Firefly: The Complete Series

Firefly is one of those series that gets all sorts of geeks up in arms about its premature cancellation. I never really paid much attention to it but it sounded alright- a sort of sci-fi/western crossbreed. So I finally gave it a shot recently and I can say I'm impressed, but not depressed over its cancellation. Firefly's a very fun show to watch- basically in the future the fringe parts of the universe are populated but uncivilized and are very similar the the Old West frontier. Our plucky hero, captain Malcolm Reynolds leads a crew on his smuggling space-ship, carrying out mostly illegal jobs just to make a living. At the start of each episode, one of two main characters gives out a spiel that covers the basic point of the show, and each ends with a line that'll help you understand what it's all about- "You got a job, we can do it- don't much care what it is." and "Find a crew, find a job, keep flying." There's little in terms of overarching plot aside from a general sense of avoiding the galactic government and a subplot where the ship's newest crew members, a doctor and his sister, try to figure out why the sister got brainwashed, but at the end of the prematurely cancelled series it's still very much unresolved. As such the episodic nature can produce some very different results but for the most part I found the episodes enjoyable. That said even though I know there's a movie I'll be able to watch, Serenity, that wraps the whole thing up, I wouldn't be too sad if I never saw any more Firefly. It's a fun show, but it also feels like it would have fit in with the late-90's Saturday afternoon fantasy shows like Xena, Hercules, and Jack of All Trades. I'm sure this is a better show than all of those, but getting into wacky adventures and action just doesn't seem to work as well in primetime.