In the fall of 2002, the FOX Network aired a science fiction
series from Joss Whedon, the creator of Buffy The Vampire Slayer and its spin
off Angel. Set five hundred years in the future, and just six years after a
failed rebellion against the Alliance--a Federation-like organization that lords
over the massive solar system that the human race has relocated to--Firefly focuses
on the scrappy crew of an old rust bucket of a freighter called Serenity, named
after the battle for Serenity Valley, where Sgt. Malcolm Reynolds (Nathan
Fillion) and his trusted sidekick Zoe (Gina Torres) helped fight the Alliance
Forces to a standstill before getting the rug pulled out from underneath them by
their own command, which forced them to surrender. Mal and Zoe eventually wound
up being on the losing side of the war, and they’ve been trying to stay under
the radar of the Alliance ever since.
As captain of the Firefly-class freighter Serenity, Mal oversees a crew which
consists of the highly competent Zoe as his second in command; the laid-back
Wash (Alan Tyduk) as the ship’s pilot; Jayne (Adam Baldwin), a burly,
trigger-happy mercenary with a girl’s name; Kaylee (Jewel Staite), the
ever-bubbly and optimistic ship’s mechanic--and then there’s Inara (Morena Baccarin), the
Companion. In this ’verse, prostitutes have achieved a very high and respectable
status in society. Inara pays Mal rent for use of one of the shuttles and
mostly looks the other way while the crew pull various jobs--most of them
illegal--just to keep the Serenity up and running. Yet in the pilot, we see the
Serenity crew ferrying passengers--which is a job that Mal resorts to when he’s
unable to unload a hot shipment that he and his crew salvaged from a wrecked
starship.
Among the passengers the Serenity is transporting to the planet Boros is Shepard
Book (Ron Glass), a religious man just a few days out of the abbey, and Simon
and River Tam (Sean Maher and Summer Glau, respectively), an adult brother and sister who bring an
unwanted spotlight on the Serenity crew when it’s revealed they are on the run
from the Alliance, who want to get their hands on the extremely gifted River at
any cost. And as if having the Alliance breathing down their necks weren’t
enough, the Serenity crew must also dodge the Reavers--a roving band of
psychotic scavengers who rape, kill and eat everything in their path...sometimes
not in that order.
As you may have guessed by now, this isn’t Star Trek, and that’s a good thing.
Now I LOVE Star Trek, but if Star Trek: The Next Generation was a product of its
times with its focus on the supreme starship in the mighty Federation (which
mirrored the economic boom in the U.S. and the rise of the affluent with their
‘disposable incomes’ of the late 1980s and early 1990s), then Firefly was
certainly a product of the economic bust of the early to mid 2000s, where the
majority of the population is scrambling--much like the Serenity crew--just to
keep afloat. And unlike the black and white view of the universe that the Star
Trek shows often portrayed, the hard-luck ‘verse the Serenity prowls in is a
‘shades of gray’ type of place that’s filled with moral ambiguity. When you get
right down to it, Mal and the crew of Serenity are thieves who are often on the
wrong side of the law. Yet their own moral compass is always clear and steady,
even if it doesn’t always jive with the laws of the Alliance, an organization
that doesn’t have a problem with abducting young women and performing horrible
scientific experiments on them. This fact makes the Serenity crew mavericks in
the truest sense of the word--they’re classic, almost mythic, heroes who,
whenever they do decide to lay their lives on the line, you know it’s for a
truly worthy cause.
Sadly, the FOX Network cancelled Firefly before it could truly soar; yet
thankfully the series has found renewed life as a DVD collection containing all
14 (or 15, if you count the pilot as two episodes cut together) shows, including the three
episodes that never originally aired (this unaired trio of shows eventually made
their television premiere when the Sci-Fi Channel aired the series in the summer
of ’05). Among the highlights is "Serenity", the aforementioned pilot which is
an engaging story that hits the ground running as it introduces the ship and
crew; "The Train Job" is a thrilling ride that details the Serenity crew pulling
off a heist on a train; "Ariel" is another heist story, but one with a twist;
"Bushwhacked" is a creepy episode that takes a closer look at the Reavers; a new
adversary is introduced in "Our Mrs. Reynolds", and the same character returns
to make Mal's life miserable in "Trash"; Jayne discovers he’s a revered figure in the funny "Jaynestown" and
"Out Of Gas" examines the origins of the Serenity crewmembers and how they
became her crew. The DVD has sold so well that it spurred Universal Studios to
allow Joss Whedon to write and direct a Firefly movie called Serenity. This is
an impressive feat for a TV series that was cancelled midway through its first
season. It goes to show that Firefly has not only touched a nerve in people, but
it tugged at their heartstrings, as well.
--SF
Main Review Page | TV Reviews |Email Me |Buy On DVD Here
