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A very busy weekend on the road between Bamberg, Freiburg, Bamberg again and Munich. I only had the opportunity to check my friends list and mail in haste and now have some catching up to do. However, en route I b did have the chance for something I've been meaning to do since reading

honorh's delightful love declaration Sandman. (And btw, if someone wonders what Sandman is all about or why she/he should read it, check it out here

Being in a Firefly mood from having rewatched what episodes we have (again) with

muffinmonster and then alone, I feel propelled to gush a bit, and try to summ up what made this brief, cancelled series so compelling to me, and why I am so glad there will be a movie.

First seasons of shows are usually rather mixed affairs. The writers are still trying to find their collective feet, sometimes the actors need to, too, the particular strengths of the show in question might not yet be apparent, or only apparent in some episodes. Most of my favourite shows sport a lot of hits and misses in their first seasons. DS9 comes to mind, Farscape, Babylon 5, and let's just not talk about TNG's first season, shall we? Buffy is something of an odd animal: the first season (half a season, since it was a mid-term replacement), was fine on its own, just not compared with the glories yet to come; writes, actors and fans are all in agreement the show went to very different level in season 2. Angel's first season was more sophisticated, not surprisingly, since at that point most of the writing team had three seasons of BTVS behind them which left them both experienced in that particular universe and eager to give it a new, different twist. It's not as different in quality from the later seasons of AtS as the first season of BTVS was when compared with its successors, but the sense of still trying out and looking for a format can't be denied.

But Firefly. Ah, Firefly. No Teacher's Pet here, no I Fall To Pieces. There isn't a single episode here which I'd advise a new viewer to miss (whereas you can skip several in all of the shows named above.) This is the ME team having honed their writing skills through six years in two different shows, and being let loose with a new universe and new characters. It's the great dialogue we've come to expect from any Whedon show, it's Joss continuing his love affair with experimental episodes (Objects in Space), bending and stretching what you can do with TV, it's Tim Minear and his passion for the puzzle of past and present coming together in a complex mosaic (Out of Gas), it's Jane Espenson and her knack for comedies of manners looking deceptively easy with character development going beneath (Shindig), it's newer ME alumni Ben Edlund (look for his work in season 4 AtS, for example) and Joe Molina (who stunned me with BTVS' Normal Again) bringing their love for words and characters to this new show. It's the team which gave us years and years of great TV and which will never, ever write together again. (Unless the movie somehow results in Firefly getting renewed.)

And they didn't even all get their chance to have a go in the new playground. We'll never get Steven DeKnight showing us, say, Book's background, or perhaps Jayne and River stranded on a planet together. We'll never get Marti Noxon exploring Mal's relationship with Inara, or Zoe's with Wash. (Or maybe Inara's with Kaylee - who knows?) And you just know that Marti, nicknamed the Chains' n' Pains girl by Joss, would have loved to have a go at Niska. (Since Marti is probably the most bashed of the ME writers, I refer readers arguing that the lack of Firefly episodes written by her is something positive to an earlier entry in which I explain why I admire her writing.)

What we did get, and what we do have, is something to be treasured. First and foremost, the characters. It's Joss Whedon's particular talent to take pop culture archetypes, or clichés, if you want, and to flesh them out and twist them into compelling, fascinating characters. Take the basic set-up of BTVS as given in the pilot. New Girl, Shy Nerd, Endearing Quirky Outsider, Popular Bitch - it's every High School movie of the 80, 90s, and probably the new century. You can't get more cliché than that. Wait, you can - with Stuttering Inhibited Englishman and Tall Dark Mysterious Hunk. On paper, this sounds as dull and repetitive as hell. Then you look at the show, and not only do every single one of these clichés come to credible life but they all develop into unexpected directions that make them so compelling we followed their journeys for eight years and still are discussing every step on the way. The original premise of BTVS was a cross between the High School and the Horror genre, with its most basic and simple twist summed up by Joss Whedon as having the most typical victim of monster movies, the blonde in the alley, turned into the hero who gets the monsters. Firefly is at its most basic a cross between the Western and the Space Show genre.

