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August 09, 2005
Reviews: (Television) Firefly
I liked Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I liked Angel. So why did I never watch Firefly during it’s production run? Blame fox-- I didn't know it was coming until it was over. Thank the gods for the DVD format...
Yeah, I bought it on faith. And sale. I bought it on sale and on faith, and they were both amply justified. But what the hell is it about? Well, it’s a Sci-Fi show, so that means spaces battles and lasers and faster than light people doing things, right? Not at all...
Firefly is more like the Magnificent 7 than any other Sci-Fi experience. Perhaps the best way of thinking of it is as the show that Star Wars would have had it been about Han Solo-- and were Luke insane. Also replace Chewbacca with a black woman and; and now the analogy has gone too far. The basic idea is that Mal (Malcolm) Reynolds is a freighter Captain who doesn’t really care about the law. In the first episode, he picks up some passengers who turn out to be even more illegal than he is. Any more would be spoilers, so I won’t tell it here...
What I can comment on is style. Fans of Buffy's wit won’t be terribly disappointed, though Firefly tends to go in slightly different directions. Firefly humor tends to be more in the way of physical comedy, or even the sort where the characters make fun of each other. One rather amusing scene involved the captain finding himself married to a local girl-- as payment for saving the village...
Firefly is set in a universe where humanity has basically been dumped on hundreds of worlds, most of which have technology and cultures similar to that of our own "old west". Indeed, Firefly is basically a western-- save that the cavalry is mostly there to arrest our intrepid crew...
The real pity of the show is that only 14 episodes were ever made. Though a movie is on the way, it can’t possibly be as epic a full several year television run would have been. The show was only just beginning to raise questions, and never got around to answering many of them. Still, it was a fun romp; one I recommend highly to fans of offbeat adventure stories.
Rating: 3 Sovereign class starships out of 5 Omega class destroyers. The show did what it wanted to exceedingly well. Sadly, it didn’t do more than stand up and stretch its legs before it was shot to death by a silly silly network. Oh well, I suppose there is always Galactica...
Posted by Andrew at August 9, 2005 11:03 AM
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Comments
No, there is not always Glactica! Firefly is exceptionally good. There are two trailers for Serenity out. The movie should be very entertaining.
Posted by: Scorpio at August 10, 2005 03:29 PM