With that said there is one show that I never seem to get tired of watching. Now I'm not a fanatical Browncoat like many people out there. (SciFi fans out there will get that reference instantly) But I have to admit that Joss Whedon's Firefly was one of the best written shows out there. Jeff and I sat down last night and watched the pilot again. (we have the DVDs) It had been a bit since I'd seen it but I'm reminded of how good that show was. For those of you who don't know, Firefly was a short lived series by Joss Whedon that combined elements of a Western with Outer Space. And it was amazingly good. It was funny, it was touching, it was exciting, and oh yeah, it was canceled half way through it's first season. Fox's reason seems to be that it was too expensive. And I have to admit that the sets were huge. They had to build an entire spaceship, plus all the land based settings.
The show focuses on the crew of Serenity, a Firefly class spaceship, that works at whatever odd jobs are available for a ship living on the fringes of society. Some of the jobs are legal, most aren't. These are thieves and scavengers and rebels. The land based worlds are a mix of huge Alliance (the ruling power) cities and frontier planets barely starting out. The premise may seem hokey to those who have never seen it but Whedon pulls it off by creating incredibly likable characters. And making it funny.
Mal, the captain of the ship, is loyal to his crew, sarcastic in the extreme, and a bit of a prankster. He'll shoot you if you betray him or his crew, but he'll do anything to keep his ship flying. Wash, his pilot, is a goofball. He plays with toys, invents mantras, and is constantly telling jokes, when not performing dangerous manuvers to get them out of scrapes. Wash is married to Zoe, the ships second in command. She served with Mal in the wars and is fiercely loyal to him. Kaylee is the ships engineer who is constantly upbeat, and nice to absolutely everyone. Jayne is the muscle on the ship. Always ready to shoot someone and constantly at odds with Mal about why he can't. To round out the group, there is Simon a doctor trying to protect his sister River, a crazy but brilliant girl the Alliance is chasing. Book, a preacher and often the only voice of reason, and Inara a courtesan (read high class prostitute) who travels with the groups to add respectability.
It may seem convoluted but the show is just spot on. The banter between crew members is fast and funny. There seemed to be actual chemistry between the crew. The jokes are hilarious, the plots are action-packed, and everyone on the ship is likable. You can catch the show on the SciFi channel (or SyFy as it is being called now) but your best bet is to rent the DVDs and start with the pilot. I guarantee you'll be hooked. One of the most well-written shows every made.
1 comment:
It was a great show. The dialogue was brilliant, and the characters were all actually interesting. (I've seen too many shows where the characters are trite and interchangeable.)
I wish more could have been done, though the movie was a nice slice of "here's some more".
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