I never saw Firefly and in fact until I began reading these SDCS threads had no idea that they were in the same “Universe” - with the same characters (?right)
So specfiically can you nutshell the Firefly storyline – esp. did it cross-refernce Serenity?- and why IYHO did Firefly not catch on – because Serenity really rocked.
Also, not to hijack this thread, but can anyone suggest some good online Firefly resources and/or messageboards? I’ve clicked on Wikipedia’s external links but none of those really caught my fancy. Anyone know of any others?
Mal, Zoe, Wash, Jayne, and Kaylee are the crew of an independent freighter/smuggling ship. Inara is a high-class prostitute (a very respected position in this universe) who rents one of their shuttles to pursue her own business on the side. They can’t make ends meet on the payoff from thier legal-and-quasi-legal jobs, so they end up taking on some passengers, including Simon (who sneaks River on board in a cryogenically frozen box) and Reverend Book. These last three end up staying on board and becoming part of the crew over the next twelve episodes. The show was only starting to get a serious arc going when it was axed: what got produced was meant to firmly establish the characters and setting, before it started doing all sorts of horrible things to them. There isn’t a whole lot of direct, in your face references from the series in the movie. One thing I caught was when Mal was trying to talk to all his old business partners, only to find them all dead at The Operative’s hands: one of the screens is from Whitefall, a planet they visted in the pilot. Mostly, the show will help you understand the character interactions in the movie better, especially Mal and Inara and Simon and Kaylee, which made up two thirds of the romances on the show (Zoe and Wash being the last third).
As for why it failed, basically it was network incompetence. The suits meddled a lot in what Joss was trying to do (not entirely to the shows detriment: the series is a lot lighter and funnier than the movie, thanks to the demands of Fox execs). But it really got screwed in the scheduling. It was under-promoted pretty badly (I only ever saw ads for it on FX, during reruns of Buffy), it had just about the worst time-slot imaginable (Friday nights, for a show aimed as the 18-35 crowd), it got pre-empted a lot, and worst of all, Fox aired the episodes out of order, screwing up continuity, and starting the series off with a vastly inferior second pilot; the real pilot, which introduced all the characters, was the very last episode ever aired.
The easiest way to catch up is to watch the series on DVD. If you don’t feel like you can watch all of the episodes, at least watch the pilot, Out of Gas, Ariel, and Objects in Space. If you want to read (and add to, if you see something new) discussions of the episodes, go take a look at the Firefly Film Festival threads that NETexan started this summer, in anticipation of the film. I’ve linked to the last installment. The OP contains links to all the previous threads.
Also, I was told (but did not get to verify) that the comic book series Serenity chronicles events that take place between the end of the series and before the movie. Something for me to try and pick up this weekend at the comic book store, I suppose…
[spoiler]The blue-hand guys find Dobson (the fed from the first episode that we assumed was dead) on some backwater planet. He has a prosthetic eye. They join forces to capture River and kill Mal. Meanwhile, a heist that the crew is doing goes south, but they’re rescued by Shep Book who steals a car to do it. Later, Book is very upset by what he’s done and Mal tries to goad him into accepting it, but instead, he just goads Book into punching him. Book decides he has to leave the ship. Mal forgives him the punch, but Book says that he doesn’t like the man he’s becoming – “It don’t matter that you hit me, Sheperd.” “I know. But it matters to me. And if I stay here, soon enough it won’t.”
Inara also finally decides to leave, so they drop her off at the training center you see in the film. In spae, Mal, Zoe and Jayneleave the ship to do some salvage in a debris field, where they’re ambushed by Dobson and his men. Meanwhile, the blue-hands, in a small ship, latch on to Serenity and try to blow the hatch. While Kaylee tries to keep them out, Mal and his group shoot all the ambushers (including Dobson, in the head again). Wash pilots the ship up against some debris and scrapes off the blue-hands, who appear to be killed (the art is unclear, but I’m pretty sure it was meant to be definitive), picks up the rest of the gang, and zooms off. The last page is someone on a vidscreen telling the Operative that the blue hands failed.[/spoiler]