Shiny: Revisiting Joss Whedon’s Firefly Fifteen Years Later

Fifteen years ago today (20 September 2017), the space-western Firefly debuted on FOX. It was cancelled after 11 episodes aired. When the DVD was released, all 14 taped episodes were included, in the order that series creators Joss Whedon and Tim Minear originally planned. In 2005, Whedon and Minear reassembled the cast for the feature film Serenity, in order to give fans some closure (and then in true Whedon fashion killed two beloved characters – “I am a leaf on the wind…”) Dark Horse Comics also continued the universe in a series of comics – eight stories have been published to date (several co-authored by Whedon, one penned by Patton Oswalt!). And of course, the ‘Verse lives on in fan fiction.

Fifteen years ago, my friend Cindy Bedrick and I had an entertainment e-zine – these days we’d call it a blog – called the-buzz. We wrote movie and television reviews, including weekly recaps of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer and Angel. So fo course when Firefly debuted, we started our recaps with the very first episode. Unfortunately, my fear about the timeslot proved to be true and Firefly never did find its audience when it was on the air.

Here is the review that Cindy and I published on the-buzz on September 21, 2002, immediately after the first episode of Firefly aired.

Firefly Episode 1.1 “The Train Job”

Cindy: After watching the first episode of Firefly, I see lots of promise (and a few complaints, but I’ll get to those later). First, I thought that there was an interesting mix of action and humor, something that is present in all of Joss’ shows. Second, I thought for a first episode that wasn’t supposed to be a first episode, we had pretty good character development. I think I would have appreciated a starting point, such as the ones in Buffy and Angel, but perhaps that just wasn’t possible in this big space adventure.

Tanya: The mixture of the Old West and science fiction obviously isn’t new, but neither are stories about vampires. The question is whether Joss can take this world and create the same kind of witty, relevant, thoughtful characters and storylines as he has in the Sunnydale universe. I thought the first episode got off to a very slow start, which is ironic given that FOX made Joss air The Train Job first because it thought that his original pilot, which will air later this fall, was too slow. I thought the introduction of the characters was somewhat forced given, as Cindy implies, they all know each other but we don’t know any of them. Much easier when you start a show at a natural beginning point, ala Carter shows up for his first day in the ER or Buffy moves to Sunnydale. Anyway, I think it is too soon to pass judgment on either the pacing of the show or where it will go once it hits its stride. I imagine that the first few episodes will be a bit awkward and then we’ll really take off.

Cindy: I did think some of the women were a bit underdeveloped, for instance Kaylee, the engineer, was just a little too stereotypically the sweet girl next door, although I did like her delivery of the line, “stealing from the train,” in answer to the question “what are you doing?”. Also, the whore with the heart of gold was a bit much. I did like Zoe’s kicking ass and thought it was good stuff that she is clearly one of the toughest people on the ship.

Tanya: I don’t think it’s fair to expect fully fleshed out characters in the first episode. It takes a long time to get to know people, whether they are fictional or not. Man, I am really starting to sound like a Mutant Enemy apologist. Joss, you should get me on payroll.

Cindy: My complaints really aren’t all that many. The Alliance villains were straight out of Star Wars (the first one), which isn’t so much a complaint as an observation. Also, something about Mal kind of rubbed me the wrong way. I am not sure if it is b/c I remember the actor as Joey from One Life to Live, or perhaps he seemed a little young to have survived a war and engendered the respect of the entire crew. All in all I thought Firefly showed great promise and of course, will continue to watch.

Tanya: I remember Nathan as Joey on OLTL. (I am a secret ABC soap opera junkie.) I’m not sure about the casting choice, but I’m willing to give it time.

Cindy: I found the story generally interesting, which isn’t always the case with pilot episodes. Joss particularly got me with crazy River and the blue hands going two by two. I actually want to watch next week.

Tanya: I’m obviously watching next week. In Joss I trust. My only hope is that Firefly finds an audience quickly and doesn’t get cancelled before 2003. This timeslot launched X-Files but it also saw the demise of The Lone Gunmen and Harsh Realm. I really loved Harsh Realm and am still sad that it ended so abruptly.

From what I gather, Firefly will deal with the same themes that Joss has explored in BtVS and Angel – good and evil, sin and redemption. I was so happy to see Mal throw that guy into the turbine at the end of the episode because it shows that we have a complex character who is willing to risk his own next and turn down some much needed cash to help some people, but isn’t a wilting violet who isn’t willing to spill a little bad guy blood in the process. I’m looking forward to seeing how this all develops.

Original article at The Huffington Post