Series/Firefly

Jayne is unapologetically the largely amoral muscle of the group, but he also knows when and where to fall in line. He's ambitious, but also respects his place under Mal and Zoe in the pecking order. His dickishness is mostly confined to River and Simon, who he sees as a threat to the ship and the crew.

He's a greedy, amoral asshole, but it's the kind of cast where it wouldn't feel right for there to not be a greedy, amoral asshole so that doesn't really hinder one's enjoyment of him. This is a crime show about people who do crime. Someone has to be the straight up criminal.

Ah, but see, Jayne's a bit more complicated than that. He has frequent moments of being smarter than he looks, or at least significantly more cunning. He does demonstrate some genuine loyalty (watching Simon extract the bullet from Kaylee, not wanting the others to know he ratted out Simon and River). If you take things from Jayne's perspective, rather than Mal's or any of the other more generous and benevolent members of the crew, it's completely idiotic to have Simon and River aboard. I expect he views Mal as something of a hypocrite, given that for all his emphasis on crew loyalty and keeping everyone safe, he's endangering everyone on the ship every day he keeps the Tams aboard, and is colossally stupid not to cash in on the reward because, come on, they are crooks after all. The rest of the crew are crooks by necessity, and still no doubt feel they're good people, merely doing what they have to to survive. The same may be true for Jayne, but he has no better self to prop up, or at least he doesn't have the imagination to see any conflict. Or perhaps he just does have the ruthless pragmatism not to especially care.

One of Mal's essential dilemma's is that he genuinely does feel that he is, as Badger pegs him in "Serenity" a man of honor in a den of thieves. Jayne is a crook, and entirely comfortable with it. It would be entirely too easy for Mal to become Jayne (albeit, certainly a smarter Jayne) if he let himself.

edited 14th May '17 10:12:20 AM by Robbery

I'm watching Janestown and at the scene where things are going well for Kaylee.

My God why! Why do I love these characters so much? Why do I care about them so? They're all so... moe! Even Jayne, he's such a butt monkey goofball!

I love that episode. It's one of my favourites.

Truly, the galaxy has known no greater, more noble hero than he.

edited 15th May '17 5:12:13 PM by TobiasDrake

SERENITY: NO POWER IN THE VERSE review

Just when things were getting interesting. We'll never know what Dark Horse comics had planned for SERENITY after LEAVES ON THE WIND and NO POWER IN THE 'VERSE because their license to produce Firefly comics has been lifted by 20th Century Fox. Fox has since passed this license to BOOM! comics. Except, Disney is buying all of the non-Fox news portion of Fox media so that means that Boom! is undoubtedly soon going to be replaced by Marvel. Which means that anything BOOM! comics does is going to be a minor issue.

The one thing which is a bright spot about this whole musical chairs is it's entirely possible Disney, once it has the rights for Firefly would be interested in doing their own TV show version and 20 years later they would still be plausibly willing to do movies (I know Adam Baldwin isn't doing anything else and Nathan Fillon wanted to buy it for Netflix). Okay, maybe I'm just crazy here but I still think its possible.

Mind you, I do think NO POWER IN THE VERSE was setting up a new status quo but there's a decent argument it wasn't going in the right direction. The premise is Mal gets unwittingly roped into a scheme of some unreconstructed Browncoats who have since gone for terrorism against the Alliance versus submission or running away. River is still being hunted by her deranged band of sisters who want her to drink the Operative Kool-Aid. Mal is also trying to rescue the girl I kinda remember from LEAVES ON THE WIND but don't honestly care about.

The set up at the end of the book is for Mal to start Rebel Alliancing against the Alliance and, well, that was never what the story of Firefly was about. I blame Joss to an extent for this because he is incapable of writing a government that doesn't deserve to be overthrown. Serenity the movie really established the Alliance as irredeemable. Still, I wanted the protagonists to be criminals and not heroes (unless they really had to be).

Overall, this is an enjoyable comic but like Season Six Buffy forming a new universe after sex with Angel, the weirdness of comics was making Firefly a bit too off-kilter.

