinght to Buffy Transition).
Oh and Bruce Campbell NEEDS to have his own show again. Sam Raimi has unlimited money and clout now, maybe he can shove something his best friends way.
