'Firefly'

Ever since Deep Space Nine descended into galactic warfare and The X-Files went crappy, I haven't had a good sci-fi show to watch. I never got into Voyager. Enterprise, despite ostensibly being set in the Star Trek universe, felt more like a bad syndicated wannabe. So how did I end up missing Firefly, Joss Whedon's shortlived series on Fox?

Firefly is a great hodge podge of genres -- science fiction, western, noir, screwball comedy. The show's world is cobbled together from Star Wars, Star Trek, Alien, Dune, and Blade Runner -- our hero, Captain Malcolm Reynolds (Han Solo) leads the crew of Serenity, a Firefly-class transport ship (Millenium Falcon). A veteran from the losing side of the Unification War (Rebel Alliance), Mal and his crew eke out a living on the outskirts of the known universe, where the worlds look suspiciously like the frontier of westerns (Tatooine and the like). Smuggling and robbery are their bread and butter, but they have to do it under the radar of the shiny Alliance (Federation) and its military branch (Starfleet). Corporatocracy rules the day (Alien) and the government, which is a union of the United States and China. This marriage of cultures is best represented through their everyday speech, where English is heavily punctuated with Chinese curses and phrases (Blade Runner's 'gutter speech').

Sci-fi nowadays is dominated by shallow homages to greater works (like, y'know, the recent Star Wars movies), but Firefly sets itself apart because it examines the genre's core stories that often get crowded with giant space battles and special effects -- what does it mean to be human? What is progress? Who is good and who is evil? The Alliance, although antagonists to the crew of Serenity, isn't necessarily evil. They believe wholeheartedly in their intent to civilize the known world. But what about those who don't want to be civilized? What if 'freedom' and 'progress' mean different things to the people of the outer rim? Mal robs for a living, but does stealing from the rich and corporate make it morally expedient? The lines are always blurry in the deep reaches of space, where sometimes survival supersedes morality.

While it may sound all very high handed, the show is very well grounded in its cast of characters. Despite only having fourteen episodes and one feature, Firefly managed to have wondrous, subtle growth in its characters. They're less archetypes than fully realized people, giving us nine faces to identify with. I was excited to see where Whedon was taking these people, but unfortunately Fox once again fucked with a great thing (see: Undeclared and Arrested Development). The two hour pilot, which only introduces all of the characters and establishes the Firefly universe, was scrapped in favor of a more 'action-packed' episode. Most of the show was aired out of order, and three of the last four episodes didn't even make it that far. But there is some glimmer of hope, as the feature Serenity was received well enough to perhaps merit a sequel or two. Here's to hoping.

*A couple of small gripes:
-In a solar system populated by an alliance of the US and China, how come there aren't any Chinese characters (people, not hanzi) on the show? Or at the very least tons of half-Asian people? Off the top of my head, I can only recall one Asian character with a speaking part, and she was (literally) a whore. Maybe they were going to build the TransGalactic Railroad in the next season.

-Sometimes Whedon takes the western part of the show a bit too far. I can't help but think that if you were flipping through the channels and happened upon Firefly without knowing what it was, you might think that you've stumbled into The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. (another good cancelled Fox show). There's cattle rustling, six shooters, Stetson hats, and county sheriffs aplenty. A little too hokey for me.