I had watched some of the episodes in the past, but this week I deceded to watch the series from start to finish.
So last night I finshed all the episodes and I play to watch Serenity and watch a documentary on Netflix. Yet I feel like I can talk about what I though now having seen teh show itself.
[SPOILER ALERT]
I'm not going to say much, but again I will point out...they show is old and I will probably spoil something....so stop reading now if you have not yet.
I think the show was merely, okay. Yeah, sorry super fans I think the show was merely okay and not really worthy of all of the reverence.
Quick overview:
THE GOOD
- Charcacters are good, everyone got a fair shake of storyline and each part was pretty well acted by the actors.
- Overall idea of half A-Team, half Star Trek Enterprise is a good one.
- Story arc for season was pretty good, that is tough when given one season
- Ship is cool, other ships are cool, some of the tech shown is interesting
- Speaking Chinese...I liked that they committed to it too (It needed more of that)
- Jayne Cobb— the mercenary is great. (I guess the real actor is about as big of a real dick as Jayne...but what can you do.)
- They punch people A LOT. A lot of characters are unrepentant jerks which is refreshing...no lesson learned.
THE BAD
- Ugg Space cowboys! I can see a QUARTER OF THE planets looking old west....but 90% of them? Yuck!
- Mal's six shooter is dumb...good god do I hate the adherence to space cowbody shit. Have projectile weapons, have energy weapons, have whatever...but backoff with the ol' west theme.
- The damn doctor comes from an Alliance planet why does HE dress like ol' doc from Little House on the Prairie? If anything needed to change it was that each planet needed to look different, different customs, different dress (or undress). Stop with the "ol west" thing being drilled down so hard.
- Inara Serra—the Companion would have told the captain she likes him. Its is in her nature to be that open, even if it is not in his nature. The struggle should have been she likes Mal, but he cannot get over that she will be with anyone she likes - non-monogamous.
I liked the show, but good god did they waste some potential with some of it. It is a shame ist only got one season, and even more of a shame that there were no networks willing to fund it or sell their rights...or whatever the hell needed to happen to get it off teh ground again. I think that is water under the bridge a decade later - I don't really see any way to get back even 1/2 of the cast to do anything.
The biggest issue with the show is yet again we have non-sci-fi writer producers making sci-fi. Jesus christ are most people in Hollywood behind on what is real tech vs possible future tech. This becomes and issue because you have people like Whedon saying, "nothing will change in the future: technology will advance, but we will still have the same political, moral, and ethical problems as today" the key is LIKE not the same - LIKE.
The issue here is for any civilization to be at the point where Firefly is the basic sciences of that age would make death, aging, cloning, robots, AI a near inevitability. To kill someone in the future you would have to literally chop their head off, take that had and vaporize it, or toss it into space never to be found. DEATH is the same...how, why, when you die is different. You can't use 1970s storylines in a 2270 world. You can do a story on death, but what death means, how it happens, why it happens, all the different ways to die (physical death, brain erasure, non-backup of brain, destruction of memory, etc) will be different.
The most frightening part of current science fiction TV is most the writers and produce are dealing with story lines that still adhere to a 1960s view of the future. If you are making a new sci-fi show for 2015 about 2115 you simply cannot ignore nano-tech, AI, extended life, cloning, brain copying, suspended animation, brain to brain encrypted telepathy, augmented reality interactions with ALL devices from a keyboard to a sex partner, new diseases, AND the very fact that it would be HARD to die if you are close to the right tech and have the right amount of cash.
In 100 years I would literally have to vaporize you, and then hunt down all the copies of your brain (to erase them). So getting shot in the heart or head 2115 is not really any more life threatening than breaking your arm. Vaporizing you whole body COULD BE about as inconvenient then getting in a survivable traffic accent that puts you out of commission for 18 months. As the said in the Pricess Bride :"Miracle Max: Whoo-hoo-hoo, look who knows so much. It just so happens that your friend here is only MOSTLY dead. There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive."
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