8/10

I always took Season 1 to just be an Act 1. Lots of establishing ideas and characters to give hints of their future plots and developments. Its hasn't come quite into its own of what it wants to be or where it wants to end.

I'd argue that Serenity the movie shows Mal as TOTALLY willing to dip back into his rebel Browncoat side from time to time either because its the right thing to do or the wrong people pissed him off. I would 100% believe him getting involved in whatever Rebellion comes up Post-Miranda Revelation. Or whatever Rebellion wanting him to be involved.

I could also see Mal refusing, but Zoe accepting instead as a nice flip of roles. But I think the series would eventually have had to set its eyes on something greater.

Edited by InkDagger on Aug 17th 2018 at 8:41:19 AM

It was certainly a show prepared to slow burn.

I think the series was sabotaged a little by Whedon thinking having his name attached to it would carry the series, and so despite the executive meddling I can't say for certain if the show would have really taken off with proper care. One problem is I can't think of an episode that is fully committed to the premise and sells it to the audience. It's not entirely their fault, they didn't really have a budget to do what they wanted so most of the locations were any old west-style buildings they could find. So they end up going from planet to planet and they all looked the same. They had obviously modern 4x4's for transport, and it seemed that nearly all standard sci-fi elements (lasers, holograms, antigravity) besides Serenity itself were restricted to the wealthy. A Used Future is more compelling when your advanced tech is a generic knockoff that doesn't work properly. The movie did get a lot closer, as they had a decent budget to give us a flying transport.

I think it would have carried itself. I've yet to show the series to someone and for them to hate it. And I'd also like to point out that Buffy also has a 'Problem/Monster of the Week' format and I don't really remember any episode in particular standing out in its first season.

I get the impression that Joss' shows have a very exploritory first season; small episode-to-episode conflicts to challenge and establish the characters and setting while building up smaller background elements that will become the core conflicts and ultimate goals of the show.

Which is probably why Joss Whedon were able to find an audience (or, at least, Buffy and Firefly). They take their time developing their characters more than they do the actual plots. I think Firefly was more successful at this than Buffy, but that might just be me. If I can find a character I understand and hopefully identify with, I'll care more when the larger plots start catching up faster rather than throwing the cast directly into the madness.

I'd disagree that there wasn't an episode the actually incompassed the core idea of the show. I'd say the first episode is a great introduction and, as much as people don't like Train Job, I think its pretty good for setting up the Sifi Western feel. And 'Heist'/Deception plots came up a number of times in Firefly so I'd say that was pretty indicative.

I was thinking mostly that my personal favorite episode was "Ariel", precisely because it makes things very clear about the difference between civilization and frontier. With the rest of the series there was just something odd about these barn raising settlements getting resupplied by a spaceship. There was also that improvized hoop game with no rules and Book saying they just liked their freedom. Whedon laid the metaphor on really strong there and unlike Buffy I don't think it was to the shows benefit.

For me if I understand and buy the setting, then I can relate to the characters. A colorful cast of characters in an unclear setting feels a lot smaller. It's been well discussed about the oddity of all the Chinese culture and phrases and yet there was no significant Asian character on the show.

I blame that on bad casting first and foremost on that first issue. As for the setting point, the show never even finished its first season. Had we gotten to the end of the first season and the setting was still unclear, fine, but this is like Harry Potter being cut mid way through the first book. Of course a TON of things don't make sense or are unclear. The show barely had time to establish rules to then bring in exceptions and breaks to those rules.

Edited by InkDagger on Aug 18th 2018 at 3:34:30 AM

And that is still a fault of the show. When you're given 13 episodes to convince audiences and the network that you're worth keeping around, starting a story with the assumption that you'll have five years to explain everything is not a good idea. Harry Potter didn't become confident in leaving obvious loose ends until about the third book for that reason. Buffy also made sure that their first season stood alone. Firefly ended its original episode order on a bottle episode with a lot of existential dialogue.

The Tams probably should have been Asian actors, but I am deeply fond of the characters as portrayed. In fact, that is the primary problem as everyone is awesome in their roles I can't think of who I'd slide out to replace. Alternatively, Inara should have been South Asian the way she is portrayed and dressed but Morena is awesome.

