What was good about Firefly?

[Henry]

For me, it wasn't the moment when Mal kicked captured lackey #1 into the turbine that sucked me in - it was when he went to captured lackey #2 and started the same speech...

The show got NOTICABLY better in the last four episodes they showed, which is the saddest part - if it doesn't grab you quickly, it tends to get kicked to the curb.

But the biggest draws of the show to me were:

1. The realistic character interactions, and that all actions, good and bad, had consequences.

2. The show had secrets - LOTS of them. I STILL wanna know who the hell the preacher really was.

3. The show did not rely on science and effects to tell its story - it only supplemented it.

4. The social commentary, while I don't always agree with it, made the show strong and dealt with other issues than racism, intolerence, etc. Its commentary ranged on subjects like trust, family, sacrifice, the limits a person goes to keep their personal morality intact, etc.

5. The "Star Trek's dingier, more direct-talking cousin" approach is one that I liked. In terms of Odd couples, if Star Trek is Felix, then Firefly was Oscar.

 

[Pielorinho]

For me, it wasn't the moment when Mal kicked captured lackey #1 into the turbine that sucked me in - it was when he went to captured lackey #2 and started the same speech...

True! Mal was one baaaad mofo. Remember how he treated Jayne at the end of the hospital break-in episode? The captain was absolutely hard-core, and had a personal ethic that wasn't evil, but wasn't exactly rainbows and daisies either.

Daniel

 

[Ranger REG]

Can someone fill me in on this? I watched a few eps and just didn't get it. SF-Western is a good idea but the way it was executed here with six-shooters, horses and frilly dresses seemed incredibly forced & laboured to me. IMO an sf Western-style series (eg 2000AD's Stontium Dogs bounty hunter comic strip) really needs limited, difficult travel analogous to the stagecoach & railway, not common privately owned interstellar trade ships.

Well, it is set on the fringes of the empire. Think of it like Tattooine in Star Wars. Only those in the central portion enjoy the luxury and refinement of the advanced technology that the civilization has to offer while out there (metaphorically called the "boonies"), people are struggling with less-than-advanced technology because they can't afford it.

To me, it's a perfect visual interpretation of the long-running game, Traveller.

The opening sequence of the pilot ep was terribly done and the political background seemed very poorly developed (both compared to Andromeda, say). Was the Alliance supposed to represent the victorious Union at the end of the Civil War? If so it needed to be less unambigiously villainous IMO.

Do you mean the series premiere one-hour episode, or the two-hour episode that the network scratched but later aired as the final episode?

Personally, I don't think of the Alliance as the Union despite the western motif. To me, it is similar to the Republic-turned-Empire, and the "browncoats" are just the Separatists who felt oppressed by the ever-expanding Alliance (the conqueror).

If there is such a western theme, think of the US enforcing Manifest Destiny to expand its territories while the "browncoats" are the displaced Native Americans and other foreign bodies (Spanish in West and Southeast Coasts).

 

[Pielorinho]

It's also worth pointing out that the political allegory in the show is far from simplistic. Sure, the most obvious comparison is to the Confederacy and the Union -- but that breaks down on any but the most cursory examination. It also comes across a little bit like Star Wars, if the Rebels lost. But it's not that grim, either: the Alliance isn't unremittingly evil, although they're pretty dark.

As for the Western motif, sometimes it rubbed me wrong. On the other hand, it made some sense. The fringe planets were recently terraformed, and there was the suggestion that the colonists were going into a fairly inhospitable landscape with few tools. The most recent model for people performing such colonizing would be Americans moving out West in the nineteenth century; it makes sense that Firefly's pioneers would adopt and adapt much of the technology that American settlers used.

That part was fine. There wasn't any good reason for them to adopt the rootin-tootin goldang tarnation dialect, though. The cursing in Chinese was a great touch; the cowboy slang, not so much. IMO.

Daniel

 

[Staffan]

Sure, the most obvious comparison is to the Confederacy and the Union -- but that breaks down on any but the most cursory examination.

