So this is my final post talking about Joss Whedon’s Firefly.  Well, not quite final, there is still the movie to talk about, but we’ll save that one for later in the week.

As always, links to all of my other posts about the show can be found here.

Firefly Series Thoughts

So I’ve reached the end of Firefly, and I loved the show.  The characters were all a lot of fun – and not just the main characters, many of the side characters who may have only been in the show for one episode were also quite interesting.  The show told several very interesting stories, and it set up a lot of intriguing questions that they didn’t have time to explore in the show.  As the show ends I’m still really interested in exactly what they did to River as well as why they were experimenting on her.  I also really want to know more about Shepherd Book’s background, there were a lot of things about him that were never explained in the show, and I really want to know more about his past.

So now we get to the strongest part of the show, the characters.  Interesting stories can do a lot for a show/movie/book/whatever, but strong characters are what make fiction memorable over time.  There are 9 major characters in the show – Mal, Zoe, Jayne, Wash, Kaylee, Inara, Simon, River, and Book – and they all have a lot going for them.

Mal is the main character of the show and gets the most development in the series.  He cares greatly about the members of his crew, and is willing to do whatever needs to be done to protect them.  But while he’s caring with the people he’s close to, he is ruthless when he needs to be with his enemies.  There’s also a lot going on between him and Inara, which is hinted at early on but then addressed more directly in the last couple of episodes.

Zoe is one of the more active characters, especially in the early episodes, unfortunately, as the show went one she seemed to fall a little flat for me.  The show left some hints for conflicts with her in later episodes, but unfortunately we never got to see what comes of it.

Jayne is pretty much the hired muscle, not terribly intelligent, but violent enough to back up Mal and Zoe with whatever needs to be done.  There are a couple of scenes that show a slightly deeper side of Jayne (specifically the ending of Episode 12 when he starts to tear up).  He’s also the center of Episode 7, which was a lot of fun.

Early on I said that Wash was probably the weakest character in the show.  I’m going to revise this slightly, he isn’t a really weak character, but was overshadowed by the rest of the cast.  Much like Zoe, there were some signs of where they were going to go with his character had the show continued, but they never got to them.

Kaylee is my favorite character in the show.  For one she was very different from the rest of the cast.  She was always upbeat and happy, and was a welcome change from the more serious members of the crew and the darker nature of some of the episodes.  It was also a lot of fun to watch her and Simon throughout the show.  Their relationship was one of the more pervasive elements of the show, and I thought it worked out really well.

Inara is an interesting character; I mentioned that it’s interesting that she’s the most respectable member of the crew to society as a whole.  Along with that she had a lot of interesting interactions with the other characters.  Obviously she cares a lot about Mal, but it was also really interesting to see her interaction with Kaylee in various episodes, she really does care about the other members of the crew.

Now we get to the characters that joined the crew during the course of the show.  Lets start with Simon because I listed him first in the character roll call.  Simon is the nerdy outcast member of the crew.  It’s obvious that he cares about his sister, just as it’s obvious that he likes Kaylee but also suffers from foot-in-mouth syndrome.  On his own he’s not a terribly deep character, but his interactions with Kaylee really help him out a lot.

River is the most intriguing character in the show.  Obviously the Alliance did some strange experiments on her, and we start to find out part of what they did throughout the course of the show, but we never learn why or exactly what she is capable.  I’m sure that the movie goes more in depth with her story, and I’m really looking forward to it.

Book is probably the deepest character in the show, and I really want to know a lot more about his background because there’s a lot going on with him.  While I fully believe that he’s a preacher, he obviously has his own take on things throughout the show, and the writers did a really good job of making you curious about him.

So lets recap all of this; amazing characters, interesting stories, and a unique setting.  So why did the show only last one season?  There are a couple of reasons.

The first is something that I mentioned early on in my discussion of the show, the theme song.  It definitely does grow on you as you watch the show, and it’s thematically very appropriate for the show, but on it’s own it’s not terribly good.  Why am I picking on the theme song so much?  Simple, it’s the first gate to get into the show.  If I hadn’t heard anything about the show, and was just flipping through the channels to watch something on TV, the theme song definitely isn’t going to grab me and make me watch.

