If you really don't think it matters when it was written, I take it that you'd find it pompous if that was part of the Firefly pitch instead?

The point I was trying to make was if he wrote this or was showing it to people/studios after Firefly was already airing, then it is pompous and/or ignorant to talk about how you're going to revolutionize sci-fi by doing the exact same things as a series that was currently airing. If this was written/distributed before Firefly hit the air waves, then no harm, no foul.

Unfortunately we don't know when it was written/distributed. We only know when it was leaked, which was at the end of Firefly's run on the air. (And my mistake for not reading the rest of the article and seeing that it was in fact a leak and not a press release. I was only trying to find the mission statement and linked it as soon as I found it.) So I guess it's a moot point.

I think written versus distributed is actually kind of key here. At the time of writing, how would RM have known about FF? I mean, you know, unless he and Joss are buds.

I can see if people thought he'd written that memo specifically for public consumption and after FF aired that it would chafe (and perhaps that's what people thought at the time), but... I mean, that's not the case, if I'm understanding correctly the timeline Strega mentions. Its release was unfortunate, but I can't blame RM for that (unless he did it, which, I'm guessing not).

Anyway - my main point is the same. I suspect Ron Moore and David Eick don't attribute inspiration for BSG to FF because they didn't get their inspiration for BSG from FF. Betcha they think it's a great show, though.

I don't think Ron Moore and David Eick ripped of Joss Whedon.

I don't think so either and that hasn't been my arguement. I was just explaining why the mission statement rankled, particularly at the time it first hit the net.

From the NYT article, it sounds like the memo was written in December, 2001, or shortly after.

If that's the case, then yeah, they both had similar ideas at the same time. The memo just got leaked (and when it was going around, I seem to recall it being touted as an intentional release, which is why I thought it was a press release when I went looking for it) at a really bad time, as far as Firefly fans were concerned.

I don't think so either and that hasn't been my arguement.

Yeah, Kalshane, actually, I got carried away in my language there. Almost like I was writing a mission statement or something; I edited my post. Here's my main point from this morning, in response to what made me post:

its you are there approach owes a bit to Firefly

I've never thought that was true, and the timeline Strega provided seems to support the notion that separate creators had a similar idea about how to shoot their shows completely independently of each other. That seems unproblematic to me. And the notion that somehow one show owes something to the other (as quoted above), I don't get.

The memo was a separate but related discussion.

I did just find this interview, where he says

Losing sound in space has been done before in 2001 and more recently in Firefly (which I never saw, but heard about) so it's not like this is an insane notion.

And jumping back:

Had any scifi movie or TV show featured a robot dog before?

And don't forget Mega Man.

Our characters are living, breathing people with all the emotional complexity and contradictions present in quality dramas like "The West Wing" or "The Sopranos."

He apparently never saw B5, Farscape or the better episodes of DS9.

Our characters are living, breathing people with all the emotional complexity and contradictions present in quality dramas like "The West Wing" or "The Sopranos."

He apparently never saw B5, Farscape or the better episodes of DS9

Compared to the original BSG, The Anna Nicole Smith Show has emotional complexity.