Johnny Angel's Review of Firefly

Cafe Society
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Johnny Angel’s Review of Firefly (based on having seen one episode)

One camp is going to dismiss the show as being derivative, a pastiche of cliches from every adventure genre, space opera and westerns in particular. Others will show off their erudition by discussing the Jungian model that a sci-fi writer almost can’t help but consider after its highly publicized link with Star Wars, and may cluck smarmily at how unsubtly the show seems to grab for every archetype in sight – the idealistic rogue, the quirky engineer, the space marine, the hooker with the heart of gold, the psionicist, the ship doctor and even the preacher who acts as the spiritual center of this merry band. The show invites, almost demands, comparison to Star Wars, Star Trek, Wild Wild West, Robin Hood, Starship Troopers, Ice Pirates, Blake’s 7, Aliens and Josey Wales. They’ve got everything but a hardboiled dick, and I wouldn’t be suprised if they’re getting him next.

This is GURPS: The Series, and I’ll be goddamned if they’re not pulling it off.

I wouldn’t blame somebody for calling it hokey that these planets, which are at the frontiers of occupied space, happen to be terraformed by a method that seems to leave planets livable but carpeted with badlands, and those badlands are criss-crossed with railroads. Cute. I mean, it’s real cute. And it works. I believe it because it lacks the phoniness of Dark Angel’s supposed post-semi-apocalypse, where an open air market in New York is supposed to convince us that the world has gone all to hell. Attention to detail sells it. The train that our heroes set out to rob at the beginning has a gorgeous art deco engine, baroque old west interior design, and ladies and gentlemen, it’s a monorail.

If that isn’t enough for you, at least consider that the show is just running over with pretty people. A couple of familiar faces tended to get distracting – specifically Venus Flytrap from WKRP and the guy from My Bodyguard struck me as difficult to separate from previous roles, but I expect like Checkov and Tron from Babylon 5, I will eventually recontextualize their faces. And if a show can succeed just on the strength of its pretty people, and I can’t think of any other reason Charmed is still on the air, we are looking at a winner. Faces are well chosen for their roles, and the actors wearing them know what to do. I expected nothing less from Joss Whedon.

The dialogue is good, believable, though in this episode only occasionally great. That’s a hell of a lot better than the average, and I don’t expect I’ll have much to complain about here as the series winds on.

Firefly isn’t just a slapping together of disparate genre motifs to round out the demographics, nor are any of the manifold layers of juxtaposition entirely original. What sets the show apart is how well rendered a mosaic it is. Somebody, I assume Joss Whedon, has shown an unusual grasp of what is so moving about adventure stories in all their various subgenres, and has made something exciting and new out of a lot of old stuff that was just lying around and just needed to be dusted off, and rearranged and put under good lighting so we could fall in love with this old junk again.

Anyway, that’s my impression of the first episode. Also, they need robots. I like robots.

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Not just robots; MONKEY robots.

Other than that, I agree with your review 100%

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Whoops. I did a little afterthought fact checking and found out that Ron Glass, who plays the preacher, was not Venus Flytrap from WKRP, but was Detective Harris from Barney Miller. What a muggins I am!

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I definitely have to agree with you. I first heard the show described as “a western, except in outer space”, which ran up quite a few warning flags but I decided to give it a try anyway.

My thought after seeing it? “Hell, how did he pull that off?” Somehow or another, it works!

Not just that, its a maglev monorail! For some reason, it was when I saw the train that I knew Whedon was going to pull it off.

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The train is a good example of how smoothly the show’s premise hangs together, which is why I focused on it, but it’s also worth noting that the theme song also brings the sci-fi and the western together almost magically, lifting off, as it were, from the lonesome prarie to the vast frontier of space, with all the appropriate guitar and fiddle accompaniment. Observe this non-complete transcript of the lyrics:

Take my love, take my land
Take me where I cannot stand
I don’t care, I’m still free
You can’t take the sky from me.

Take me out to the black
Tell 'em I ain’t coming back
Burn the land and boil the seas
You can’t take the sky from me.

(It’s only eight-lines, but strictly speaking, it’s 2/3 of the song as it appears in the opening credits, so let me know if I’m in trouble.)

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I thought it was a fun show, and I’m excited to see where it is heading to. I am somewhat upset that it has the Timeslot of Death, though. Not that I have a life, so I won’t miss the show, but still, Friday night television slots seem to be the kiss of death on Fox.

Looks to be fun. I like the spunky engineer girl.

[sub]John Doe, on the other hand…[/sub]

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I have to say, I loved it. It had a reverence for the cliches of the action movies of old, while being unafraid to break from them.

If I’m not watching, I’ll be taping.