Ah well.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Aug 18th 2018 at 5:14:52 AM

It was just about the time it was beginning to be common for shows to have long arcs.

Fox came to Whedon and told him "we want you to do what you did with Buffy for us!" And he said, "I have an idea." And they said, "great! Here's an episode order!" And then he made a sci-fi Western and they said, "oh God, where are the vampires and cheerleaders? Kill it!"

Notably, they got hassled so much for it they gave him an extra season of Dollhouse despite it being nowhere as popular.

That was my assessment too. Dollhouse had bad ratings with pretty consistent scheduling and they spared it instead of Sarah Connor Chronicles because what if they kill another Whedon cult classic?

I doubt it was a 1 to 1 sort of thing, but TSCC getting bumped just when it found its feet, after its first season was cut to less than half length with the Strike that season...suffice it to say I was not well inclined towards Dollhouse, even before I actually started going through it and noting its problematic elements (another Whedon staple).

Edited by ViperMagnum357 on Aug 18th 2018 at 8:04:15 AM

Like Ice Planet?

x7

But they didn't get 13 episodes. They got cancelled mid way through more than that. If given the expectation of "We have 24 episodes to develop things" and then suddenly getting the chopping block because execs decided to not air anything in order (which... even for malicious execs, that move had no benefit), I can't blame the writers. What they did get was a lot of tone setting and character establishment in those 13 episodes with the very beginning of setting development. That's about what I'd expect of any tv series (that wasn't designed as a 13 episode run) really.

As for the asian casting problems... Well, had the series picked up post-Serenity, they're in need of a new pilot. That's the perfect entrance for a new character.

The argument is that if you took the existing Firefly episodes they did make and treat it as a self-contained series that aired on TV with reasonable backing from the network (not rescued for the sake of being rescued like with Dollhouse), would it have been a smash success instead of developing a cult following like it became? I'm saying that even if the writers assumed they would get a full 26 episode season that they made a mistake in not giving their half-season some sort of resolution. Basically, the series was destined to become a cult classic instead of a hit.

I think Firefly is probably Joss Whedon's best work.

It was also trying to be very progressive and while it failed on the Asian representation front, it also is a Western with two prominent black characters so it gets kudos there.

They couldn't give it any resolution though. From my understanding, they were told that they had been cancelled mid-filming. I believe that they were filming "The Message" at the time and I think that was the last episode to enter production (Which "Trash", "Heart of Gold", and "The Message" never even made it to air until 2005). There are even some scripts for the episodes that they had planned for after Objects in Space. Unlike a lot of other shows that can usually go into the Season finale and create some kind of resolution because the entire season of 26 episodes make whole character arcs and have conclusions, 13 episodes of a 26 episode show just simply don't.

I'm sure if Season 1 had gotten to Episode 24 and then been cancelled, yeah, there'd be a conclusion of sorts (with an obvious Adventure Continues vibe because Season 2 betting), but there's no way they could have made a conclusion out of the series at the time that they were cancelled. They were told far too late and with not enough time to build into any conclusions.

If they were told during, idk, Jaynestown or something, maybe the writers would have had enough buffer room to rework the last two or so episodes to throw something together, but they just weren't given that time.

Like I've been saying, they had an initial order of 13 episodes, which is standard and essentially a challenge from the network that they have that amount of time to tell a story and convince the network to give them a full season or second season. They were not promised a full season and then told to stop filming immediately or told during a hiatus that they were not renewed, they filmed several more episodes after they were told they were cancelled because that was on their contract (almost the exact same thing happened to Angel). So for most TV shows, they take that episode order seriously and try to give the last episode a Grand Finale vibe regardless if they are renewed.

That's where I am saying the show was not very well designed in that manner. Too many things were left floating in the air and I think the show needed to become an Acclaimed Flop in order to gain its fanbase. This is not a knock against the overall writing quality of the show, and it is evoking a What If? 16 years later.

Also worth noting that they had to rush The Train Job through production because the suits didn't like the pilot as a premiere. Might've caused problems with the plan.