AGAINST THE GRAIN - WHEN A TV SHOW SPAWNS A MOVIE
FIREFLY – PRELUDE TO SERENITY
A few days ago Bill (FVE) and family came by and while we were all talking, I noticed Bill eyeing my ‘Firefly’ television series DVD set. This review is in response to the questions he never asked.
About a year ago I wrote a movie review about the Sci-fi film, ‘Serenity’. The Hollywood buzz about the film right from the time it was shot was that they were making the movie because the series had garnered a cult following in the short time it was broadcast and the network had taken a second look at it, after it was canceled and off the air.
The movie storyline was intriguing in a ‘Mad Max meets Billy The Kid’ sort of way. Perhaps we as a species will always have a fascination with weapons that go ‘bang’ and shoot projectiles. That being said, what made the movie different from other post apocalyptic films, were the strong characterizations of so many protagonists. Though a bit crowded, this many strong roles lent itself to the big screen pretty well, so I wondered how they all fit on the small screen. I bought the complete TV series at Christmas and watched one or two shows, then put it back on the shelf. I popped in disc two one night a week ago and found the stories woven with a very slight but deliberate continuity thread by showing individual character development or illumination. The ‘storyline is tight and entertaining’; would be how you describe the episodes on that disc.
Actually, starting with the last two shows on disc two and all of disc three you have shows that are brilliantly written and character driven. With no carry-over like a soap opera, these stories still move the viewer farther down the characters’ development and background in an engaging way through action and dialog. Disc four’s stories are just a little less intense than disc three, but you have to know that by this time the cast knew that they weren’t getting renewed.
Still, if you ever want to know why Fox advanced Joss Whedon the dough to make a movie to kind of tie up the loose ends of the series, all you have to do is watch disc 2 and 3. The stories are off beat, quirky, heroic, and have plot twists you don’t see coming. Though the acting is solid, and at least three of the actors, the Captain, his female First Mate, and the actress who played ‘River’, have found other TV shows, it is the stories and their characters that carry the show and give it the gritty ‘graphic comic book’ feel it has.
The characters are ‘different’ enough to make even Stan Lee smile. There is the Captain, a strong silent type of few words and brooks no disloyalty; but though cunning, is clueless when it comes down to women, like the old school Western heroes. Perhaps his arrested development comes as a result of the war he fought in, the one you see at the beginning of each episode and in flashbacks. His female First Mate was his second in command and fought in his unit, which explains the trust and familiarity they share without ever having been lovers. This female character is tough as nails without being a feminist ball-breaker or resorting to having a ‘sistah’ attitude. This First Mate knows how to ‘throw down’ however, being married to a hubby of a different color who is more a Pilot and less a soldier. The combination of a strong, tough woman with a thoughtful, mild-mannered man presented an interesting couple study and on some shows they argued. However, when the chips were down or when they showed them after intimacy all flushed with sweat, you knew they cared deeply for one another in that old fashioned ‘I’m married’ sort of way.
The Captain’s Right Hand man, a tough guy with not many scruples and a girl’s first name grows on you quickly but he too shows a character arc over the course of the series. The Mechanic, another female, was found after being discovered getting banged in the boiler room by the original hired mechanic. Turned out that she knew a lot more about engines too, but she is somewhat of a paradox. She is a mechanic who likes girly things, like a farm girl could be. This image is further carried off with this female character being the plainest and sweetest person on the ship, which the crew calls ‘the boat’. Though she is unsophisticated, you can sense that she would be a wife that would ‘be good’ to her man. She also knows what she wants, and what she wants is a young passenger turned crew member, the Doctor. Like a young Kildare, the Doctor is handsome, a gifted surgeon, and comes from a wealthy, well connected family. Part of the story arc is his gradual awakening to the desires of the Mechanic. It is exactly what he is, or represents that is what she seeks as a young woman. Possibly in an ordinary city environment, she might not stand a chance to catch his eye, but as one of a handful of women on a spaceship that cruises the backwaters of the galaxy to avoid detection, -did I mention that the ex-soldier Captain is now a smuggler-, well there’s a lot of time to start looking better to each other, especially when you become part of the team. The Doctor, being a gentile type, has to deal with the various issues and personality conflicts found within the boat’s walls, but the good Doctor isn’t without his own issues to resolve, chief among them, his sister. This character is the most interesting person of the group by being the most mysterious. Brought onboard by her brother, the Doctor, nude in a sealed aluminum case, you find out early that she is the result of this sinister corporation experiment because, as smart as the Doctor is, she’s the prodigy in the family. She was ultra smart, now she is ultra weird. By the end of the series she has really started to develop as a character and is one of the continuing plotlines. She develops as a character even more in the movie. Her character is River. She has an enormous reward for her capture and the corporation men after her are as ruthless as she is strange.
Rounding out the crew is a Shepherd, a person of a religious Order, appearing Christian by the use of Christian symbolism and terms, or is he?? Several times during the series there are small cracks in his story. While there may be a question of whether he really is a ‘man of the cloth’, there is no question that he is more than an average Shepherd. And then there is the prettiest woman on board. She is the ‘Ambassador’ as the Captain calls her when being satirical, the ‘Companion’ when he is being professional, and the Whore when he is upset. Being a man of few words, he is upset a lot more than chill. The problem is, she likes the Captain and he’s clueless. Perhaps she is too pretty for him, but you get the feeling that he sees her as a ‘whore’ because that is her official occupation. She even belongs to a Guild. The actress playing this character has dark Gypsy features and long wavy black hair, making this character as memorable visually as the rest of the cast. The first (and almost only) season is the story line of how all these unique people came to bond as a crew on this space ‘boat’. It is too bad that Fox didn’t see this one coming, like they did with ‘The Simpsons’, ‘Married With Children’ or ‘24’. This was a special crew, with a singular writer, and together they made an out of the ordinary and exceptional TV action-drama set 500 years in the future that resembles a cross between ‘Bonanza’ and ‘Buck Rogers’. At the end of the opening credits the ‘boat’ Serenity’ flies low over a stampeding herd of wild horses like it was dusting a crop. Even the DVD package artwork is done in sepia tones giving it that ‘yesteryear’ look rather than that of futuristic ‘Tommy Tomorrow’. This is a warm drama with frequent flashes of brilliance against the backdrop of not too technocratic sci-fi and well worth having in your DVD collection.