I’ve started watching Joss Whedon’s sci-fi show Firefly on Hulu, this is a frellin…err…frakkin…err…gorram, yeah, that’s the correct term, gorram great, I understand why the fans of the show are so rabid, great, fully realized characters, flaws and all, realistic interpersonal relationships, these are characters you feel for
plus, the “no sound in a vacuum” thing with the spaceship shots is nice as well
frelling shiny show, this, too bad the Box…err…Fox network not only screwed up the airing order, but cancelled the show to boot
as postulated by the Futuramaverse, the Box network IS staffed by brainless morons
Thank you, Hulu, for introducing me to another great show, it’s shiny!
From your use of “frak” I can only assume you’re a BSG fan as well. Go back to Season One, Episode One of BSG and pay close attention during the scene on Caprica where you can see ships cruising in and out of the port city. The same FX crew did both shows (very obvious once you’ve watched both) so it shouldn’t surprise you that Serenity has a cameo.
Also, if you’re just now watching the episodes, there is so much to pay attention to. Practically every line of dialogue has significance, even throwaway banter about the ship’s day-to-day operations. Enjoy!
p.s. if this is your first exposure to Joss Whedon, check out Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog ASAP - all three acts are online now but will be taken down tomorrow. It stars Nathan Fillion (Mal) as Captain Hammer, a smarmy superhero and Dr. Horrible’s (Neal Patrick Harris’s) nemesis.
See, if you’d just tuned into this while it was in first run, Fox wouldn’t have canceled it. All they needed was just one more viewer, just one more, but no, you had to go and watch reruns of Star Trek: Voyager, because Kaylee doesn’t have a large enough rack.
What I like about the show most (despite a few weaknesses in casting and the more than occasional cliche) is how Whedon et al take genre conventions out of the box, show them to you, and then kick them to little bitty pieces and blow them out the airlock. When some critical part breaks, leaving the ship adrift in space and Kaylee offers up a complex technical explanation of what’s wrong, the captain doesn’t respond knowingly and with some technobabble fix that makes it all well. And (I’m assuming you’ve watched “The Train Job” at this point: if not, don’t keep reading) when a captured henchman threatens to hunt Mal down and kill him, he doesn’t let the guy go, setting himself up for a future showdown. It’s an excellent twist on a tiresome cliche.
And Nathan Fillon is great and all, but Jayne (played by Adam Baldwin, not one of the Baldwin brothers) is my favorite character. Whenever you think of the most inappropriate thing that could be said in a given situation, he comes up with something worse. Now, if they just could have had better casting for Inara…
Yep, I caught the Firefly landing in Cap. City, another starship reference in the BSG miniseries is the Constitution Class Enterprise NCC-1701 in the Rag-Tag-Fleet, top right hand side of the screen, far in the back
I’m also downloading Dr. Horrible from iTunes…
It’s funny, I never got into Buffy, or Angel, but there’s just something about Firefly
I am probably going to regret posting this but I just don’t get the massive love for “Firefly/Serenity” that so many Dopers have. I watched it a few times when it started because it was from “Buffy” creator (which I watched from the beginning because Sarah ichelle Gellar played Kendall Hart, the daughter from Hell on “All My Children”). I’ve watched all the episodes on DVD and the movie (which got a mention in an episode of “Stargate” as "who makes a movie from a TV series cancelled after three episodes? It sold well on DVD. It’s okay. I liked it. It had its good points. But it is not the greatest thing since canned beer which I would say about most of “Buffy”, large parts of second “Battlestar Galatica”, Sopranos, Rome, Upstairs Downstairs, I Love Lucy, I Claudius, MASH, Mary Tyler Moore after Rhoda and Syphillis left, first three season of “24” (I don’t see the point of continuing unless they bring Aaron Pierce in as a full time character. His turn to be President).
Perhaps I should try it again since some have suggested there are nuances to pick up. Okay, maybe. But somehow I doubt it.
But everyone has its own opinion and fans are welcome to expound its virtues
YMMV and all that, but I wish the “Cowboys in Space” technology was more advanced; black powder was a bit much, I thought. Was it interstellar space, or did it take place in a solar system without FTL? If so, how did they get there? It did very well despite those faults.
I hereby totally and completely and without reservation defend gunpowder weapons in space. What do you want your weapon to do? Put a hole in the bad guy. A gunpowder weapon does that job cheaply, reliably and effectively. A laser, not so much.
And the Firefly universe does have laser weapons. It’s just that they’re expensive and unreliable. They just don’t work as well as a good old fashioned gun. To really make a laser work as a sidearm you need to first invent a superefficient power source for the damn thing. And even then, what exactly does the laser do that’s better than a gun?
