So, Firefly...

[wiseheart]

German TV has finally decided to run it - or rerun it I'm not sure, perhaps I just missed it the first time around. Thanks, artemis1000200, for alerting me.

I've watched the two-hour-pilot "Serenity" (not identical with the TV-movie of the same title) last night, and I'm not overly impressed. Personally, I find the concept - western crossed over with sci-fi - not particularly appealing.

Firstly, it's been done several times (in Classic Trek, in Battlestar Galactica [the original, not Ron Moore's abomination]), and God knwos where else. It was stupid every single time - at least in Trek it was just an illusion, thank God.

Secondly, the mere concept of people using projectile weapons on spaceships, where hull damage could kill the entire crew within minutes is a harebrained one. I can accept it on the border planets, where there are primitive circumstances, but at least in space fights, they ought to have energy weapons. Yes, I know it's just a show, but science fiction should contain at least a grain of scientific credibility, or it's just fiction, right?

Thirdly, I had a hard time to work up any sympathy for the characters. Zoe and her hubby were okay, and I quite liked Kaylee, but none the others have any real personality and are, quite frankly, boring like hell. Perhaps they'll develop more personal traits as the show goes on - at least I hope so. I've bought "Serenity - the movie" on DVD, and I could suffer the characters better in that one, so perhaps there's still hope.

And finally to Jewel Staite. I loved her in her chipper, child-like role as Kaylee. Which shows that she actually *can* act. Consequently, her being boring, annyoing and compeltely uninteresting as Dr. Keller in SGA wasn't her fault, just a case of really crappy writing.

I'll record the show in its entirety, then re-watch the "Serenity" movie. Perhaps as a whole it will turn out more interesting, despite the idiotic settings. Nonetheless, I think I'm safe from suddenly getting the urge to write Firefly-related fanfic. The show is just too mediocre to be really interesting.

Comments

[the-wild-iris.livejournal.com]

Ah, sorry :). I really liked Firefly, though it's been a long time since I've seen an episode.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Well, I think it's a matter of taste. Personally, I don't like westerns (stopped liking them at the age of twelve, or so), which might be the reason why I don't find the show very appealing.

But at least it is sci-fi, even if not a stellar example, and finding some new sci-fi is always a delight. One gets tired of the re-runs of SGA after a while.

[artemis10002000]

I haven't really formed an opinion yet. I had barely slept the night before and spent 7 hours running from one store to the next, so by the time Firefly ran, I was half-asleep and close to brain-dead. Luckily, coffeine kept me from falling asleep, but I wasn't up to an analysation like I usually like to do right after watching a pilot. So I'll try to get my opinion while writing, which will probably mean lots of rambling and random twists *laughs*

Now, as for the "wow" factor, that wasn't there. Sadly. I enjoyed the pilot, but there wasn't the wowing "I'm going to love this show, I can't wait for next week!" feeling as when I watched the SGA, New BSG and Torchwood pilots. Which, admittedly, might have to do with me being far too tired to feel or think much of anything. I'll see that next week. It might also be because I watched the movie and so it wasn't all a brave new world feeling for me. Of course, from these three shows I only still loved one by the second season, so being wowed by the pilot doesn't really mean much in the long run anyway for me.

While I don't dislike it, I've never been a fan of western (indifferent, actually), however, I love underdog and criminal tales, so it'll be an interesting experience. The horse-riding really weirded me out, to be honest. But maybe I'll come to like these contradictions in the Firefly universe, we'll see. I can't remember the movie having such a western feeling, so it came as a surprise to me.

What I'm interested about is the comparison between Firefly and Torchwood, since both were created by writers who aren't from the sci-fi genre originally. It's an unfair comparison, of course, since the Torchwood writers have the advantage of playing in a contemporary times (mostly) and our very own earth sandbox. But still, it'll be interesting.

For a two hour movie, there was surprisingly little plot. We're mostly just introduced to the characters and their relations to another. There's a bit of world building, but without the world building knowledge from the movie, I'd be really lost about the Alliance, the Companions, the border planets and the Reavers. For two hours of introduction, they could've done a better job explaining the world to us. The movie only had two hours for everything and did a far better job. But maybe that confusion is on purpose... who knows.

One thing I really like about the Firefly universe in the movie, is that the verse isn't as fully Americanized as most. In the pilot, the Alliance merely reminded me of the Nazis with the combination of uniforms and German name of the cruiser. Maybe that's just another attempt to seem multi-cultural, but it just made it seem like the bad guys are space Nazis. Even the helmets of the ground soldiers in the very first scene reminded me a bit of German WW2 helmets in hindsight. I hope as we learn more about the Alliance, that perception will change. So far, I liked the movie Alliance by FAR better.

I can't complain about the cast. I find them interesting, though most aren't sympathetic. But then, I like unsympathetic characters, at least until their unsympathetic behaviour gets too annoying, such as Torchwood's Owen does regularly. Kaylee is by far my favourite.

In the end, I'm delighted to finally have a "full-fledged" sci-fi show to watch and can already feel the sci-fi enthusiasm awake a bit again. Torchwood, while much beloved, doesn't really offer much sci-fi compared to the fare I'm used to from growing up on Star Trek.

As for the Firefly enthusiasm, that hasn't been awakened yet. I'm curious, looking forward to next Saturday, but that's all. However, with 13 or 14 evenings to go, that's alright. After I watched Serenity, I read that the TV show has a lot of depth in storytelling and characters which had to be left out in the movie. If they're really going to tell a grand tale, well, these usually have an inauspicious beginning. So... I'll wait and see...

