Firefly the Series: What age is it appropriate viewing for?

Cafe Society
21

Yeah, I would most definitely skip the episode entitled War Stories, as it contains the most prolonged and graphic torture scene, done while one hero is threatening sexual deeds with the other’s wife - there’s a good reason for it, he’s trying to piss him off and keep him pushing enough adrenaline to survive the torture, but it’s still really really ugly and disturbing.

You should watch it on your own, though, as it’s a really great character episode disguised as torture-porn.

If *Earl *is currently too racy for your kids, then *Firefly probably is too. Given your list of likes, I’m a little doubtful that you’ll like it, but it’s really worth a shot. Do this for me: watch the first three eps, and then if you don’t like it, forward to the episode called “Out of Gas”. If that doesn’t hook you, then give it up and find something more in line with your tastes. Life’s too short to waste it watching or reading things you don’t love.
*And cut the second one some slack: yes, it’s repetitive, that’s because the Powers That Be made them essentially make a second “first-episode”, so all that character 'slpaining and situation set-up they did in the real first episode had to be repeated.

22

Don’t forget the episode where the crew visits a brothel on a backwater planet. The episode has references to abortion, a fairly explicit fade-to-black that strongly implies forced fellatio, and several other unsavory bits. A high school freshman should be okay seeing it (I was watching Full Metal Jacket* when I was a freshman), but younger than that and I’d start to worry.

In fact, here’s a rundown of the episodes as I recall them:

  1. “TV-naked” River - young adolescent boys will enjoy this. Mal shoots some guy in the head very abruptly and with no warning, also shows no remorse.
  2. Pretty harmless, but there is a scene where Mal kicks someone into the running turbine-blade-filled intake of Serenity’s engines.
  3. Reavers! Lots of horror movie jump-and-scare, plus gore, and verbal descriptions of much worse.
  4. Deals directly with Inara’s work (prostitution). One scene where a wealthy man disperses a group of socialites by implying that they are of loose morals. Swordfight with some torture.
  5. Can’t remember too much bad about this one - some fighting, heroes threatened with burning at the stake, and a gunfight.
  6. “TV-naked” Saffron and one comically sexual scene. Adolescent boys will head for their bunks.
  7. Lots and lots of fighting. Brutal Jayne-style fights.
  8. Kaylee joins the crew after Mal catches her performing unauthorized maintenance (on the mechanic) in the engine bay. I’ll be in my bunk. Possibly some other low-grade violence but nothing stands out in my mind.
  9. Hands-of-blue villains are very scary, but an adolescent will find them just scary enough to get the point home.
  10. The infamous torture episode. Possibly worse for kids than any of the sexin’.
  11. Saffron returns. We get a look at Mal in the end. Young girls may blush or squeal, because he is a fine looking gent.
  12. Pretty grim. At least one gruesome death and some scary aerial combat, but if you’ve made it this far it’s fine.
  13. Best Little Whorehouse in Space (see above).
  14. Objects in Space - River’s mental illness is a central theme. Bounty hunter threatens to rape Kaylee. Terror, torture, and some other mildly scary stuff. Wash & Zoe sex?
    • also featuring the excellent Adam Baldwin as the unforgettable Animal Mother.
23

Well the disc is already here, so I will watch the first 3 in the next few days. I am just curious if I fit the profile of a Firefly fan. I prefer Old Sci-Fi and classic High-Fantasy. Though obviously I am a big fan of the new Doctor Who.

Jim

24

I hope you enjoy it Jim, your tastes are similar to mine (particularly not liking Buffy/Angel) so I think there’s a strong chance you’ll enjoy it!

25

How are you with moral ambiguity and story arcs? Those seem to be to be the defining differences between old school sci-fi and the more modern stuff. Battlestar, Buffy, Angel, Firefly - they all take good guys who do bad things and bad guys who do good things and don’t generally resolve that for the viewer. Then things that happen in one episode are often significant in future episodes, although they seemed insignificant at the time. Contrast that with the old Trek, where the moral is cleanly laid out, the bad guys are punished and thwarted, the good guys get the green alien girls and we move on to our next adventure, with no real story arc to speak of. If you like clean short story storytelling as opposed to novels which require effort to work out, then it’s hard to say - Firefly’s episodes do stand alone better than Angel’s (or latter season Buffy), but there is definitely arc-y stuff, and there’s definite moral ambiguity going on.

The basic premise of the show is: what if we took the Civil War, moved it into the future, and made the protagonists the Confederates some time after the war? The Alliance (The “Empire”) are not evil, the Browncoats (the “Confederates”) are not martyrs. The main characters are mostly on the run from the law, but not unnecessarily on the run from *unjust *laws. Or maybe they are.

