A friend asked me the other day; “What is it about Firefly?” For those of you poor souls unfamiliar, Firefly was a science fiction series of a different color. It combined a high tech future with low tech, western themes. Spaceships and old fashioned shoot outs at high noon; it was brilliant. It was cancelled after only a single season due to the network that aired it, and I won’t name it since I’m sure their lawyers are crazy like…a Fox. The network seemed determined to have it fail from the moment it premiered, airing the episodes in the wrong order. This did not however deter the fans from falling instantly in love with the first Sci-Fi in a decade to give us something truly unique but, back to my point.
My friend had watched a couple episodes and liked them but never really paid attention. Then again he doesn’t do a lot of Television period, never has. We were discussing Sci-Fi series other than Star Trek, his personal favorite, and I was waxing all nostalgic about the short lived and dearly loved series. Cowboys in Space; what’s not to love? The discussion of course led me to enumerate the ways in which this show impacted my consciousness and imprinted itself on my psyche.
Firefly is all about the characters. First and foremost, before the eye catching special effects and memorable score, the characters are what drove this show and pulled all of us in from the first few moments. The Captain of the unlikely band, Malcolm Reynolds or Mal, was the centerpiece. Grumpy and pessimistic, irreverent and loyal he was the glue and the one who made us all dream of being a member of his crew. While he often made noise about looking out only for himself and his crew, he often went out of his way to help others and, despite his protests, collected a motley band of society’s rejects around him. Mal, like his first mate Zoe, was scarred by a bitter defeat in a war. Rather than submit to an oppressive government he got himself a ship and chose the outskirts of society and life as a sometimes successful thief and smuggler. His ship Serenity, a Firefly class vessel so named for its distinctive look, became home among the stars and those that gathered round him his family.
Zoe was Mal’s first mate on Serenity and his comrade in the war, fighting and surrendering together. She could be as hard as Mal, sometimes more so, and understood the dark, practical core at the heart of everything Mal did. At the same time she was also his conscience. Zoe provided temperance when the darkness would sometimes get too close to her Captain, reminding him that it’s okay to be human. Also his rock, Zoe would stand with him when all others turned away, even if he was wrong though she was unafraid to tell him so.
Wash. Where to begin? He was Zoe’s husband and charmed pilot of Serenity. As he once remarked, people don’t always get Zoe and him. Where Zoe is patient and level headed, Wash is glib and often childlike. He was frequently dismayed by what he saw as Zoe’s unwillingness to do anything without Mal’s approval. They spent a lot of time arguing that point and Zoe usually won with her marriage to Wash as proof that she doesn’t always do what Mal wants. This isn’t to say they weren’t happily married; Zoe and Wash were perfect for each other and devoted. Wash was our resident comic relief, determined to point out the grim truth of any situation and confront it with a smirk…or juggling goslings, with Wash you just never knew.
The man they call Jayne. Jayne was a thug. A thug we loved for his short temper, greedy ways and uncomfortable love for Vera, his very favorite gun. The crew of Serenity would all agree the only thing scarier than Reavers is Jayne getting control of the ship. As concerned as Jayne was with profit and looking out for himself, he would sometimes display a heart at the strangest moments. More rarely even a smidgen of guilt for something he had done. He was like a man learning about himself with his shipmates as his teachers. Jayne was not an attentive student and we loved him for that too. He’s not good. He’s not evil. He’s mainly out for himself and sometimes that means helping others…or being browbeat into it by Mal.
Kaylee, the heart of Serenity; She not only kept the ship running but was the innocence for her shipmates that they had all long ago left behind. Kaylee was far from naïve, just a firm believer that everyone had a redeeming quality. She was little sister, den mother and engine monkey wrapped in an energetic package with a hopeless crush on Simon, the ships Doctor.
River. Intelligent and naïve. Meek and fierce. Intuitive and oblivious. She is a study in contradictions. She spent years as an Alliance guinea pig while they studied and dissected her brain to create a psychic weapon. They succeeded but drove her a little mad in the process. Her brother Simon rescued her and escaped with her to Serenity where they have both found an uneasy home, still hunted by the Alliance. River was rarely stable and prone to say things no one understood that would later have relevance.
Simon. Wholly devoted to protecting his sister and healing her of whatever the Alliance had done to her mind, so devoted it kept him from admitting his affection for Kaylee for years. Simon was a child prodigy whose talents at medicine serve the crew of Serenity well. Sadly for him, as talented as he is with a scalpel he is lost in social situations.
Inara. A registered companion, she provides Serenity with a certain respectability when they make berth allowing the crew to go places they might otherwise be barred from. Very handy for a band of thieves and smugglers. She is the soul of the crew, very Buddhist in her practices. She’s elegant where the rest of the crew is coarse but she never seems to see it, or look down on them for it. Her feelings for Mal, and his for her, are a constant frustration for them both.
Sheppard Book was both moral compass and enigma wrapped up together. Every Firefly fan has spent hours at least, I’m sure, debating where Sheppard came from, what he had done before turning up on the planet Persephone and crossing paths with Kaylee. He was a man of God with the skills of an assassin or perhaps a spy? Or both. He often did his best to nudge Mal onto the straighter path.
No good show is complete without its complement of recurring bad guys. Firefly had several to choose from. The Alliance, which had won the war against the Browncoats, was a constant irritant for Mal and his crew. Like any good victor, they looked down upon those who had fought on the other side. Mal’s brown coat was his subtle way of saying that though he had surrendered, he hadn’t given up.
Reavers were once described as men gone mad at the edge of space. They were brutal, unthinking and ravenous. All humanity had been stripped from them and they were the ever present boogiemen in the series. The mystery of their origins remained until the movie Serenity. They were a plague on the outer colonies, laying waste to whole settlements and decimating the crews of unlucky ships in space.
Firefly on the surface seemed very straightforward but was filled with complex themes, stories, mysteries and characters. Each episode gave us something new to ponder and often something to laugh at as well, even in the worst moments. All of us who’ve loved this show dream each day of seeing it one day return. We felt a part of the family of Crew aboard Serenity, sharing their fears and hopes and camaraderie. Alas, it will likely never come to be and we are left with a single season, a movie and a few graphic novels to sate our need.
Consigned to the special hell for shows a network didn’t want in the first place and doomed to failure before it began; Cry baby cry.