So, true enough, you get:

- The Captain. Who is also the Western Lonesome Hero. Since it's Mal, though, hero of a Whedon show, he isn't just the issues-ridden leader, he's also the guy sublimely unembarrassed to dress up in female clothing for a ruse, or to be stripped naked. His sense of humour can be pretty sick at times ("Kaylee's dead"). He gets saved as much as he does the saving, and like those other Jossian heroes, his identity is something he's still in the process of (re-)constructing, after losing it in the war which haunts him throughout the show. Your typical Western hero, even post-modern Western hero, ends up riding in the sunset alone, or with his love interest at most. Firefly, though it indicates potential romantic relationships, is really interested, as far as the Captain is concerned, of how he fares in a community he cannot leave, because it's that community which gives him purpose.
- Loyal First Officer. Who is also the Stoic Hero in Western Terms, which is another twist, because conventionally, the Stoic Hero is the (male) lead. Here, it's Zoe. Arguable the Jossian female hero most comfortable with herself, and her life. Judging by Tracy's remarks in The Message, Zoe used to be not just stoic, but unrelentingly grim. Marriage to Wash changed that. Most unusual in either a space show or a western, here we have a happily married character who is a warrior at the same time and fine with it. The usual scenario presents this as unreconcilable alternatives. Not any longer.
- The Quirky Sidekick. Clearly a direct descendant of Xander, Wash is also Zoe's other half in more ways than one, gabby where she's silent, flippant where she's serious, and much more prone to open displays of affection. Simultanously, he's not too good to be true; his sometime issues with Zoe's war time bond with Mal make him real.
- The Whore with a Heart of Gold. No exact pendant in space shows, but this would definitely be Inara's description in a Western. (And by calling the episode about her old friend, the brothel owner, Heart of Gold, the show points this out to any viewers who might have missed it.) Said good-time girl is usually pining for Our Hero. On Firefly, the basic rules are followed and turned on their head at the same time. Inara clearly is attracted to Mal (and he to her), but she just as clearly feels this is wrong for her, and when he finally is the first one to make a definite approach, she's the one who turns him down. Also, her status as a Companion makes her his social superior in this universe, which unites two very different Western Stereotypes, the Whore With a Heart of Gold and The Lady, in her person. Indeed, she's arguably the most religious and spiritual person on the entire ship, aside from Book.
- The Engineer. Who is also the Sweet One. The later not being a Western archetype, just a Joss Whedon one. (See also: early Willow, and Fred.) Space show wise, Engineers tend to come either in the Scotty/O'Brien mold (surly pro with sly sense of humour), or in the Geordi/B'Lanna mold (i.e. Here To Make a Statement). Kaylee fits neither profile, though she has something of that Engineer tell-it-like-it-is quality (if Mal or Simon behave like jerks towards her, she tells them just that), which prevents her sweetness from being cloying. Another inspired twist was to make Kaylee, everyone's little sister, not the virginal one. She's younger than anyone else on board save River, but she's also a clear sensualist and unabashedly enjoying every sensation life has to offer, from food (her face when eating the strawberry in the pilot says it all) to getting her hair brushed by Inara to feeling her engines hum to sex.
- The Doctor. Who is also the City Boy, Western-wise. Londonkds recently compared doctors on various space shows and wondered whether the fact McCoy was such a quintessential character on TOS didn't lead to doctors without much purpose on later sci-fi shows, quoting B5's Stephen Franklin and TNG's Beverly Cusher. That problem never is one on Firefly, due to Simon and his sister River being the core of the show's most recognisable arc. When Simon leaves his old privileged life to rescue his sister and smuggles her on board Serenity in the pilot, he starts a chain of events which resonate till the last episode filmed and will reportedly form the plot of the movie. As far as twists go, refusing to treat Kaylee unless Mal turns the ship (i.e. saves River) is something which I can't see any of the other doctors doing; similarly, while City Boys in Westerns usually learn from the Western Heroes, Simon gets his lessons only from Kaylee but holds more than his own where the boys (pointedly Jayne) are concerned, not by adopting their code of behaviour but by being true to his.
- The Preacher. No space show equivalent here, unless we're thinking B5 and mentor figure (i.e. Kosh I.), but Book isn't really a mentor figure for the crew. (And if he has any B5 equivalent, it's Brother Theo.) He's that difficult thing to write and act, a sympathetic and likeable religious figure. (Evil religious figures being far easier and more common.) Book-ish twists from the standard archetype are going from the little but fun ones (his hair when unbound) to the future arc related ones (the hints about his past - his competence with a rifle and his fast treatment in an Alliance hospital, as well as Early's "that's no shephard" remark; the most popular guess among fans seems to be that Book was an Alliance sharp shooter before becoming a priest, and that he might have fought Mal at Serenity Valley), and to his interaction with the crew. Getting along well with Inara in the later season episodes with Jayne, the two people one would see as his diametrical opposites, and his dry sense of humour ("yes, molesting innocent Captains") make him endearing.
- The Tough Brute. Again, a Western stereotype which doesn't have an exact equivalent in the Trek shows or B5, for that matter. There is a direct sci-fi precedent - the character of Johner in Alien: Resurrection, which was clearly Joss' first take on the character who would become Jayne. The difference between the two comes down to the Fireflyan twist of the stereotype. Some of which simply has to do with casting: Ron Perlman's Johner is crude and repellent, Adam Baldwin's Jayne is crude but oddly endearing due to a combination of personal charm, the fact Jayne often gets to deliver the punchline, and the more interesting relationships with other members of the crew Jayne gets to have. If true to Western stereotype, Jayne either wouldn't have sold out Simon and River in Ariel at all, or he would have died heroically afterwards while freeing them. This being a Joss Whedon show, he gets to muddle on in the uneasy knowledge the siblings Tam know what he did. Moreover, the horror he shows when realizes Mal knows is quite genuine; their confrontation is one of the most powerful scenes of the show.
- The Mad Clairvoyant; also, The Innocent. Most Western heroes need someone they rescue and/or protect, and Westerns being a traditionally patriarchal genre, that someone is usually female. Or a child. Or both. Cue River. Who is female, and, in the tradition of Joss Whedon's beloved Ophelias (see also: Drusilla and Fred-in-Pylea) a victim who is in some ways a broken child. Driven insane. Protecting River is first Simon's agenda and later adopted by Mal and then by the rest of the crew, save Jayne. But also, cue Jossian twist. Since War Stories at the latest, we know that River is easily the most dangerous and deadliest person on board, far more dangerous and Mal, Zoe and Jayne put together. Since Objects in Space, where she rescues the entire ship, it's also clear that she's more than capable of protecting the crew. If she is so inclined. Again, I point to the origin of BTVS - taking the cliché of the blonde monsterbait in the alley and make her "the thing monsters fear". River is the cliché of the broken innocent turned into the thing that eats monsters alive.

