Collected Thoughts

Interesting POV, and you have a point. I for one didn't blame Firefly for the problems with ME's other shows. I blamed ME for doing a lousy job of directing its limited resources to where they would do most good. Yes, an existing show can suffer when its creative team is cannibalized for a new show, as we saw in S4 Buffy. But that wasn't the fault of the then-brand-new shown Angel, just as any problems with the existing shows this season can hardly be blamed on Firefly. Although actually I thought S6/S3 were far worse than S7/S4 are shaping up to be.

However, to use a specific example which had a lot of people bitching about the 'Firefly effect', pulling Tim Minear away from scripting Angel S4 Ep 13 to write a Firefly script, and replacing him with David Fury, that wasn't at all Firefly's fault, as I have already said in another discussion. Minear was unavailable due to Firefly, certainly, but nobody held a gun to ME's head and forced it to give Ep 13 to Fury instead. They could've given the ep to a different available writer, one more suited to the material. I'll be as vague as possible here and try to avoid giving any spoilers. All I will say is that Ep 13 is rumoured to be a pivotal ep in the season's arc, and one not terribly suited to Fury's scriptwriting talents, which tend to lie in other directions.

So yes, ME will have fewer opportunities to screw up w/Firefly cancelled, but that's not Firefly's fault, that's ME's for doing a lousy job managing their talent. Also, I wouldn't be at all surprised, like you, if various members of the ME creative team were to continue working elsewhere. It's the smart thing to do, after all. Buffy is reaching the end of its lifespan, and who knows how much longer Angel will run. Branching out into fresher projects is a good thing for a writer's career.