Great Firefly Articles

[rklenseth]

Cut off in its prime, February 6, 2004
Reviewer: Nicola Clarke from Lancs, UK
And for his next trick, Joss Whedon reinvents TV space opera.

"A Western in space?" we all thought. "Right. Sounds about as likely as a female teenage vampire hunter... Ah..."

UK viewers lucky enough to have caught Joss Whedon's shortlived series when it aired on Sci-Fi over the summer will already know that this DVD set is an essential purchase. The extras are not exhaustive (a few more detailed behind-the-scenes featurettes would've been welcome, but the episode commentaries are uniformly excellent) - but since they're rounding out a package containing the bext genre TV show of the last few years, there's little need for complaint.

The best genre TV show? Without doubt. Set in a future where humankind's problems have followed them to the stars, _Firefly_ is one of the most innovative and human portraits of Life In Space to grace our screens to date. Drawing inspiration from the later-19th century Reconstruction period of American history, this is more about people scraping to survive in a huge, uncaring world than it is about lasers and the soft hum of perfect engines. There is a simple premise at the heart of this Space Western: astounding technology exists, but only for those who can afford it. For most people, the reality is carving somewhere to stand from less desirable territory and with rather less showy tools. As a result, the show's environment is richly varied, moving between opulent central planets and backwater moons where desperate settlers try their luck. The culture is an amalgam of American and Chinese elements. Everything is plausibly and intriguingly extrapolated from our own world, all run through the mill of a devastating recent civil war.

But _Firefly_'s real assets are the nine characters who find themselves aboard the spaceship Serenity. They're a disparate bunch, including a captain who fought (and lost) in the civil war, a mercenary with fewer morals than a coyote, a taciturn and brooding preacher, a doctor on the run with his genius sister, and a quick-witted Companion (a sort of geisha/prostitute hybrid, and by far the most respectable person on board). The Whedon hallmarks of believable, engaging character dynamics and snappy dialogue have never been more perfectly-honed than here. Everyone is likeable, well-rounded, and has depths that are only gradually revealed; but they certainly don't all have the same agendas, or even get along.

The stories arise organically from the characters and from the world they live in. Most of the time they operate in the shadows on the edge of civilisation, and the episodes tend to reflect this milieu in tone and content. _Firefly_ is frequently dark and uncompromising, a study of what people will do when they're nothing left to lose. However, unfolding beneath this is a tale of broader scope, as the characters work towards a realisation that there might be things left worth living for, after all.