 The Sci-Firiffic ROSSMANAs the old adage goes, "You don't know what
you got, 'til it's gone."... Or was that just super group
Cinderella who said that? Anyway, it pertains most pertinently
to Joss
Whedon's ahead of its
time spaceship series, Firefly.
In the past, TV sci-fi has
been pretty much hit or miss. Most of it completely sucked/sucks
(like the endless churnings-out
of
lame
new Star
Trek retreads
and
horrible remakes/continuations of more popular shows and movies
from days gone by [like Stargate and Battlestar
Fagalactica]). But every once in a while you get
a pure gem of a show that's so original and fresh that it makes
you get down on your knees and praise (if not more) the network
execs that actually had the balls to greenlight it!... Like Farscape,
and for the sake of this review, Firefly.
But then, sometimes almost immediately, those same network
execs turn on their own program like sharks or jackals or vultures
on
an injured friend, and they do their damndest to stab it with
their steely knives and get it kicked off the air. And then
they piss off
(and on)
millions
of fanboys
the world over. Not that I'm bitter or anything, just confused.
When Firefly was first broadcast,
I missed more than half of the episodes shown. Not that it
mattered much, since Fox
ran the series out of order and on Friday nights (i.e. even
the geekiest of sci-fi geeks usually has something better to
do
on their
Friday nights than to sit around watching commercial television).
Only
11 out of the completed 14 episodes were ever aired, and the
two-part pilot wasn't shown until the end of its run... Did
that make any sense to you? Cause I'm still confused. Here
Fox had one of the most creative and funny writers on the planet
making one of the most fun, futuristic ensemble shows ever
even conceived (which they shelled out shitloads of shillings
for too, btw), and then they buried it in a crap-infested time
slot, and forgot to advertise for it while they screwed with
its inter-show
timeline. Why? Why did they even bother in the first place?
I think that
I would have been better off not even knowing that something
as cool as Firefly could be done, than to know and only get
a small taste of it.
But, a year after it was canned, Firefly has
made it to DVD. And not only do we get the whole thing (all
14 episodes), but we get it the way it was meant to be seen:
widescreen (hell, I don't even remember if it was letterboxed
for TV or not anymore... Let's just say that it didn't just
to make the DVD all that more special). The Firefly box
set is a geek's wet dream come true. We finally get to
watch
the
whole
thing
in
chronological
order. We get to see hints of plots to come emerge episodes
before they emerge onto the front stage, and we get to follow
the incrediblacious characters as they evolve and become even
more interesting people before
our very eyes.
It's just beautiful, Clark!
Now, as most of you already know, the creator
of Firefly is also the creator of Buffy
the Vampire Slayer and Angel (and
what some of you don't realize is that the reason for Buffy's 7th
and final season being so convoluted and lost [and some would
say "shitty"] is because Mr. Whedon himself was so busy putting
all of his effort into the series being reviewed right here
right
now.).
See, during the second to last year of Buffy,
and the third year
of Angel, Joss was a pretty hot property in
Hollywood. Somehow, Fox convinced him that he could handle
not just two shows at
once, but three big-budgeted sci-fi/fantasy shows
at the same time, and gave him free reign to put together his
own story
of what mankind would be doing in 500 years time in spaceships
spread throughout the galaxy. Then the stuff about burying
the show and axing it quickly, like I mentioned above, happened.
Then everyone was pissed 'cause Buffy was
starting to suck,
Angel still had Connor on it, and Firefly only
made it through half a season. And that's all I have to say
about that.
But now, a full year later, I shall review for
you the greatness that unfortunately never was. Damn, that
took
a long time to get
to. But
here goes:
Firefly takes place 500+ years
in the future. Captain Mal Reynolds and his first mate Zoe
pilot the firefly-class
ship, Serenity (named after the Battle of Serenity Valley,
which was the deciding battle that decided the fate of the
galaxy during the Unification War, of which Mal and Zoe fought
on the losing side). They're doing okay with their small crew
(well, at the end of the pilot episode there are 9 main
characters... So I guess that's not too small), taking
on any kind of job that'll pay for their gas (whether the job
be legal,
illegal,
or immoral),
and trying
to keep out of the way of the totalitarian nazi regime that
now runs the universe. The feel of the show initially turned
me
away when
I first saw it. I gagged at Joss' audacity of shoving the fact
that the series was a futuristic sci-fi show mixed
with
a western in our faces with the delicate and fine touch of
a sledghammer typing away on a keyboard hooked up to plastic
explosives and Pop Rocks. Every episode seemed to be filled
to the brim
(of a ten gallon hat)
with
references
to
the old
west
just
in case
we forgot that we were watching a sci-west hybrid. Now,
with
a more
open mind,
I don't find it that irritating. Yeah, the characters will
talk all "Shucks, ma'am, t'ain't nothin' at all" and
then fly away on a space-faring cargo ship filled with stolen
heffers, but you don't really
think about it all that much once you're inside the world.
A few of the things that really set Firefly apart
from the rest of the sci-fi dregs recently or currently on
the tube, are the little touches that Joss subtly mixes into
the recipe. For instance, everybody in this universe is pretty
fluent in Mandarin. Whenever anybody (from the most elite and
prissy doctor to the dirtiest gunslinger) curses, it's in Chinese
(and not just one-word Chinese translations of "shit!" and
"fuck!", but entire sentences). Another example is that one
of the most respected career paths
500 years from now is that of the registered companion (read "whore").
