Nathan Fillion Felt ‘Firefly’ Was Treated Like a ‘Problem Show’

Actor Nathan Fillion starred in the hit series Firefly, a show that many felt ended too early. It was a sentiment that Fillion agreed with. However, despite its fan support, Fillion thought Firefly might’ve been doomed from the start.

Nathan Fillion felt ‘Firefly’ was being kicked around

Although Firefly was very short-lived, the series amassed a following that some shows with double its life expectancy don’t get to enjoy. And it still finds new fans to this day, even though its last episode airedin 2003. But the network that aired the show, Fox, didn’t feel the same way about the series as its fans. The network gave Firefly questionable timeslots that hurt its accessibility to audiences. Additionally, they aired episodes out of order, further confusing fans and potential newcomers to the show.

“We were getting kicked around,” Fillion once said according to Female. “If you recall, they didn’t air a pilot first, they aired a pilot last. we got pre-empted a lot for baseball – the World Series, which is understandable – a couple of times for Happy Gilmore, The Brady’s Go to Washington. Our show never ran for more than two weeks consecutively. We were kind of labelled by the network publicly as a problem show, which I don’t think we deserved.”

But Fillion took comfort in knowing that fans appreciated the show as much as he did. Although he admitted that he was optimistic that the series wouldn’t get canceled right up until the end.

“I simply said, you guys, don’t worry, it’s obvious we’re making a good show. There are people out there who see exactly what we’re doing and they understand exactly what we’re doing. We’re making a good show, we’re fighting the good fight. We will not be cancelled because we’re doing the right thing. Next day – cancelled,” he said.

Why ‘Firefly’ dying a horrible death was a good thing for the show

If there was one benefit to Firefly being canceled when it was, it was that the show ended on a bit of a high creatively. It never got the opportunity to overstay its welcome, which Fillion believed added to the show’s legacy.

“In every episode we learn something, we see something, we experience something. It’s a slow build and it’s going somewhere… and then it dies a horrible death,” Fillion once said according to Esquire. “So we can never make it suck. We didn’t go back and change anything; we didn’t put any extra CGI in it or change any story points or character points. We have that advantage. So along with the opportunity of never having been able to suck and people having access to it, people are coming to Firefly all the time.”

Thanks to the show constantly recruiting new fans, however, the show’s death hasn’t been permanent. There has even been some hope of Firefly having a continuation or a reboot over the years. But Fillion is fine with Firefly’s conclusion. Especially since the series had a sense of finality to it thanks to the 2005 movie Serenity, which picked up where the series left off.

“I honestly don’t think that there’s going to be another Firefly iteration. I had an amazing time on Firefly. It was the best job I’d ever had. It was a lot of firsts for me, and it was the most incredible collection of people I’d ever had the pleasure to work with. And when it was torn away from me so abruptly, I was quite literally broken-hearted. But I had a chance to go back in the biggest way possible with [Serenity], a major motion picture,” Fillion said.