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I quite liked it as well. I even scribbled some notes to share with the CS crowd, but I left them at home. But a few things from memory…

I thought the way they had the camera moving ever so slightly on the ship and station (to simulate motion) was sort of interesting, but a little distracting. I hope they get tired of doing that soon.

This was really disturbing: The ship whore…er, sorry, companion…sometimes, in dim light, at certain angles…looks just like Michael Jackson. Freaky.

I am in love with the engineer.

I cracked up at that scene at the end when the captain kicks the bad guy into the engine intake. It seemed like they were setting him up to be a major series bad guy, but no…

“Use that money to buy a funeral for yourself. I will hunt you down, and the last thing you will see will be my blade.”
“Darn.” boot
:smiley:

And erl…yeah, I had hopes for John Doe as well. What a stinker.

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No robots. Bad Sci Fi always has robots and kids.
I hate robots and kids.

Michael Jackson? You, sir, are a very sick man.
:slight_smile:

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No kids, though I’ve got no problem with robots - especially if they’re monkey robots.

Have to say, I got a huge kick out of the first episode. It’s gritty and funny and clever, so I’m hoping it hangs in there. The writing and acting were both pretty good, and the special effects were cool. As for the characters - I don’t like the whore, but props for naming a big butch guy “Jane”

Also liked that they used “rutting” as the profanity of choice. Cute way of having the characters talk ALMOST like real-world flyboys.

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“Jayne,” not “Jane.” I mean, does he look like a “Jane”? Of course not.

Yes, I looked at the show’s web site.

http://www.fox.com/firefly/

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Johnny Angel, you’re right, the theme song was brilliant, but the guy who wrote it wrote a really brilliant musical episode of Buffy last year. What was his name again…?

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I loved it. I’ve watched it several times since I taped it on Friday. I did notice a couple of things others probably missed since I’m a huge fan of the Space Opera genre.
Joss Whedon is a rip off artist, but it works. The musical score’s style is directly ripped from Indepence War 2. Right down to the lonely, moody violin that makes up the majority of the score. Tack on to that the fact that durring the space station exterior scene I clearly see a Dreadnaught Class Patcom, again, from Indepence War 2 come flying by. I have to give it to Joss for ripping off the best though. Anyone who’s played I-War 2 knows what I’m talking about.

Also, was Paul Verhoven having a garage sale? How come the “Space Marines” are all wearing the same armor that was used in Star Ship Troopers? I can’t be the only one who picked up on that.

As for Jewel Staite who plays the mechanic, I’ve been a fan of hers since her time on the Disney Channel. I see big things for her. Very spunky, and we all like spunky.

All in all I have to hand it to Joss. He’s taken two of my favorite games (GURPS: Traveller and I-War 2) and made them into a top quality Sci-Fi show. While I may not be able to watch it every Friday you can bet I’ll be watching it the next morning on my TiVo.

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Silly me. How could I have thought such a thing? Thanks for the correction.

In answer to your question: I don’t know whether he looks like a Jane, but he looks like a hottie, and that’s all I really care about. :wink:

Also - yep, great song. Don’t know who wrote it, though, sorry ** a wizard song for thee ** .

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Kn*ckers – The title song is by creator Whedon. He apparently taught himself to be a musician so he could write the Buffy musical episode, and has continued developing his skills.

I really, really liked this show. I offered some reasons why in a previous thread; I’ll add here the observation that the world is incredibly well-imagined. How important is that? Well, let me digress for a moment.

There are a couple of different kinds of sci-fi (I use that term instead of the more-respectable “SF” deliberately) on television. There’s the parable form, of which “Twilight Zone” is the apotheosis. Fantastic scenarios are created to mirror and explore pedestrian modern-Earth conflicts, like racism or whatever. “Star Trek” falls mostly into this category; remember the blackface/whiteface guys from the original series?

Then there’s the exploration form, which doesn’t really have an overarching message but that introduces us into a large and complex world, sharing only bits and pieces at a time, and letting us gradually grasp the whole picture. You could say “Battlestar: Galactica” fits this description, but I’d offer “The Prisoner” as a better example.

The thing about Joss Whedon is that his work, for the most part, meets the criteria for both types. “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” gives us a rather simple setup – slayer vs. demons – and then expands its world in all sorts of unexpected directions. But at the same time, the show is careful to take its storytelling inspiration from real-world emotional conflicts, demonstrating the paradoxical effect that giving a typical problem a supernatural twist, it’s possible to be more truthful about the heart of the issue. (Good example: the episode where John Ritter plays the potential new stepfather in Buffy’s family.)