Registered companions are all highly sought after, gorgeous,
well learned, and eloquent speakers.
And they're
legal.
God bless Joss' perverted little mind. And lest we forget one
of
my favorite little touches in Firefly is how
real everything seems. Now, I'm not talking about the fact
that I think prostitution
will be legal and practically mandatory far from now (which
it better be), I'm referring to the settings and psuedo-sciences
of the story.
There is
no sound in Joss Whedon's outer space. All of the space shots
are totally silent and beautiful, if not slightly eerie. Guns
armed with bullets are the main weapon on the frontiers of
the galaxy, not laser guns (which although they do exist, are
still not perfected and their battery life is pretty short).
And the camera movements are a work of art in and of themselves.
It's like all the cameras are carried by hand. Even the FX
shots.
I can't
explain
it
too well, it's just something you have to see for yourself.
The special effects are just breathtaking. I am so surprised
that they made each of the episodes on a TV show budget.
Anyway, we first join Mal and his crew in the
middle of a job (well, after we see Mal and Zoe at the Battle
of Serenity Valley), and right away they get mixed up in a
plot that involves starch-shirted Dr. Simon and his kidnapped
sister,
River, as
they evade the Galactic Union Army and the nefarious Blue-Hands
group who seem to be after genius River's noggin'. Throughout
the
course of the 14 episodes, many people learn things (about
themselves, others, or the universe as a whole), many backstabbings
occur, and many bonds of friendship are tested. And you know
what? I wish they could have been tested for another 150 stories
after it was all over. That's the only negative I can give
to Firefly:
It's way too
short. It just pisses me off that total crap like Enterprise and Stargate
STDs1 can make it for seasons on end, but shows with
backbone, great plots and characters, and jeans-creaming effects
get canned so fast that they're basically still births. Enough
of this faggoty shit! Bring me the head of the Sci-Fi channel
on a silver platter!... Unless he decides to give Firefly a
new chance at life... Then let me suck his tiny wang
for a few hours... I'd do it too. Gargling all night with Listerine
is
a small price to pay for a few dozen more chapters in the lives
of Mal, Zoe, Jayne, Book, River, Kaylee, Simon, Wash and the
legal whore. Just give me a call and start unzipping if you
want to deal, Mr. Sci-Fi-Man.
What did
I think of Mr. Whedon's Firefly? Do you
still have to ask after all I just went through above? Well,
I give it 4.927 out of 5 Stars of Rosstitude. It was
a lot of fun, and it had such potential... I still wonder what
it said on
Book's ID card that caused the Feds to operate on him with
no questions asked. Joss, if you read this, just give me a
hint.
|
The Serene
BOB FROM THE FUTUREEven though I come from much farther in the future
than this spectacular show, Firefly, does,
I can still see where Captain Reynolds was coming from most
of the time. See,
the totalitarian regime that runs my world is quite like the
totalitarian regime that runs Captain Reynolds' world. Both
detain, beat and question whomever, whenever they want. Both
governments have secret ties to blue-handed people who can
melt your mind with a glow stick too. And, both worlds have
quite a few prostitutes flying in and out of any given space
port at any given time, who wouldn't give a normal joe with
an empty wallet the time of day even if it would save his unintentionally
celibate life in the process. *Sigh*
But I digress. Aside from the plethora of legally
pleasing women folk, the other main thing about Firefly that
made me miss my own time was the look of all the "outer planets",
far away from the center of the galaxy. Due to a faulty part
in many of the Mitsubishi Planet Ultra Geo-fitting Layering
Yggdrasils (aka the PUGLY Terraforming System), a good portion
of the outer rim planets in the Milky Way Galaxy were pretty
much
defective
on arrival and so turned into giant "West Worlds" because
they were filled with nothing but sand and cacti and the occasional
Indian
trading
post (which, if you ever stop at one, don't buy anything from
them... you can get virtually the same cheap blankets, ceramic
bowls and peyote, only cheaper, from the inevitable New Hong
Kong bootleg space stations that orbit pretty much every planet
in the known
universe). The only real difference that I could discern between
Firefly and the real future is that it's not
the Chinese that run things, it's the Koreans. After the Gook
War of 2114 the
Unified Korea Continent launched an all out attack on the remaining
Eastern Hemisphere Countries with Project Hi-Lee. See, they
came across the remains of the goddess Sung Hi-Lee in some
shrine which history has said the Rossman himself had built
for his beloved 7th wife, Ms. Hi-Lee herself, when she died
of a broken heart when Nicole Kidman became available for the
Rossman to marry only 2 months into his marriage with the Asian
Wonder of the World. With her DNA, the Unified Korea Continent
created an army of Sung Hi-Lees who marched over the world
with the faintest of resistance (fighting only the occasional
homosexual or lobotomized troll women who escaped the "Ugly
Cullings" of the early 22nd century). I apologize if I've given
too much away already. No one should know too much about their
own future. Ummm, just forget everything I said above. I mean,
you'll be long dead before any of that happens anyway, so no
real harm done.
I give Firefly a 45 Lasergun
Salute of Futuristic Satisfactoriness. Very well
handled.
|