The Firefly universe has its parallels and precedents not just in post-Civil War America (the most obvious one) but in cinematic sci-fi dystopias based on works by Philip K. Dick, such as Blade Runner or Minority Report - much more so than in those you would expect, i.e. space shows like Farscape or Blake's 7, both shows which share the "ship of criminals in a totalitarian universe" basics. The Alliance, however, isn't your average Evil Empire, ruled by a dictator and his/her fascist army. From what we can tell, the average Alliance Captain isn't any more evil than anyone on board Serenity. In the pilot, Mal and Wash use a ruse to distract an Alliance ship from pursuing them - they set a beacon which is emitting a fake distress call. Faced between the choice of capturing a smuggler or helping a ship in distress, the Alliance captain chooses the ship in distress, which they obviously counted on. Definitely not something you'd see the commander of a SW Star Destroyer, or a Peacekeeper Captain doing (though a Federation ship in B7 could or could not do it, depending on the guy giving the orders - but it definitely wouldn't have been something Blake & Co. could have been counting on). Inara, as we learn in Out of Gas, supported the Alliance, not the Independents in the war; Book at the very least has strong ties to the Alliance, strong enough to get him privileged treatment if he wants to have it, and as mentioned before, probably fought for them. The Alliance Captain interrogating Mal in Bushwacked is inexperienced and eager, but not evil. And so on.

