So this week I’ve turned back the clock to 2002 to watch a few episodes of an old favorite: Firefly. This Sci-fi/Western was one of Joss Whedon’s most beloved television series, and, like its namesake, was the most short-lived.
For any who haven’t yet watched the show, Firefly is set in the year 2517, and follows the crew of the Serenity, a group of smugglers saying one step ahead of the law and always looking for their next big score. They are led by Captain Malcom Reynolds, who along with his first mate Zoe, are ex-Browncoats, soldiers on the losing side of a civil war. The rest of the crew is made up of loveable oddballs, each with their own troubled backstory and unique outlook on life. The fan favorite would have to be the ship’s engineer, Kaylee, and her awkwardly adorable romance with ship medic Simon Tam, who is on the run from the authorities to protect his sister.
At this point you might draw some similarities to my last review, Farscape, but putting the two side by side there’s a very different vibe to the storytelling. Farscape’s characters were escaped prisoners, but by and large were good people caught up in the galactic conflict, desperately trying to stay alive. Serenity’s crew, however, are career criminals, which places their escapades well and truly in the morally grey area. Some of my favorite episodes are “The Train Job,” where the crew are hired by a warlord to steal life-saving medicines, and “The Message,” where Mal has to choose between risking his crew or saving one of his old war comrades.
And why is Joss able achieve such a fun, yet gritty series? Because, as always, Good Writing Matters. Firefly has Joss’s signature writing style, the plots focusing heavily on the central character relationships, with each episode revolving more around how the characters react to the crazy escapades than the payoff of each heist. By having a range of characters on different points in a morally grey spectrum, moving through a universe where there are no more heroes, the storytelling is never preachy, simply showing us fun or heartbreaking choices from the character’s lives. “Jaynestown” is the best example of this, with the irredeemable trigger-man Jayne mistakenly revered as a Robin Hood folk-hero on a back-water planet. When one of the townsfolk dies to save him, Jayne angrily tells the townsfolk the truth – that he is no saviour, and the townsfolk are fools for believing such a selfless person could exist.
This runs the risk of making Firefly’s episodes an endless series of moral debates (I’m looking at YOU, Star Trek: TNG), but Joss places a Clock or deadline in almost every episode, pushing the plot forward so characters simply have to react to each situation and deal with the consequences. What really draws this together though is the character of Malcom Reynolds. Mal is presented as a swaggering, funny rogue, but only up until he senses a threat, in which case he’ll knock you out or shoot you dead within a heartbeat. He is morally utilitarian, not really taking sides so long as the job gets done, he gets paid, and keeps his ship keeps flying. In some episodes he will put his safety on the line to save poor back-water settlements, yet in other stories he will deal with criminals and oppressors without blinking an eye. Mal simply accepts the universe for what it is but draws the line at anyone who threatens his crew, which is what makes him so charming.
It’s a shame this show never made it past one season, there were still a lot of stories to tell and most of the characters never really got anything approaching a full character arc. I enjoyed the 2005 movie Serenity, but looking back at what made this series so enjoyable it’s kinda fitting to stumble across the Firefly series, enjoy the criminal misadventures of Serenity’s crew, then wave them goodbye as they fly off into the sunset.
Agree? Disagree? Want to debate who would win in a fight between Zoe and Aeryn Sun? Please feel free to leave a comment below!
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