The second thing that really hurts the show for the casual audience is the setting.  Even as someone who reads a lot of Science Fiction and Fantasy, it’s weird.  Most of the time it’s not that big of an issue, but there are a couple of episodes where the combination of SciFi and Western is just too weird.  The best example of this comes from Episode 13 (Heart of Gold).  There’s a scene in Heart of Gold where Ranse is attacking the house where Mal & Co are defending Inara’s friend.  As Ranse is comingup to the house, he’s driving a hovercraft while all of the people following him are riding horses – that’s just a little too strange, even for me.

So all in all, I loved the show and I wish there had been more to it, but on the whole I understand why the show had a hard time catching on with a wider audience.

So there are my thoughts about the show as a whole, what do you think?

And we finally come to the final episode of Firefly.  I have to admit that I got more and more upset as I ran out of episodes to watch.  When I first started going through the show, I was watching two episodes a night (and then writing my thoughts after each one, which I kept in a Word file before posting them here) and I decided to cut back and only watch one episode a night, in large part to make it last longer.

Having said all that, I do have two more posts planned dealing with Firefly, I have a post lined up as a review of the movie, Serenity, which is set about 6 months after the end of the final episode (it basically would have been the end of Season 2 of the show had there been a Season 2).  I’m also planning a post wherein I give my thoughts to the series as a whole, including some of my thoughts as to why the series was cancelled when everything about it is so well done.

But those posts will be up next week, for now this post is simply my thoughts about Episode 14, links to all of my other Firefly posts can be found here.

Firefly Episode 14 – Objects in Space

I loved this episode, but then again I’ve loved all of the episodes of the show that have dealt with River’s backstory.  This episode opens with a short section that follows River and gives a brief example of what she’s really hearing when everyone talks.  She’s able to slightly read people’s minds, and they get this across by having the opening scene shift between the conversation that people are actually having and what River hears, which is quite well done, until she ends up with a loaded firearm at the end of that sequence and freaks out the rest of the crew.

At this point Kaylee tells everyone what happened with River at the end of Episode 10.  Then the fun kicks in when a bounty hunter who is after River gets on board the Serenity.  I was a little annoyed at how easily he got on the ship, especially after the same basic thing happened in the last episode, but beyond that this was a brilliant episode.

When Jubal Early is an interesting character, and they have small hints that he’s just a little off.  While he’s a little weird, he’s also a very good bounty hunter.  He knocks out Mal and then locks all of the crew quarters, then ties up Kaylee before knocking out Book and holding Simon at gunpoint while he searches for River, the guy is efficient if nothing else.  They hint that he’s a sociopath, when River is talking to him she talks about how he used to torture animals, and throughout the episode he talks to and about people like they’re objects.  Both are signs of Antisocial Personality Disorder, and I’m very pleased that they got them right.  (A while ago I did a series of posts talking about Sociopaths in our Culture that was divided into three parts.  The link to part 1 is here.)

Of course River is kind of elusive and hard to find, and then of course she comes on over the speakers in Serenity and says that she’s become one with the ship.  This is great because we’re not exactly 100% sure what River can do, and it’s played out very well when she’s messing with Early.

Sadly, this is the last episode of the show.  Obviously they intended to do a lot more with the show, but it was cut short.  Next up is the movie that follows the show – Serenity.  I’m looking forward to it, and I’m very curious as to what plot lines they choose to close up and which ones they don’t have time to get into.

We’re quickly coming up to the end of Joss Whedon’s Firefly.  Links to the rest of my posts about the show can be found here.

Firefly Episode 12 – The Message

Once again, a wonderful episode.  It’s come to my mind as I’ve been watching the show and writing up my thoughts about each episode that I’ve been heaping a lot of praise on, well, everything about the show.  Which if you’re not too familiar with the show might lead to some questions about why the show was ever cancelled, I’ve given it some thought, and I’ll talk about it during my wrap up of the show, which will come after two more episodes.  Yeah, I’m quickly running out of show.