It’s clear to me that the world of “Firefly” has been thoroughly imagined to a remarkable degree. As discussed above, the specific details of the Western-esque train are quite telling. I have no doubt that, as we continue forward, Whedon will be pulling all sorts of surprises out of his sleeve. Knowing what he does on “Buffy,” I wouldn’t be surprised at all if what appears to be the main conflict of the show – bad-guy government agents chasing their experiment – has been resolved by the end of the first season, and some other larger problem raised in its place. Or not. Doesn’t matter for now. The magic of the show, at least in the short term, is enjoying what Whedon’s apparently bottomless creative impulses have created.

I’ll be there next Friday, Jiffy Pop in hand. :smiley:

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They did that same trick on the soon-to-be-late and already lamented Farscape.

Farscape also does a frelling lot of that kind of dren. :wink:

I caught that one too but I think I’ve seen that armor show up in a few other shows since the movie came out. People just keep raiding the same prop closet, I guess.

I didn’t catch that one! I’ll have to watch for that.

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Y’mean the whole ‘mythical hero’ archetype? Eh, I don’t really see it at work here. I saw no hint of a wizened old mystic plucking a boy off his farm and turning him into a king/wizard/champion. I b’leeve that’s been done once or twice before…

I dunno. I’m really not all that familiar with stories involving terraforming, but doesn’t it make sense that it would happen on a relatively un-eroded planet? Probably little to no indigenous vegetation, terraforming ain’t gonna create a rainforest right offa da bat.

Yeah, I was actually thinking the other day how strange it is that Westerns have pretty much fallen off Hollywood’s radar. Then here we get a whole series in the genre - combined with sci-fi, which has little in the offing now that Farscape’s been relegated to TV’s ashheap.

I’ll say this, too: I really enjoy how judiciously Whedon uses an effects budget. IMHO, that one episode of Firefly wiped Star Trek off the page, effects-wise. And how nice to see that humans in space are gonna get dirty. Everything’s not always antiseptic. Inside the Firefly, there’s dirt and the occasional rust spots. The engineer gets grease on her spunky little nose (she’s a “grease-spunky”?). Never saw Scotty or Geordy with that…

What kinda robot you want to see? A yellow-eyed Pinocchio-complex? A holographic AI? An ‘artificial person’ that’s always a bit twitchy, at least until it tries to kill the entire crew? Or a tin-encased midget sub[/sub]…? Maybe a totally non-humanoid construct [sub](“No disassemble #5!”)[/sub]…?

(My point is, I’m not sure even Joss can make a robot something other than goofy.)

Cervaise you just summed up (and answered) my wondering about the new show - is it going to be similar to Buffy in a “freak of the week” episodic fashion? Or in a Master/Spike/Mayor/Adam/Glory serial fashion? Now that you’ve reminded me how well Whedon pulls off the dichotomy, I expect it to be both.

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Ferrous wrote:

Amen. There was a lot of this in Buffy – baiting us with cliches, apparently setting us up for familiar responses, then standing it on its head.

carnivorousplant wrote:

I’m not talking about a Tweaky here. More like a K-9.

A wizard song for thee wrote

It was in fact brilliant. Not only did it lampoon the conventions of the musical genre the way that only someone who really appreciates it can, it advances the season’s main plotline, and sets to music the basic problem that the entire series faces. What can’t we face if we’re together? Well, what if we’re not? Where do we go from here? For that matter, where the hell can the writers go with it after it’s gone this far? It was just masterful, in my opinion.

That and $1.50 will buy you a cup of coffee.

Tygr wrote:

Look, man, you can’t fail the Jung test. The strength, and the great weakness, of Jung’s archetype model is that it’s damn near impossible not to fit it.

Do you honestly mean to tell me you think the hooker is hotter than the engineer? How is it I keep ending up talking to crazy persons. Am I wearing a sign?

They haven’t said so in the one episode I saw, but I suspect that this is exactly what the deal will turn out to be.

Sigh

I’ll bet he could. Here’s something I’d kind of dig – a robot like the one in Beneath a Steel Sky where you can actually take his brain out and put it in a different robot body. It could be a different looking robot every week. And they can bet on him in bot wars.

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Too many characters. Especially since half of them were just dead-weight expositioners in the first episode. If half of them just joined the normal crew of the ship, why not show that, and take advantage of the natural storytelling that implies, instead of just explaining everything?

Also, I think most people, me included, were expecting it to be a space-Western in the same sense that other stories are described as space-operas. I don’t think the commercial gaven an idea what was coming. We ended up with a Wookie breaking out in an Aria. That’s not the way you get a show that lives longe enough to be good, on Fridays of all places.

I guess I’ll watch it again, but that’s only because Tivo takes all the effort out of it.

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Smile when you say that, pardner.
:slight_smile:

Er, would you elaborate on that, guy? You mean that something was unexpected or inappropiate?

Thanks.