Firefly series discussion (Spoilers!)

ProjectX2

Don't expect me to take you with me when I go to s
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I rented Serenity a few weeks ago. It was pretty good, except I didn't really understand what was going on and who was who.

TGO recommended the Firefly Box set, but I wasn't going to spend $60 on a series that might be crap. So I downloaded the episodes, watched the first four or so, and it was awesome. I then got the box set and have now watched all the episodes.

This show is fantastic. Stupid Fox for cancelling it. Firefly is much better than Serenity, and this has to be one of my favourite shows ever.

I want more. And there was only a thread about the movie, so this thread can be where we talk about our love for this series.
 
Baxter loves Firefly too gorram much.

Baxter hopes that the CW rumors are true...

Baxter talks in 3rd person alot!
 
Baxter said:
Baxter loves Firefly too gorram much.

Baxter hopes that the CW rumors are true...

Baxter talks in 3rd person alot!

What are the CW rumours?
 
ProjectX2 said:
What are the CW rumours?
Well, supposedly Nathan Fillion (Mal), Summer Glau (River), and Gina Torres (Zoe) were all seen coming out of a meeting at the newly minted CW headquarters. Not sure how much stock I put into it, but its nice to think about.
 
Baxter said:
Well, supposedly Nathan Fillion (Mal), Summer Glau (River), and Gina Torres (Zoe) were all seen coming out of a meeting at the newly minted CW headquarters. Not sure how much stock I put into it, but its nice to think about.
Firefly coming back would be ****ing sweet, but why wasn't the guy who plays Jayne(Adam Baldwin I think) there.

Firefly back on tv - Jayne = not ****ing sweet.
 
Well, if it was to come back, I presume it would be after Serenity, which means no more Wash or Book. :(

I wish they had just allowed a Season 2 before the movie, as I wanted to see more of Book's mysterious past.
 
After the movie, I am convinced Book was an assassin like the other guy in the film. Come on, they both had faith, they both fought the same way, they both had ID cards that let them in anywhere.
 
Too ruttin' right, Firefly is better than Serenity (thought Serenity is very enjoyable indeed).

My fave episode was "Out of Gas". A truly marvellous episode.

I was particularly pissed off the blue hand guys weren't in the film (and was disappointed at their outing in the Serenity comic).

I love the use of Mandarin and slang, so subtley and honestly used without intrusion. They really thought out their world well.

Also, it does seem the popular theory is Book was an operative, but we'll never know. Perhaps that's a good thing. I never want to know why Mal hates the Alliance so. I just want to see what he does about it.

Mal is such a brilliant character.

Firefly, Crusade, and Global Frequency - three shows that got cancelled and I don't think we'll ever understand why.
 
UltimateSpiderBuggy said:
Firefly does rock, but if it comes back would it have to be a prequel to Serenity? Or would they just continue on without Wash and the preacher?

Joss Whedon said that if they got a sequel, Wash and Book would not come back to life BUT they would be in the film...

I'm guessing flashbacks.
 
thee great one said:
Out of Gas was one of the best. I also really enjoyed them all.

Yep, I really liked "Out Of Gas" and "The Message".
 
I'll tell you why I love Out of Gas.

First, the main plot, the 'exciting' plot is a wounded Mal desperately trying to fix his ship before he runs out of air. It's a 'bottle' episode - for those who don't know what that is, a quick sidebar: in Star Trek there were generally only two types of episodes (across all five shows); the 'planet' episode which took place on location/set of a planet and had the characters meeting aliens and encountering weird civilisations and what not, and the 'bottle' episode which took place only on the ship and generally involved the crew getting screwed and trapped in the ship and having to fix the damn thing - which I love and it's 'framed' (it starts at the end and flashbacks). Now, in such an episode, we normally get two things - the show jumps back to before the 'bad thing' and the show steadily progresses towards the beginning; and we also get the feeling that the 'framing' is actually a big fat lie designed to hook us like a fish.

Out of Gas manages to use the tools of framing and flashback effectively, and not as a manipulative cliche. First, the show doesn't travel back to the before the explosion and then play out in a linear fashion. It hops back and forth between flashback and present, simultaneously moving both plots forward and keeping our interest. This is used to such advantage as to make Mal *dropping an item on the floor* so powerful it warrants an act break. Think about that - all Mal does is DROP something. But because of the flashbacks setting up the situation, being cut with Mal having to trek through the ship, wounded, (and with further flashbacks, detailed below), the scene of Mal dropping this piece of equipment is filled with meaning.

Secondly, the show can be told completely linearly and it would still work. Not only that, but the opening of the show - Mal bleeding to death on a dying Serenity - is not, in any fashion, a lie. It is completely what is happening. They don't make it seem worse than really it is at the beginning to hook us in. It is as bad as they say and they use it fully.

