To defend David Boreanaz, he played broody-boy most of the time on both shows, which doesn’t even require range or depth (and certainly not Gary Oldman-style scenery chewing). But don’t you guys think that when he turned into Angelus, he was awesome? He went from blandboringbrooding into a genuinely scary, evil, unpredictable character, and that took some acting chops. It wasn’t just “Angel acting scary”; it was a totally different character, and a much more interesting one at that.
Nobody here watch Bones? I’m really enjoying Boreanaz in that (but then again, really liked him in Buffy/Angel too)
The other thing to be remembered about Firefly is that it only just barely got started. All we can look at is those few episodes and the movie. Who knows what it would have turned into? I mean, I didn’t follow Buffy, but would you have gotten an accurate impression of the series as a whole just by watching the first half of the first season? I somehow doubt it.
Heh, I like him in Bones. It’s just entertaining watching him try to restrain all the egg-head smart people he works with.
I just have the hardest time getting used to seeing him in direct sunlight. 
I do, and I like him in it, but he’s really still playing Angel. I don’t think he’s bad, I just think he hasn’t stretched too far as an actor yet. Joss definitely went easy on him, letting him work his strong suits and gently stretching him as time went on. But I don’t think he’s quite ready for *Hamlet *yet, crazy act or no.
But hey, Keanu Reeves started out way worse, and doesn’t completely suck ass now. Boreanaz has a chance.
And we, too, have trouble every time he steps into sunlight! We literally all jump forward and shout “Wait a minute! He can’t go in the-- oh.” 
I’m glad I’m not the only one who does that!
As much as I love BtVs and Angel, *Firefly * was a much more…mature approach and I greatly bemoan the fact that we will never get a chance to see all that it was capable of. If “fluff” like Buffy could move me to tears (“The Body”, Spike’s last words) and Angel could inspire me (“Epiphany”, “Let’s get to work”), then Firefly had the potential to be…so much.
Remember, Fangsters. Harmony gets all nekkid in November’s Playboy.
It depends. Are you referring to the original Angelus or the contemporary version? The one we met via flashbacks did seem like a genuine monster but the one that peeks out any time he gets a happy is very much “Angel acting scary” to me. Ironically, he did seem like a true threat in *Enemies *when he was faking it, though. Go figure.
I agree. That’s probably one of the reason’s that I never watched it. One look at the opening credits and I was all like “great…Star Trek or Stargate DS9 with cowboys…Stupid”
I think to have any kind of success, most sci fi shows really need to be on the SciFi Channel. Or they need a new Stuff That Doesn’t Suck Network that can run shows like Arrested Development, Firefly and Andy Richter Controls the Universe.
It would never get off the ground, because the really good stuff polarizes people. I could enjoy the channel, but AD leaves me cold. YMWV. By the time we hammered out the what “Sucks” from the “Doesn’t Suck All That Bad” and the “Actually Pretty Decent” the cockroaches will have taken over.
Yeah, I hated the credits too. It really, really plays up the Western theme to a level that bothered me (not being a gigantic fan of them, and dubious of how good a blend with the SF genre would be), and led me to cringe at the Western-tinged music for much of the first episode. After a couple episodes - rented from Netflix - I decided I liked it, but I’m not sure I would have continued watching if I saw it on TV, regardless of which was the first episode broadcast.
This is coming from someone who appreciates Firefly but isn’t an inveterate fan: Much of the attraction (for me, at any rate) is that Whedon sets up a bunch of archtypes in a genre space opera scenerio (albeit, crossed with a western) and then procedes to defy and distort the conventions of the genre. For instance, the previously mentioned scene with the henchman who threatens to return kill the crew is a classic presaging device; they’ll let him go, and come to regret it later. Only, that’s not how it plays out. Mal does the smart thing–he kills him off in cold blood, both to prevent a future encounter and as an example to the others. In a later episode, there’s a discussion about the alleged telepathy of River, to which one character responds to the effect that such an ability would be “science fiction,” and then another reminds him that they’re on a space ship. “So?” The crew is much more interested in their current job, and surviving in their little backwater niche, than in any grandiose ideals or prime directives. Whedon also manages some great dialog (less so in the movie, where the focus was more on action). Unfortunately, some of the actors (I’ll single out Morena Baccarin specifically, though she was hardly the only one) who manged to routinely fumble well-written lines with flat or off-cue delivery.