Unless, of course, it’s cardboard sets that get your motor running. In which case, it’s fun to find the common objects spray painted as futuristic elements - like the cartop carriers that get an effects treatment to be patient transporters and the old US Army helicopter that becomes a medivac in Ariel. :smiley:

26

I’m a classic SF guy (Heinlein, etc), and absolutely love Firefly.

Coincidentally, we just finished re-watching the entire series last night with my 10-year old daughter. She absolutely loved it, and is sad that there are no more “but we can re-watch it as much as we want, right Dad?”

The questionable morality is more of a Libertarian ethic than a criminal ethic, and I’m down with that. They generally steal from an evil government or from bad criminals, and if they accidentally steal from people who don’t deserve it, they make amends.

The open sexuality was a worry - my daughter strongly associated with Kaylee the mechanic, so I skipped the scene in ‘Out of Gas’ that introduces the character (she’s introduced being ‘serviced’ by the previous mechanic in a fairly graphic way).

My daughter is very smart and level-headed, so several times we just stopped and talked about how morals in other cultures can be different. She asked about Inara’s profession, and I basically said she’s like a Geisha, and some cultures approve of that and some don’t. Firefly is very much set in a ‘frontier’ world, so we talked about what life was like on a frontier and how society adapted to it. She gets that the show is about a different place and time, and she shouldn’t use anything in it as an example of what kind of person she should be now.

I have no worries about it. If anything, the show overall gives a positive message IMO. Stand up for yourself, carry yourself with honor, keep your word, be good to those close to you, be loyal and trustworthy, etc.

27

Are you kidding? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Whedon-related thread that didn’t go at least two pages.

Most people I know who dislike Firefly are turned off by the Old West theme - the crew are literally gun slinging, leather vest wearing cattle rustlers in space. Some people can’t get past the silliness of that.

28

You make it sound like it is more an adventure series in space then Angst in space like Next Gen & the new Galatica or later Buffy’s.

If that is true, I will probably enjoy the series.

Sam Stone, you give me much hope, if a dedicated Heinlein fan likes it, it bodes well for me.

WhyNot, as far as moral ambiguity and story arcs, I am Okay with the first and usually iffy with the second if stretches out more than a few episodes. I only liked the conspiracy story arc episodes of X-files half as much as I like the story in one hour episodes. Though I loved the Sopranos.

sandra_nz: Thanks, I am hopefully going to get to them tonight. I just finished 4 hours of raking and I needed a dope break.

Jim

29

It was a half-scale Soviet Hind, actually. (Click on the FAQ link to see the comparison)

The previous posters have it pretty well covered. Whether you want to expose your kid to it is a personal call.

Moral ambiguity: Things are stolen, things are smuggled, but not from folks who are struggling. In one episode a theft job is taken with no questions asked, and the goods returned when the crew finds out that it is sorely-needed medicine.

Violence: Guns abound, especially when Jayne is in the scene. Even when they aren’t used there an awful lot of gun-cocking done to make a dramatic point to a statement. People are shot, including the crew, and people die. Mal loses an ear (temporarily) to a sadistic bastard for no reason but to maintain a reputation.

Sex: Also abounds, but with a courtesan on board what would you expect? Inara is shown many times servicing her clients (nothing graphic, but they’re Doing It) and sweet Kaylee cheerfully calls out, “Have good sex!” as she leaves for an assignation. Zoe and Wash for their part, are a happily married couple (How rare is that in television?) enjoying the physical side of their relationship.

Probably the best thing to do is buy the series, and vet the episodes before letting your child loose on them. Some may pass muster, some may not.

30

I really agree with this statement. You know your kids and limits best.

Curious minor hijack, What Exit, how did you like Babylon 5?

31

I just finished re-watching the series for the first time since it was available on DVD, and I really hope you love it. I do. As a one-time would-be career ( :rolleyes: ) actor, I love even more that it was apparently such a delight to make: the interviews with actors and creative staff are WONDERFUL. The artistic integrity (if I can say that without irony in reference to commercial TV, please, kthx) of the whole enterprise is awe-inspiring and evident in every frame.

Which is probably nothing your kids are interested in at this age. I’ll be very interested to hear what you think about it for them. I’ll echo several others in recommending that if you do decide to watch it with them, skipping Kaylee’s sex scene in “Out of Gas” and also the entire torture episode, “War Stories,” sounds like a good idea.