If this wasn't enough, through some amazing flash of insight, the writers thought this episode should be the 'origin' episode. So not only do we get the 'bottle' episode alternating in past and present to climax, but we also get the 'pilot' episode as we see the characters meet for the first time. By using these flashbacks in this show they do an amazing thing - they first maximise on the storytelling tools they're using: since they're already using flashbacks, they are using flashbacks to many different time periods since we're already prepared, from the teaser, for a non-linear story (however, with the exception of the very final scene, it's obvious that each of the three time periods - the meeting of the crew; Mal wounded; and Serenity damaged - moves in a very simple, linear fashion so as to keep the story simple) the addition of alternate time periods isn't too intrusive.

But somewhere, someone realised the genius of giving us, to this episode, the episode where Mal is abandoned on a dying Serenity, someone realised that this was the episode to have the characters meet.

What that simple addition did, boggles the mind. By having the characters meet it not only allowed for humourous interactions (such as Zoe's reaction to Wash, or Kaylee's introduction) but by having such a time jump from introductions to the desperate end of their time together we get THEIR ENTIRE STORYLINE in an episode. Think about that. As you watch the show, YOU fill in the gaps from their meeting to their current situation. YOU do that work. Isn't that amazing? And because YOU'RE doing the work, you are becoming very much involved with the story, which makes you care all the more about what's happening. It not only does this, but it also adds meaning to what's going on as we come to realise what Serenity means to the characters, and especially Mal, and in so doing, it comes to mean something to us too.

But it doesn't just do that. No, sir.

Out of Gas also DEVELOPS CHARACTERS. We discover a lot about Zoe and Walsh's relationship, we learn a lot about what type of man Jayne is, we realise Kaylee isn't the little innocent we thought she was - and Mal. Dear God, how much of Mal we get.

So the show works on a structural level with a clever use of flashbacks and multiple sub-plots; it effectively draws its audience into the story; it is rife with meaning and emotion; and it develops characters. This show is one of the best single episodes of tv I've seen.

And not content with all this - they even successfully saved the best for last:

The ending - Mal, lying on the hospital bed, recovering. He's about to go to sleep, he looks up to his crew/friends and says - "You'll all be here when I wake up?"

Of course they will.

And Mal goes to sleep.

And we see the flashback we saw towards the beginning of the episode - of the man who sold Mal Serenity - an obvious pile of **** that doesn't work; claiming it'll outlive him. We hear the man's sales pitch and we know he conned Mal. Then we see the man is actually selling Mal a huge, shiny, big ol' super ship.

But Mal ain't listening. He's too busy falling in love with an obvious pile of **** that doesn't work that's collecting dust in the lot - Serenity.

This final scene is so beautiful and powerful, and draws all of the themes, stories and characters to one specific point, transcending time and touching the eternal - ironically for such a brief moment - creating a timeless, endlessly repeatable moment of insight, meaning and joy.

While Firefly has many good episodes, and Serenity is quite good too - Out of Gas is an excellent episode that I can watch forever.
 
Yes, Out of Gas nearly made me cry, because of how emotional it was. Just like the ending of The Message.

It's hard to write entertaining posts after Bass does an essay.
 
ProjectX2 said:
Yes, Out of Gas nearly made me cry, because of how emotional it was. Just like the ending of The Message.

It's hard to write entertaining posts after Bass does an essay.

it's hard to do anything after Bass does something. He's like Grant Morrison.
 
thee great one said:
it's hard to do anything after Bass does something. He's like Grant Morrison.

He uses drugs and is a practicing chaos magician?
 
I went to university.

There, all they teach you is how to write essays.

But I taught myself how to be interesting. :wink:
 
Baxter said:
Baxter loves Firefly too gorram much.

Baxter hopes that the CW rumors are true...

Baxter talks in 3rd person alot!

Um...what is "CW" and what are the rumors about it?

Baxter said:
Well, supposedly Nathan Fillion (Mal), Summer Glau (River), and Gina Torres (Zoe) were all seen coming out of a meeting at the newly minted CW headquarters. Not sure how much stock I put into it, but its nice to think about.

Oh ok...nevermind.

Bass said:
Joss Whedon said that if they got a sequel, Wash and Book would not come back to life BUT they would be in the film...

I'm guessing flashbacks.

Makes sense to me.
 
I just ordered the Firefly Box Set from Amazon, it's 50% off!

Now comes the ever lasting 10 day waiting period...
 
I think Firefly was one of the best written series I've watched. My other favorites are Farscape and Battlestar Galactica(new).
 

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