Finding Firefly
Posted in geek speak, sports TV and current events
After my near-psychotic addiction to The Big Bang Theory a few weeks ago I decided that I had to look for something else to quench my thirst for entertainment while I wait for Penny and Leonard to come back in September for season three. So I scoured the world wide thingamajiggy and I found Firefly. No that's not about my adorable blog buddy Firefly, who we all think about lately due to recent events in her life. Cheer up Firefly, wink wink. I'm talking about Firefly, the show created by acclaimed writer-slash-director Joss Whedon that aired on the FOX network way back in 2002. I remember seeing an episode or two of Firefly a couple of years back and I found the show very interesting. That was where I first saw Summer Glau, before she had me hooked on her Terminator stint. She played the character called River Tam, who apparently had psychic abilities. Then I heard Firefly being talked about on The Big Bang Theory - with the main characters being geeks and all - and Summer herself appeared as a guest on the show. So I thought that was it; I'm downloading Firefly.
The story revolves around a spacecraft, a Firefly-class vessel called Serenity, and its crew. Set in a future where moons have been terraformed to become capable of supporting life and the universe is governed by the Alliance, the crew members of Serenity venture into the depths of space in order to eke out a living doing odd jobs that usually involve transport of cargo, be it legal or not. What interests me most is despite having aired only 14 episodes the show has managed to play out so many different aspects of humanity. Yes it is a science fiction series, but all the characters are human. No aliens. A show set in the future, with spaceships and lasers but no aliens. How often do you come across something like that?
Another interesting point is that I never realized there was such a term as "space westerns". Pardon my ignorance. It's like watching those old western movies with sheriffs and tumbleweed, with a dash of Star Trek. Firefly talks about human courage and friendship over adversity and diversity. The show even traipsed over the topic of lesbianism, although for the life of me I can't see why they even had to. I'm not complaining though. Oh no.
Too bad the series only lasted one season. I personally thought it wasn't that bad. In fact, search the net and you'd be surprised to see that a larger part of the show's popularity emerged after its cancellation. A full feature film based on the defunct Firefly series called Serenity was released by Universal Pictures in 2005.
Now that's one hot Summer.
Now that's one hot Summer.