Anyway, this episode set up a really interesting premise.  Mal & Co are at a space station picking up some supplies and they receive a large package, with a coffin and a corpse of a man Mal and Zoe knew from the war against the alliance.  He has a small message recorder asking to be taken back to his homeland to be buried alongside his family.  When they’re chased after by police who are after the body, they become a little curious about why, and then the fun starts when the corpse wakes up.

It’s become kind of standard for the show, so it’s not at all surprising to see the double-crossing that goes on all the time.  But it’s well done enough, and I’m watching one episode every night, if you were watching one episode every week, you probably wouldn’t notice the repetition quite as much.  This episode also has a tear-jerker of an ending, which is a welcome surprise since the show has mostly focused on the action and humor moments.

This episode does two things really well when looking at it from the character development perspective.  It continues to show Mal as a very deep character, one who is loyal to his crew and everyone he’s worked with in the past, but not beyond making tough decisions quickly when they need to be made.  Mal is the kind of Captain that people would run through a brick wall for, and it shows – both from his actions as well as the fact his crew has risked their lives to save him.

The other part of this episode that I enjoyed was the furthering of the romance between Kaylee and Simon.  I think it’s been done well, and it’s definitely been a lot of fun to watch.  It would help if Simon would stop putting his foot in his mouth, but it’s well within his character to constantly do so.

I’m also once again very impressed by Book, I said after the first episode that I thought he had the most room for growth as a character, and while he hasn’t changed much as a character, he has definitely proven himself to be the deepest character and one of the more mysterious (after River of course).

Firefly Episode 13 – Heart of Gold

I have two very separate thoughts about this episode.  On one hand, the characterization is once again absolutely fantastic.  On the other hand, more idiot plotting, I hate idiot plotting.

This one begins very simply, Inara gets a call from a friend (Nandi) who was formerly a companion asking for help.  Of course Inara asks Mal to help, and being the standup guy he is, he decides to take up the job.  The basic premise is that one of Nandi’s girls has gotten pregnant, and the father wants the child.  Mal & Co are called in to help protect the baby.

I have two big problems with this episode, both of which come from the gunfight towards the end of the episode, so obviously if you haven’t seen it this will spoil the ending.

The first problem, as Ranse and his boys are coming up on the bordello; Jayne shoots the person who was manning the turret on Ranse’s hovercraft.  Just shoot Ranse, he’s the only one who has a legitimate reason to be storming the premises, and he’s the one who rounded up everyone else and got them to attack Nandi’s bordello.  If he dies, it’s over.  This irritates me all the time.  Don’t piddle around and draw things out, get the job over with.  Ranse dies, everyone else calms down, nobody else has to suffer.  But if we do things the simple way, we don’t have the emotional moment at the end with Inara and Mal (which this episode does set up very well).

The other problem that I have with this episode, Wash and Kaylee are going back to Serenity so they can fly around and disrupt the attackers who are all riding horses.  When they get into the ship, they’re immediately fired upon by more of Ranse’s people who have gotten into the ship ahead of them.  Lets think about this for once second: you have an interstellar transport ship and you DON’T LOCK THE GORRAM DOOR?!  Aside from that, your plan has them getting there minutes before they have to take off?  Shouldn’t they have been there hours before they expected the skirmish to begin?  Wash at least should have been there if not Kaylee as well.

Idiot plotting aside, this episode does a great job of exploring Inara and Mal’s relationship – or lack thereof.  It’s kind of obvious that there is something between them, if for no other reason than the fact that Inara tolerates Mal’s behavior far more than she really should.  Along with this, there was another very interesting story seed planted in this episode.  While they’re working to set up the ambush, Zoe and Wash are arguing about having a child.  It’s obvious that they’ve had the discussion several times before, and they both have very valid arguments for their specific sides.  Unfortunately, both of these story seeds come in the penultimate episode of the show, which means I doubt they have time to explore either of them very much from this point on.  Which is unfortunate.