I wouldn’t worry, personally, about most of the “sex” scenes, especially those with Inara, as they’re really more pretty than sexual, IMHO, and tamer than many billboards. It would depend on the kid. I would have a frank discussion about all the guns and violence, and would probably be unable to resist trying to make sure the kids understood the moral themes (we don’t have kids yet, but I am pretty sure I’ll hear “Oh, Mom! Not the lecture on integrity again!” at some point). I wouldn’t worry at all about the full rearal nudity in “Trash” – unless you or your kids are seriously squicked out by naked butts, it’s done in an absolutely non-sexual way, very lighthearted, appropriate to the story, and is the kind of physical humor that kids innately understand.

I would also hesitate to let kids watch “Heart of Gold,” the one about a brothel, much less because of the sexuality and much more because of the extremely disturbing relationship between the bad guy and one of the, er, brothel workers. It’s a classic abusive relationship and it comes across all too vividly.

The Reavers figure most prominently in “Bushwhacked,” and that’s another one I’d watch carefully before the kids see it.

Please let us know what you decide!

32

For what it’s worth, I asked my 14 year old this question, and his opinion is, “For most kids, 12, but skip “War Stories”, and watch it with a grownup to explain anything disturbing.”

He watched it with us on DVD, starting at age almost 11, I think, but he’d already watched a couple of seasons of *Buffy *by that point.

33

I could never get into it at all. I never tried to hard either.

I liked the first year or two of Voyager, but it really started feeling like Gilligan’s Island in Space or only one small bit better than Lost in Space.

I like Deep Space Nine, but my wife did not and I drifted away from it in apathy at some point.

Enterprise was a truly pathetic efforts. (IMHO)

I have a real soft spot for Star Trek (TOS).

I can still lose a large chunk of a day during a Twilight Zone marathon. Classic writing and just an incredible series.

I like the Original Battle Star Galatica as a kid with the original airings. Not easy to watch it now, unlike Star Trek or Twilight Zone.
I will watch it first without the kids.

Jim

34

Great. Now I have to go and rewatch the whole thing. And it’s all your fault.

Thanks!

StG

35

You cited TNG’s “angst” as the reason you didn’t like it but then stated later that you liked DS9? That seems pretty odd since DS9 was all about the angst but TNG not so much, if at all.

36

I grew up watching Star Trek, over and over again; it was an adventure series in space. Next Gen was talking, angst, Picard the incredibly boring, Riker got deballed after the first season and of course, like many people, I really wish Wesley and his horrible Mom got Crush between two asteroids. Then there was the official bridge officer position of Angst, Troi.

LeForge was the worst engineer of any of the series; he never acted like a ships engineer and was just a transfer from Nav or something anyway.

DS9, maybe it did get angsty, I don’t know, but they stole the best two characters from Next Gen, Worf and O’Brien. As I said, I stopped watching it at some point out of apathy. The characters were interesting to me at first where as Next Gen just felt like a Kinder Gentler, more Boring version of the Original.

I am guessing you are sorry you asked.

By the way I did like the interim Doctor on Next Gen, she was snarky.

I almost forgot, Guinan, Urrrr, Guinan. What were they thinking?

Data sucked too!

Jim (Sorry for that unintended, previously bottled up stream of thought post from my 22 year old self. Apparently 19 years later I still resent how disappointing Next Gen was to a diehard Trekkie.)

37

No. Not sorry. Just kinda curious how anyone would consider TNG angsty and if you’e uncertain about the angst factor on DS9, must’ve drifted away before the Dominion War arc, which was fully three seasons long and chock full of dark, angsty goodness. One of the best episodes ever was Sisko recording a personal log explaining his role in the murder of a Romulan senator so that their empire would get off their asses and help the UFP and the turtleheads beat them back but then saying “Fuck that. I can live with it” and deleting it at the end.

Deep Space Nine rocks. The Next Generation not so much.

38

Dominion War Arc, nope, I was gone around then, I remember catching the show on at some around 1998 and thinking, “my god, the show is still on.”

What year was the Tribble Show? I made a point of watching it with friends, but I was already an irregular watcher of the show.

Jim

39

Fourth, I think? It was in celebration of the 30th anniversary of Trek (the Sulu episode on *Voyager *was for the same reason), so that would have been 1996.

1998 would have been near the end of the series and about halfway through the Dominion War. I think it’s the best Trek ever, for what it’s worth, and the only thing besides a few of the movies that’s worth watching.

[/hijack]

40

Well, there is the whole subject of Inara’s profession. I don’t know how much of it would go over kids heads, or whether they would question it.