A lot of people like to be poetic about the shows and movies of the past. With this in mind, I sought to test such a theory with the works that I grew up with, and I could think of no better place to start than Joss Whedon’s Firefly. The space western only lasted for a little over half of a standard season on Fox, but it managed to find a cult following that lasts to this day.
Is it really as good as people think?
Yes.
The Ensemble Is Damn Near Perfect.
In the days before Joss Whedon became a dark acolyte of Anita Sarkeesian, he actually knew how to write characters that had a mixture of heart, humor, and flaws. His devotion to the craft comes across in every hour of this show, but the actors and actresses took his setup and made it shiny.
In star-making turns, Nathan Fillion and Gina Torres headline the show as Malcolm Reynolds and Zoe Washburne. In the two-hour pilot, Fillion and Torres masterfully set up their respective characters as grizzled veterans who are set adrift in the aftermath of a interstellar civil war, but their character arcs move in completely different directions. Mal turns into a bachelor who may remind some viewers of Han Solo, whereas Zoe becomes a married badass.
You’d think that they’d wind up together after all that they’ve been through, but their paths through life are logical and interesting.
The rest of the cast are no slouches either. Morena Baccarin, Alan Tudyk, and Adam Baldwin stand out the most as Inara Serra, Hoban Washburne, and Jayne Cobb. All of them have storylines that heavily intersect with Mal’s, but they’re developed in such a way that one can easily understand their motivations. I particularly enjoyed the odd romantic tension between Mal and Inara. Sure, it may seem odd for a companion to be attracted to a space pirate, but their bickering and obliviousness is a lot of fun to watch.
Unfortunately, the same thing cannot be said for Jewel Staite, Sean Maher, Summer Glau, or Ron Glass. Their characters get a few moments to shine, but we only really get to see bits and pieces of their respective backstories. However, I blame that on the fact that the series got cancelled. If it had gone on for three or four more seasons, we would have seen all that we needed to see.
The Heists Are A Ton Of Fun.
One of the most interesting aspects of Firefly has to be its format. The show mixes all sorts of tropes from Robin Hood, old-school westerns, and science fiction into a cohesive and somewhat realistic package. Above all else, Mal and the gang aren’t really striving for some grand ideal. They just want to stay alive, find jobs, and be free to see the ‘verse.
A lot of people like epic sci-fi, but I think that Whedon’s approach works wonders because of its character-driven simplicity and sense of contrast. If a viewer likes Mal and his team, he or she is going to empathize with them as they veer through the ups and downs of life. This is encapsulated in some of the simpler moments of the show, such as when the crew discovers that a job may hurt the neediest people out there.
Of course, we’re not going to be space pirates anytime soon, but the show is smart enough to ask us what we might do in Mal’s shoes without being horribly preachy.
There’s Money Out In Them There Hills!
And of course, the story is aided by the show’s movie-caliber production design and visual effects, which gives viewers a good reason to believe in the vision that’s presented on screen. In fact, I think that the vast majority of the work holds up to this day!
On the design side of things, Firefly mixes American, European, and Chinese aesthetics into a mostly believable package. The production crew put a ton of thought into what a future American-Chinese alliance might look like, and it makes a lot of sense on screen. After all, why wouldn’t a bilingual society have holograms and displays in two languages?
Of course, some of the technology may seem a little old-fashioned, but the inequalities between the core worlds and outer fringe can easily explain that discrepancy.
On another note, the CGI and world designs are fascinating to see, especially since one wouldn’t expect to see such attention to detail in an early-2000s network show. Everything from the Serenity to the futuristic cities on Persephone look like something that could work in a piece of entertainment today.
And to top it all off, who could possibly forget about “The Ballad of Serenity” by Sonny Rhodes? I haven’t watched the show in forever and a day, but that beautifully crafted song flooded into my head and made me fall in love with the ‘verse all over again. It’s a perfect addition to the world of the show and could easily be interpreted as an example of Mal’s inner voice.
Why Did It Fail?
This is the multi-million dollar question, isn’t it?
Long story short, the failure of this show is a fuck-up that can be placed entirely at the feet of the executives over at Fox. In its intended broadcast order, the show builds upon all of the elements that came before it in a semi-serialized fashion. However, the network executives decided to muck it all up by jumbling up the episodes for no apparent reason.
The most obvious example that I can think of has to be the placement of the pilot, Serenity. The two-hour piece introduces all of the characters in a meaningful way and sets up the premise of the show, so the network decided to air it after everything else.
It would have been one thing if the producers listened to Whedon and the show failed anyway, but that’s not what happened.
Conclusion.
Firefly is a masterpiece. The characters are well-rounded, the stories are fun, and the visuals are up there with anything that you might see today. The show was way ahead of its time and cancelled well before it had any right to be, but I can say with absolute certainty that you owe it to yourself to check it out.
There’s nothing else like it in the history of television.
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