Everyone seems to have a story about their experience with this show. At least, people who have actually heard of it do. And to know “Firefly” is to love “Firefly.” Fans are hard to spot. Most of them don’t look like science fiction fans, but just mention “Serenity,” reavers or Badger, say, “Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal,” or start singing, “Take my love, take my land…” and every “Firefly” fan in a 50-foot radius will instantly reveal themselves, and become your best friends. I was lucky enough to find a few “Firefly” buddies when I was in college, and we spent many happy evenings reliving favorite moments from this unique, well-made and unfortunately short-lived series.
For the uninitiated, all some people need to know about “Firefly” before they’ll watch it is that it was created by Joss Whedon (“Buffy the Vampire Slayer”; “Angel”; “Dollhouse“), but just in case, here’s the rundown: in a distant future, a huge corporate conglomerate has pretty much taken over everything. Commerce, government, medicine, social structures. No one lives on Earth anymore; it’s not livable for some reason we never really find out. Instead, most of the human population is crowded onto the “core planets,” which have become the hub of civilization and the seat of the Alliance, the over-arching, omnipresent governmental body. The Alliance has also colonized (barely) the fringe planets, basically just dropping people off with a small food supply and a couple of tools and telling them to build a colony. These colony planets are like the Wild West of the late 19th century: there is no law except who is the quicker draw.
Roaming these uncivilized planets is the crew of the ship “Serenity,” a Firefly Class, hence the name of the show. The ship is captained by Mal Reynolds, who found himself on the losing side of a war between the Alliance and the colonies. The crew includes his second-in-command, Zoe, who fought with him in the war; Wash, Zoe’s husband and the ship’s goofy pilot; Kaylee, a lovable mechanic; Jayne, the brawn of the crew; and Inara, a “Companion,” or prostitute. (In this future, prostitution is legal and a highly respected profession. Companions are rather similar to Geishas in many ways.) The crew travels from planet to planet, picking up smuggling jobs wherever they can. The pilot episode of “Firefly” introduces three new passengers to the ship: a “Shepherd,” or pastor; a mysterious young doctor with some ominous cargo; and an Alliance officer.
Only 14 episodes of “Firefly” were made, and of those, only 12 aired. FOX pulled the plug on it before it could reach its potential, so we are left with a four-disc DVD set that comprises the complete series of “Firefly.” But those DVDs sold so well that NBC-Universal bought the rights and produced a movie, “Serenity,” three years later to wrap things up. But, as many fans would agree, it’s just not quite enough…
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A TV addict and writer from the Pacific Northwest...
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Appreciate your post. I know enough about the topic but am always happy to come across additional information.
Maybe its a good thing the show ended. In Serenity, River is revealed as…i dunno…Neo in Matrix. Show would have sucked if she kept on kicking EVERYbody’s ass