What a breath of fresh air. Especially when it comes to television. In particular science fiction television. For the longest time if you were watching a sci-fi show it was usually a star trek clone of some kind. Babylon 5 comes to mind. Heck that even had Chekov himself Walter Koeing in it. I thought the show was ok at best but nothing groundbreaking. Then comes Andromeda the pathetic show staring Hercules as the captain of the USS Not The Enterprise and that left me clamoring for the boring diatrabes of Babylon 5 and GASP! Even Deep Space Nine. So watching the pilot for this show and seeing how fresh, fun, witty and more importantly unique it was was a welcome change in my usual schedule of sci-fi tv programming. I had been looking for another cool show to watch after Farscape ended and I think I found it. But what sucks is that Firefly only lasted a mere season. It had everything you could ask for in a hit show. A great cast, solid special effects, brilliant writing, and it was more importantly tons of fun to watch. What the hell happened? How was this a miss?
If I were to take away anything from this show other than how awesome it was(yes I have only seen the pilot. But do I have any reason to believe the rest of the episodes won't be just as awesome?), is how badly Fox screwed the pooch with this show. Let's see don't air the pilot which is damn near close to feature film quality. Strike one. Air the episodes out of order. Strike two. Cancel the show as soon as it was starting to get a good following? Strike three. Literally as soon as the show was starting to gain traction and getting interesting Fox pulled the plug. Shame on you.
Anyway now that I have got on my soapbox. Let's talk about how this show brilliantly combines western and science fiction tropes into a very entertaining blend of humor and action. The sci-fi elements are obvious. It takes place in the future, there are spaceships and all kinds of futuristic weaponary involved that are used by the cast and crew, plus there seems to be a vast array of planets and outposts that spans across multiple galaxies. All of this alone is good enough for a top notch sci-fi show. But Firefly isn't satisfied with just that. It takes things up the eleven by adding a western element. The western elements really make the show stand out from the rest of it's peers. From it's country western score, to it's gunslinging Han Solo in training star, all the way down to the action and it's crew of smuggers and outlaws it's like Bonaza but in outer space, with punchy dialogue.
Usually Westerns are one of my least favorite genres so that genre being added really shouldn't have meant that much. But it does. It makes all the difference and is why this is a show that I will be watching the rest of sometime soon as well as the feature film again and hopefully I will understand what the hell is going on this time around.
Firefly fans. Here is a fun video with a bunch of drunks playing the Firefly board game while shitfaced out of their minds. Loads of fun to watch even for people who aren't fans of the show.
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