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

See, this is why I record new stuff that might be promising. That way, I can go back and re-watch it at a time when my brain actually works... rarely as it happens in these days. ;)

I agree with the lack of the "wow" factor. I can't comment on New BSG, as I've adamantly refused to watch that show, because of what they'd done to the original, and to be honest, I wasn't very taken with the Atlantis pilot, either. Torchwood, however, was a different matter. Even though it isn't really sci-fi, which was quite the disappointment, it was *interesting*. It let me hope for more. Sadly, Firefly doesn't... even though I enjoyed the final movie. It's a strange thing, watching a series, well, almost backwards...

I also agree that most shows are way too Americanized. That was another factor that angered me about NewBSG. Granted, thre was some spectacular crappiness in the original - as much as I'm still devoted to the old show, I'm not blind towards its mistakes - you really had the feeling that there were a bunch of humans from a different galaxy. All those mythological names, while a bit awkward (how in hell did they count family relations while only having one name?), but at least they weren't American. I read someone that Glan A. Larson even looked for actors who didn't have any distinc American accent - that's why Don Johnson, originally meant to play Starbuck, was sorted out in the end.

I miss to see a proper sci-fi show again, too. I'm so happy RTL2 is finally showing Season 5 of SGA, even though the show's far from what it once used to be. The western aspect really bothers me in Firefly.

As for the cast: I don't mind that I can't like the characters instantly. I hate Owen Harper from Torchwood, but still find him interesting. My problem with the Firefly characters is that they're, well, a bit boring. And predictable. I like biting my nails for my characters when they're in danger. I haven't bitten a single nail during the Firefly pilot. Well, later perhaps.

[artemis10002000]

I was thinking today, maybe the lack of "wow" factor is partly just because of that watching backwards. Right "now", Firefly is still in it's baby stage, the writers, actors, everyone is still trying to figure out what they want to create. But we're used to the finished, polished Serenity movie. So there'd be some disappointment. Especially with the world building, it only occured to me afterwards that maybe, the world building from the movie just hadn't been DONE yet by the time they filmed the movie.

Yeah, the English names also annoyed me about New BSG. It just doesn't make sense. In the end, so as not to break my brain, I decided for myself that New BSG had been "translated", including the names. Of course it'd have helped if the writing had been Greek or Fancy Alien-looking script #1083, really. That's what I liked about the Andromeda-verse, incidentally. While English names were used for the Commonwealth, High Guard and so on, they implied that these were merely translations used by the humans of the "real" names since all the official Commonwealth writing is in Vedran.

Yeah, the Firefly cast is a bit dull (except for gun-tooting weapons freak whom I hated right from the start, but at least he's interesting), but I think that'll change with time. I didn't find the Serenity cast boring at all and sooner or later, they'll have to grow and mature into the people from the movie, so...

Oh, by the way Owen... The first time I could actually see the writer's vision of the Owen/Tosh love was at their death. Weird, huh? *laughs*

Now one scene I really loved was the one with the market where they're picking up passengers. That reminded me fondly of the good old Farscape days. Also, we finally saw some Chinese influence, though far too little. The eating with chopsticks and Chinese terms were nice, but there's very little Chinese influence compared to the American western-style stuff. After all, Chinese is either one of the two official languages of the Alliance or it's a mixture of English and Chinese, I can't remember. I only know that Chinese was important, which was one of the things made me fall in love with Whedon's world building since I've grown so tired of the "everyone in space talks English" standard. Anyway, I'd have liked a few more examples of Chinese influence. If the languages are half and half, then cultural influences should be, too. Unless of course we're going to learn there are two separate cultures, who knows...

[glitterboy1.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry you're not immediately taken with it. Though I'm not sure that I was, either. I think it just grew on me, and turned into a show that got inside my head and made me want to *think* about it. That doesn't mean it has to be the same for you, but I hope you do come to like it.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Perhaps it will. I quite liked the Serenity movie, so I hope there'll be some character development eventually, if they reached *that* level in the end.

[ajmckay.livejournal.com]

I felt most concepts of the show had been done before...and better. Cliches all around and not impressed much.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

I could live with that aspect - there are very few truly new ideas around anyway - could I develop a fondness for the characters. Well, perhaps it will come eventually.

[lhun-dweller.livejournal.com]

I think the your record-and-watch-all-at-once strategy may be a good one. That's how I saw it: a friend had loaned us the full DVD set, and I was home with the flu. The Beloved popped it into his PC (we didn't have a DVD player at the time), and I sat bundled up on a chair and lost myself in a new world for hours. The characters grew on me, even Jayne.

And there were some subtle things I appreciated in the writing that only emerge as one watches multiple episodes. Their colloquial language actually makes sense, culturally, in the kind of universe in which they live. That's rare in TV sci-fi that I've seen. I know you love the original Battlestar Galactica, but "frack" and "daggit" were so obviously tweakings of modern English: they carried no imprint of the kind of distinct cultures implied (and gorgeously developed in your fics, which I will read carefully and review someday...).

By contrast, in Firefly, the use of "Shiny!" as an exclamation of approval and delight, like our "Terrific!" or "Excellent!" was just brilliant (no pun intended). In a life full of grunge, dirt, secondhand junk, and scrounging just to get by, something shiny *would* be special. Also, the melding of other, non-European-sounding words into the common language seemed very plausible as linguistic developments: there are lots more Asians than Europeans and Americans already, so why wouldn't their words form part of an evolving common language?

I'll be curious to hear your thoughts on that aspect of the show once you're through it.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

I saw the original BSG in German dubbings first, at a time when I didn't speak English at all, so it didn't really bother me that some words would sound Englsih. And I laughed my head off over the silly measurement units. *g*

BTW, the original uses Yahren for year, which is so obviously German that German TV changed it for karens just to sound more plausible.

I read somewhere (since I'm Research Girl, as you know) that Mandarin Chinese is the other official language of the Alliance, so that's why they sometimes use Chinese words. I hope they'll do more of that.