I read an interview with Joss Whedon where he said something like "The Alliance is much like the USA. Sometimes, it's USA in WW2, a stellar example of humanity. Other times, it's like USA in Vietnam, not so good. The problem is that Mal is one of the Vietnamese, so he can't really see the good sides of the Alliance."

 

[WisdomLikeSilence]

Can someone fill me in on this? I watched a few eps and just didn't get it.

A friend of mine asked a well-respected Star Trek writer what he thought of Firefly. The writer said that he thought it portrayed a really dark world, and he didn’t want to spend time there every week.

I like dark. And I like that Firefly was essentially the story of interesting people trying to get by and retain their decency in a pretty uncaring universe. It’s one of the same things I like about the Song of Ice and Fire – when the world sucks, you can’t have cardboard lawful good heroes. Mal was a fabulous mix of generally good guy and absolute bad-***, and the rest of the characters were as complex and enjoyable in their own ways. Plus, like Buffy at it’s best, Firefly was great at combining humor and drama.

IMO an sf Western-style series (eg 2000AD's Stontium Dogs bounty hunter comic strip) really needs limited, difficult travel analogous to the stagecoach & railway, not common privately owned interstellar trade ships. .

Hmm. I thought of the moons they visited as little frontier towns, and the hub as *at least* several months travel away. That works as a western analogy for me.

A couple of other things to remember
- Privately owned interstellar trades ships are anything but common. We never find out how Mal got Serenity, but we know that it’s a big deal that he has it.
- Travel is difficult and dangerous. One episode focuses mostly on the deadly consequences when Serenity breaks down. Plus, there are always Reavers.

I always got a real kick out of the way Firefly mixed the genres, but I’ve also always had a weak spot for westerns.

The opening sequence of the pilot ep was terribly done and the political background seemed very poorly developed (both compared to Andromeda, say).

I don’t think it needed a highly developed political background. Mal and his crew were never going to change the political situation, so all we ever really needed was a sense of how the government affected them. The original pilot set that up nicely.

Was the Alliance supposed to represent the victorious Union at the end of the Civil War? If so it needed to be less unambigiously villainous IMO.

I think the Whedon quote someone else posted covers this issue.

Look, I know that not all the Firefly episodes were good. I was ready to give up on it until the third week, when I saw “Our Mrs. Reynolds” and a tape of the original pilot and completely fell for the show. I still think the first two episodes aren’t particularly good, and I don’t much like the one where the villagers try to burn River, either. When Firefly was good, though, it was very, very good, and one of the most interesting and enjoyable shows I’ve ever seen.

That said, it was also a little odd, and I can understand how it would just seem weird to some folk.

-WLS

 

[Villano]

I read an interview with Joss Whedon where he said something like "The Alliance is much like the USA. Sometimes, it's USA in WW2, a stellar example of humanity. Other times, it's like USA in Vietnam, not so good. The problem is that Mal is one of the Vietnamese, so he can't really see the good sides of the Alliance."

I think a better example would be if the US lost the war for independence and remained a British colony.

Mal would of course be a revolutionary. He'd stick to the backroads and backwoods. The cities would have the most connection to England, but the frontier towns would probably never have any real British presence.

So, Mal travels along the sticks, avoiding British officials and soldiers and being careful not to cross the path of hostile Indian tribes or rustlers or raiders (aka The Reavers).

 

[S'mon]

Thanks all for feedback, interesting points. I may give it another try next time it's shown on the scifi channel, and look out for what you've mentioned.
It didn't seem a particularly dark setting to me - compare with Blake's 7 say, where the Federation is a truly Stalinist totalitarian nightmare.

-S'mon

 

[Ranger REG]

I wouldn't necessarily call it a dark setting, but rather looking at the flip side of utopia, or at least the byproduct of trying to create and maintain such an advanced civilization.

Besides, Star Trek have provided a future utopian society that we all like to live in, at least in our dreams. But Firefly provide a more pragmatic view.