Another appealing thing, although somewhat technical, is the cinematography, both on-ship and in F/X (external). The set for Serenity was build in two pieces, rather than series of small sets, allowing the camera to follow the characters from the cargo bay to the bridge or engine room with no more than one discreet cut. It gives a sense of verisimilitude, of actually being there, that most shows (sci-fi or otherwise) can’t manage. And in the external shots, not only do the use conventional panning and field effects, but they also blur and telescope. It looks like someone is actually trying to film it with a camera, rather than the more conventional rock steady motion control cinematography that is usually employed in F/X shots.
But that’s kind of the point, isn’t it? There are several characters that could be removed and effectively replaced without serious disruption. (Killing off Jayne, for instance, would actually be kind of a relief in many ways, despite the fact that he’s my favorite character of the bunch.) But the elimination of that particular character is a total shock; there’s not thematic reason for him to die, and he didn’t die in some extraordinary, heroic, sacrificial way; he died because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, indicating that nobody was safe; any and all could die without recourse. That death was actually a brilliant move, perhaps the best part of the film (at least in terms of impact and creating suspense) and justifies the series as a worthy successor to Blake’s 7.
The song is cringeworthy; not just atypical for a sci-fi, but actually irritating to listen to. It’s still not as bad as the theme for Enterprise, though.
But I think the real reason Firefly failed was that the genius executives at Fox couldn’t figure out how to market it; it wasn’t Star Trek-esque enough, it wasn’t Buffy-in-space, it wasn’t military sci-fi…it just wasn’t anything that fits into a conventional genre. So, in anxiety and fear, they ran the show into the ground as rapidly as possible and washed their hands of the whole thing. Clearly, with the right kind of promotion, and with a willingness to provide a full season’s worth of support to get a steady audience, Firefly would have been at least a large niche success if not a breakout. But doing something too different and new carries enormous risk, espeically in the eyes of television execs who are still trying to recapture the success of Gilligan’s Island. :rolleyes:
Stranger
As far as the theme goes, I can see how it throws people off. Personally though, I just love the fiddle stuff in that song.
What ticks me off is that Whedon never has seemed to be big into character themes and such. The Hero of Canton should totally be playing, in some variation, whenever Jayne is doing something good.
Of course, the only sci-fi guy I can think of off the top of my head who IS big into character themes is George Lucas, so this might just be my repeated watchings of Star Wars talking here.
The theme song is terrific, and defies the notion people seem to have that in the deep future we’ll all be listening to Techno or Enya or something. The future is a lot like the past. I did not care for the fact that they de-westernized the setting for the movie – the fact that Mal’s braces no longer buttoned to the outside of his pants in Civil War-era fashion but were these rubber things attached with some kind of plastic clip. We also didn’t get any western-style music behind the dramatic transitions. But clearly Whedon didn’t figure he was going to be able to get away with such stuff in the movie. He even threw in sound in space, despite the fact that he had previously been lauded for not doing so. I mean, obviously sound adds such a lot to making us sense the dimension and the force of what is happening, so if you’re going to have an intense action sequence with spaceships, it would be hard to resist the tempation to use sound to convey the action.
[sub]I like the theme song, too.[/sub]
I also like the theme song. And I’ll come out and say that I like “Faith of the Heart,” the theme from Enterprise, as well–though not arrangement they used in the latter two seasons.
Plus Enterprise had Hoshi, also known as Kaylee-Prime.
The theme and the music during the show are part of what makes Firefly so compelling to me. I love it. I bought the soundtrack just so I could have the theme on my iPod and get all tingly when it comes up on the shuffle.
The theme song is woeful. I’m very fond of the show, but…
…absolutely woeful :).
Well, he did and he didn’t. What he actually did is cheat by setting up situations where you could hear sound. So if you watch the opening credits it zooms in on Serenity in space in absolute silence, but then begins roaring in a couple of seconds as they hit atmosphere. Far more egregious is the “ion cloud” or whatever the hell that was.
But at least he still tried to compromise.
- Tamerlane
Incidentally, I thuoght that “Wherever You Will Go” song from the trailers on UPN before the show premiered would have made a better theme song.
Even if it is totally stalker music.
Watch the scene with the cannon and the reavers. You hear a dull thud for the cannon firing, which makes sense if you’re a viewer inside Serenity, as the cannon sound will be transmitted through the hull. You hear nothing as the enemy ship is hit and explodes. Perfect.
:eek:
Checks imdb