Just revisited : Firefly

There's a TV writer out there called Joss Whedon.

He cut his teeth with a series called Buffy, which while rather decently catching the popculture of its time is not something I've got a hankering to watch over again.

Not so with Firefly.

Could be that it's sci-fi, which is a genre I take to like people to air (or chavs to alcohol). Could be the down to earth characters. Could be the 'verse it is set in. Could be the wit that was sewn into the interactions. Could be the ship, small and humble and with a design that Made Sense.

I'm definitely one of the geekier members of the engineer species (hey, I'd chase Kaylee !) and I tend to look out for things like : Would that ship fly. How do you get around it. Multiple routes around in case of fire. Where's the cables, where's the vents. Big cargo hold, how do you get stuff in. Yeah, I'm sad, I spot those kind of things and if they aren't thought about properly I'll get bored, peeved and shortening in attention span. To that geekus engineeri, Serenity is perfect. The design makes sense and doesn't succumb to the hell of the Plot Device.

(watching The Deep at the moment, which is getting killed by Plot Devices)

Everything about the tech underneath Firefly is simple. What do they say about good lies ? Keep it simple and it'll be more believable. Scifi is and always will be a pack of lies. But it's a pack of lies designed to entertain. If the creators (inc production and direction) try to overcomplicate (a la RTD), they quickly get caught out in the fiction they're trying to portray as inconsistencies cut out the sense.

Firefly's all about the 10 core characters and how they are trying to make their way in the 'Verse. Bit like the David Eddings books, they succeed by allowing the reader/watcher have fun sharing in with the interactions. All 10 have their part to play, whether it be Inara putting the Captain in his place or Serenity digging the crew out of the mess they've gotten into. Yes, the ship is a vital part of the cast in a way that I don't think has been realised since the Liberator or U-96.

I suspect we identify well with them because "They're Just Like Us". There's a bit of a disconnect with series like Star Trek or Stargate, because the characters are just a little too elite. We don't feel as if we'd fit in, except as someone to clean the boots or hold the doors open. Firefly's different, you could picture yourself as part of that crew or along for the ride.

They include you in their tale in a way that not much fiction achieves. Except maybe those Eddings books. They're real people, despite only existing in that small screen.

And that's Firefly's big secret. You don't talk about the tech, you talk about whether Inara and Mal will tell each other how they feel. You're looking for how Doc Simon is going to put his foot in his mouth again. What's Serenity going to let them do. What precisely is Jayne going off to do in his bunk. (Don't answer that last one, in fact, I apologise for putting the image in your head)

You can probably guess that I've just done a Firefly marathon :-)

Enjoyed every minute too of watching the entire far too short run of 15 episodes with the film Serenity being watched tonight. Most scifi series go on too long or are killed off too early. Not often do you get the feeling of Unfinished Business. That's definitely the feeling with Firefly, there are far more stories to be told in the 'Verse. Will we ever get to hear them ? Probably not. But I'm keener to hear those stories than I am the stories of B5: Crusade or Defying Gravity. And I was crushed to hear those get canned. The stories and the writing is what counts.

Huge shame that this one was cancelled just as it was really getting going. I have a hankering to watch those 15 episodes again !

Wanted : a seat on a Firefly class transport, will happily be Engineer's Assistant. Keep your Galaxy Class, your White Star, your NX-01, your Nebulon B, your Daedalus or even your Battlestar (original one, not the rubbish new one).

Gis proper starship. (Would settle for a spot on a Leviathan)