This is how science fiction shows lie to you. They carry phasers on Star Trek because it’s a science fiction show. But even given what we see on the screen, those hand phasers are less effective than a modern day pistol. The only thing they can do that pistols can’t is stun people. And this is magic. Real life energy weapons aren’t going to include a stun setting, any weapon that can knock a person unconscious is a weapon that is right on the verge of lethality.
I agree with most of your rant, er, comment, it’s just I don’t think they should be carrying black powder Navy Colts. Some equivalent of those Spanish copies of the 1911A, for example. If they have some zip gun made on a local forge, at least look home made. “Where do they get brass cartridges?” you ask. “Where do they get percussion caps?” counter I. So much for my rant.
The other thing they do is not poke holes in the hull of the ship.
I don’t know WHY a phaser (“phased light”) weapon would have a range, but it appears to. You can completely disintegrate a person right down to the shoes without marking the wall behind them or leaving a black spot on the floor. My handy little .45, on the other hand, would blow through the bad guy and make an unfortunate hole in the wall.
Let’s distinguish between real-life lasers and science fiction energy weapons.
If you want a laser powerful enough to cut your enemy in half, you’ll need a power source so heavy you’ll need a truck to carry it around.
Gunpowder weapons have been in use for 500 years for a reason. And they aren’t going to be replaced by man portable energy weapons unless we have a revolution in energy storage. You’d need to compress a power source that needs to be carried in a truck today into a little dingus that can fit into the handle of a pistol. But if you’ve got one of those super power packs, the potential uses boggle the mind. The application to energy weapons is an afterthought.
And even after all that, you’ve STILL got a weapon that isn’t any better than your standard modern day 9mm semiautomatic. You want to put holes in your enemy, it turns out throwing a small chunk of metal at him really fast is a remarkably efficient method.
I’m sitting through this show, to satisfy two criteria: (1) because my brother insists I watch it, and (2) because the movie Serenity is supposed to be one of the best sci-fi shows ever made. I’m currently halfway through the 4-disc set: Jayne’s town was the last ep I watched thus far. I think I’m emotionally committed to finish the series and then to watch the movie.
It’s kind of an awkward show to watch.
Some bits I don’t understand:
Why are all the hardware, costuming and sets from Americana circa 1866? carnivorousplant touched on this a bit when she wondered where the 1911-style semi-autos are. Great Equalizer-style revolvers seem to be standard again. Given an industrial base that can build spaceships, surely mankind has retained the ability to cheaply make a more accurate, more reliable gun? What happened to the AK-47?
I get that the whole stellar area, at least the outer planets, are suffering from grinding poverty. This is why their lifestyles are typically agrarian and their technology is barely at the industrial level. But why did everything reset to “Old West”? Especially given that the Chinese had such a huge cultural influence, I was expecting more variety. I know I used this complaint for two bullet items, but it really yanks me out of the show when I notice this.
Is the Companion’s industry well-respected or not? It seems she’s treated like royalty and given special privilege, all in recognition of her job title… so why is “whoring” such a crass insult?
Why is the Shepherd still on the ship? He bribed his way on with fresh strawberries, but this isn’t likely to go far with our mercenary captain. He almost seems to be part of the crew - so what’s his job? Everyone else is on the ship because they provide a valuable service (e.g. doctor) or because they pay the rent (e.g. the Companion).
The Captain has a habit of calling men his age “son”. Was his part written with an older actor in mind?
If interstellar culture in the show is locked into late 19th century Americana, then why is the opening theme music some campy 20th-century Nashville-esque tune? I have to fast-forward every time lest my teeth start to hurt.
…and so on.
Some bits I really enjoy:
The captain’s character is a fantastic brawler. His hostage negotiation technique in the pilot episode, for example. His winning solution to the sword duel.
The Federation is a soul-crushing bureaucracy, driven by apathetic drones. Everything is cold and sterile and utterly without character. Even the camerawork is less wobbly.
There’s really only one way you can transport livestock across the stars. Watch your step.
Alan Tudyk freaking delivers. As do Adam Baldwin and Jewel Staite.
My wife’s opinion is that Whedon was aiming for Cowboy Bebop, and hit a little low. (This show could certainly be improved with a light sprinkling of jazz, IMHO.)
All in all, I’d rather watch this than Voyager, I think it’s about on par with Enterprise, and has yet to live up to the standards that Babylon 5 and Battlestar Galactica have set.
