Firefly

I’ve been watching repeats of Firefly on the Science Fiction Channel lately. Firefly was Joss Whedon’s follow up project to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. Firefly failed to find an audience big enough to justify its high production costs, and folded after 12 episodes, although it did produce a small and virulently loyal following.

Frankly, I don’t understand why. The show tries to unite the horse opera and the space opera, but not in a good way. Firefly doesn’t try to pull off this union metaphorically, in the way, for example, of Star Wars: A New Hope. There, we have space opera tied to the fundamental concepts that undergird the Western; small groups, distance, no reliable law and order, and a dangerous frontier. Whedon tries to make the union literal by having our starship flying heroes rob trains and (seriously) transport cattle. The pilots look like cowboys, and the doctor dresses like Jimmy Stewart in The Shootist. In a word, lame.

I just don’t get it. The acting and writing are decent enough to make it mildly watchable, but there’s not enough there to justify a series. Maybe the movie will be better; one-trick ponies can have more of an impact on the big screen than in a series.