What makes the Alliance the show's antagonists isn't that Mal and Zoe fought against them in the war, it's that Simon and River are on the run from them. Which brings us to the one big and unquestionably evil act which can be laid at the Alliance' doorstep; the operations performed on River (plus it doesn't look like she was either the first or will be the last attempt to create… just what they were planning to create will hopefully be revealed in the movie; so far, based on her psychic abilities and sharp-shooting, "assassin" or "ultimate spy" are popular guesses). Judging by the extreme secrecy surrounding River (in Ariel, even the officials who arrested her are killed off because they spoke to her), however, the faction within the Alliance responsible for what happened to River obviously does not operate by popular mandate. If the Men in Blue from Ariel are anything to go by, it's either the company Blue Sun (which brings us back to Philip K. Dick territory - Blue Sun advertisements are everywhere in Firefly, and Jayne was wearing one of their T-shirts when River attacked him) or politicians closely connected to them.

Which makes the Firefly universe a dystopia to which there is no real solution. There is no dictator to be deposed, which is the case for Earth in Babylon 5 as well as in Blake's 7, and of course for the galaxy in general in Star Wars. There is no reason to suppose that the Alliance isn't a democracy in the sense of its citizens having the right to vote (just not for independence). There are no "rebels" which Serenity could join even if the crew wanted to; for all his issues, Mal doesn't show any inclination to start looking for comrades to fight a follow-up to the war. There isn't a single individual responsible for what happened to River; it was an influential cooperation, and even if you destroyed it, another would probably just take its place. In any event, governments trying to create human tools, whether assassins or spies or both, aren't something that's likely to change, either.

All the crew of Serenity can do is, to use a phrase Mal is fond of, to keep flying. But as in Blade Runner, there isn't really a place to go to. It's the way that counts. (Echoes of BTVS' Restless again.).

Last but not least: visuals, or art direction and cinematography, as they say at the Oscars. This is one beautifully directed show. Some of the images of Firefly that will always stay with me:

- Mal, unblinking, staring up to the sky and seeing the Independents retreat in pilot teaser
- River in a box; no wonder they put that one in the credits
- Inara and Book in profile, traditional absolution in the reverse
- Mal on the floor, blood dripping, in Out of Gas; probably the image symbolizing how deeply Mal is entwined with his ship
- Mal and Zoe entering Serenity together for the first time, with everything drenched in the warm golden sepia tone of Mal's memories, in Out of Gas
- River joining the dance and Simon watching her in Safe
- The younger siblings Tam together in their gorgeous Chinese-style home, looking as if painted by a brush of ink, in Simon's memories in Safe
- River bending to find the floor covered with woodsticks where in reality there are none (the first time the show lets the audience see what she sees, and keeps us in her pov), in Objects in Space; it's wonderful visual poetry and my overall favourite image of the show, despite tough competition
- Same episode: camera going from Early listening outside Serenity to the crew talking to River listening from below, standing like a strange doll
- Still Objects in Space: River leaving Early's ship and returning to Serenity in her space suit, smiling, and Mal waiting for her; a scene in complete silence, using the slow movements in vacuum and that there is no sound, and vibrates with emotion.

Current Mood: restless
Current Music: ...you can't take the sky from me