Firefly

Since I’m going to see Serenity tomorrow, I thought I’d get the Firefly DVD set as an early birthday present and brush back up on the series before hand. Of course, this means writing about it.

In all the history of of television, the cancellation of Firefly is one of the most inexplicable, heartless things I’ve ever read about. A brief history –

Firefly premeired on Fox September 20, 2002. The episodes were aired in the following order: 2,3, 6, 7, 8, 4, 5, 9, 10, 14, and then after it was cancelled, the pilot was aired.

Ponder that a moment. Now add to it frequent pre-emption for sports events. Two or three weeks would pass between episodes.

And Fox blamed poor ratings. There is a special level of hell reserved for the Fox suit who made this call.

I came along much later, renting the show on DVD. I’m not a fan of Buffy or Angel, the other creations of Joss Whedon. I watched the show with skepticism (well, skepticism wasn’t actually sitting there with me at the time…but you know).

It took all of twenty minutes for me to realize I was seeing something special. Firefly wasn’t revolutionary TV, or astounding science fiction. It wasn’t the Greatest Show of All Time (TM).

But it had heart. It had a cast of characters that were uniformly interesting. It had a chemistry between characters rarely encountered on TV. It had a perspective not examined by most other genre shows – common people making their way as best they can, even if it meant living on the fringe of the law.

It was a blast!

And on the second viewing, I laughed just as loud, and felt genuine affection for the characters on screen.

I can’t say that about many other shows. And this one was brutally cancelled when already accomplishing more than 95% of all other shows on the air.

Did I mention the special level of hell?

You can go read synopsis of the characters and plot elsewhere. You can get your fill of Firefly quotes on other sites. But I can’t resist a few.

Mal: “You wanna tell me how come there’s a statue of you here, looking at me like I owe him something?”
Jayne: “Wishin’ I could, Captain.”
Mal: “No, seriously, Jayne, you want to tell me–?”
Jayne: “Look, Mal, I got no ruttin’ idea. I was here a few years back, like I said. Pulled a second-story, stole a lot of scratch from the magistrate up on the hill. But things went way south. I had to hightail it. They don’t…put you on a pedestal in town square for that.”
Mal: “Yeah, but I’m looking at some fair compelling evidence says they do.”
Simon: (staring at the statue) “This must be what going mad feels like.”
Jayne: “Uh, hey, I got a idea. Instead of us hanging around playing art critic ’til I get pinched by the man, how’s about we move away from this eerie-ass piece of work, and get on with our increasingly eerie-ass day. How’s that?”

….

Zoe: “Preacher, don’t the Bible have some pretty specific things to say about killing?
Book: “Quite specific. It is, however, somewhat fuzzier on the subject of kneecaps.”

….

Alliance Commander: “You fought with Captain Reynolds in the war?”
Zoe: “Fought with a lot of people in the war.”
Alliance Commander: “And your husband?”
Zoe: “Fight with him sometimes, too.”

I’m confident in saying you won’t be wasting your time if you go rent (or better yet, buy ($29.99 at Amazon!)) the series and see it for yourself.

If there is any justice in the world, Serenity will do well enough that some TV suit somewhere will say “Maybe we should make a series of this.”

Serenity opens September 30th. Check back here in a couple of days for my review.