Firefly
by Walter Parker
At first glance, Firefly could be thought of in the same vein as any other cult classic space opera. However, avid fans of this one-season story tend to place Firefly on a shinier pedestal, and they aren’t necessarily wrong to do so. The circumstances surrounding this show’s early termination and subsequent film have drawn ample attention from critics and viewers alike, but the question remains for those who haven’t taken the plunge: is a short sci fi-western like this even worth the time? I like to think it is.
From the beginning of the pilot, we are introduced to Malcolm Reynolds, a soldier taking part in a failed resistance against the invasion of the Alliance. Fast forward to some number of years after the war, and Malcolm Reynolds is revealed to be the dynamic captain of a small, Firefly-class freighter ship named Serenity, running smuggling jobs under the nose of the now-ubiquitous Alliance. The rough-yet-noble-smuggler persona shares a definite resemblance to Han Solo, and it’s likely more than coincidental that both run into their share of problems from taking on troublesome passengers. But I’m getting a little bit ahead of myself.
If this show can be thematized by a particular type of conflict, that conflict would be moral in nature. Without even taking into consideration any of the ship’s crew, the passenger chemistry already lends itself to these kinds of conflicts. A certified prostitute, a monk, a pair of fugitives and an Alliance spy tracking said fugitives all buy passage aboard Serenity, which none of said passengers know to be a smuggling ship running marked cargo stolen from a destroyed Alliance freighter to a remote moon on the fringes of Alliance territory. All of this can only lead to Mal having an eventful day, if not an entirely disastrous one.
I’d be doing the show a disservice if I didn’t mention at least a couple of elements of its distinctive atmosphere. From the mix of written and spoken Mandarin and English, there’s an immediate and thought-provoking prediction assumed that the two most spoken languages on Earth would eventually be either both commonly spoken or would be fused into a common mixed language when humanity takes to the stars. A certain amount of creative profanity is missed by those viewers who don’t understand Mandarin, however moments of pure banality or even intimacy that include spoken Mandarin aren’t entirely lost in translation, which is a noteworthy accomplishment. Scenes taking place on terraformed moons only recently settled also lends to an old-west aesthetic, which reminded me that even though space may be the final frontier, it certainly wasn’t the first.
The show lacks little to nothing in action, suspense, character, humor or plot. All the characters and their interactions are memorable, and a little closer to home than other shows in this genre. This is likely helped by each character being human. Unlike most other sci fi shows off the top of my head, there are no androids or alien lifeforms shown, making the characters and their interactions more personal to the viewer. The most non-human things mentioned have been reavers, which are supposedly people who went out into deep space and were driven mad, becoming savage cannibals. Though terrifying, even reavers still started out as humans, making the on-screen horror a more plausible and less further removed from reality than other fictional space threats.
The series is a cult classic for a reason. Though it may not have had a stellar life on the air, it has a second chance to capture the imaginations of viewers on Netflix, and on DVD. If you have a Netflix account and haven’t watched Firefly yet, make a space in your queue and give it a shot.
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