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Firefly/Serenity First Impressions [Spoilers in Tags.]
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(Searches around for good opening post. Hmm. I'm sure I put it here somewhere).
Ah well. Never mind. You'll have to excuse me on account of my clumsiness if only because I'm so fricking excited. You see people have been gently encouraging me to watch this for a while and, now that I'm all done with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it's finally time for me to start. I wasn't so sure if this little experience warranted a thread or not at first but other people seem up for it and quite frankly if Deal or No Deal gets one - if not several - then so should this. Besides, I'm all for promoting productive discussion and this sub-forum looks like it needs some Firefly love. That, and it seemed highly appropriate to start a thread about space in this week of weeks. Ready? Then let's begin!
Serenity
- The first episode is an hour and a half? Cool! Great way to spend a Saturday night.
- So many things are called Serenity. The episode, the movie, the ship, the valley...
- I don't pretend to have much of a clue what's going on but the scope is good. I'll give it that. And to think I thought the episode would open with Mal and the crew pointing out the inaccuracies of Star Trek...
- I also don't want to spoil those who haven't seen it but Oh My God it's *him* from Dollhouse! And this is seriously surreal but I have a friend whose exactly like him. Well not exactly because she's a girl but all the same she 'plays' with those exact two dinosaur toys. I'm going to make sure she hears about this for sure.
- Random thought but I always used to think that the ship was called Firefly. It wasn't until recently that I realised my error but it's an easy enough mistake to make I guess.
- The main baddies are Evil Chinese Space People? It makes a nice change from it being Russians I suppose.
- ... I'm doing a lot of guessing and supposing, aren't I? But then again can you really blame me? I think it's fair to say that the viewer has been well and truly thrown in at the deep end. I'm not really complaining though. Whilst it's proving somewhat hard to digest all this new information, on the plus side the characters already feel so defined because they've known each other in some cases for six years or more.
- I wasn't really paying attention to the lyrics - more so the visuals - but the theme song is pretty good so far. It didn't dawn on me until after the end credits rolled however that it was the first Whedon titles to use actual vocals.
- Kaylee really loves the Captain doesn't she?
- Oh wait. It's two different people. This is why I don't usually comment on sex scenes. In fairness though, I didn't see who it was because I sort of didn't know where to look.
- 'Not Grandpa' is great.
- Mark Sheppard! He's in everything.
- I figured Patience would be a young, hot woman - an ex-dalliance of Mal's perhaps? Is she actually an old lady though?
- Yeah, cause he's (Simon) not evil...
- It was bugging me all episode whereabouts I recognised Dobson from and I had to go look up it after the episode ended. He's been in a lot of things but I know him best from playing two different characters on Buffy and Angel.
- Random thought - you'll soon get used to these if you've never *met* me before - but I'm impressed by how much I remember the Firefly characters. Mal, Zoe, Jayne, Simon (and later, River.) I've heard of them all at some point before.
- 'She's a ****, Shepherd.'
- Although you could argue it's unoriginal, I think that aspect of Inara's character is pretty interesting as well.
- The scene at the dinner table was great. Mal, Kaylee and Book are quite possibly my favourites so far.
- I can understand why they're using Chinese words every so often (I know what the premise of the Alliance is - America and China, right?) but I also sorta don't? Are there only two languages now left in the worlds?
- Speaking of which, I think it's relatively obvious that the doctor won't turn out to be their mole. That'd be all the tension of the episode gone.
- No don't kill Kaylee off. She's the nicest one.
- Is the woman in the crate a clone or some kind of artificial life?
- River Tam! (For those wondering how I know who so many of the characters are, I believe David Tennant is a Firefly fan. I looked up it ages ago in conjunction with that).
- The story behind her's quite interesting too.
- Jayne strikes me as being a bit larger than life (?) but I quite liked the 'torture' scene. It's a good performance from Adam Baldwin as well.
- It might not happen this episode and it might not happen the next but the Firefly crew are definitely going to cross paths with the Reavers at some point. I feel like I should be more afraid of them though (and this is coming after Zoe's description of what they would do!)
- Kaylee no.
- 'You are psychotic.'
- Mal's comment about his crew in effect being the underdogs and still managing to win was fantastic.
- I like how Jayne's pretty much Tarzan; wild eyes and insane. When that stray bullet randomly hit the Captain was that from him?
- Stop shooting members of the Firefly crew! I'll also be very surprised if Kaylee survives back on the ship.
- Mal to the rescue made me smirk. I imagine the Gorram Reavers are going to get the lawman's body?
- The scene where the crew escaped from the Reavers was much more suspenseful the first time imo.
- Perhaps my favourite encounter in the episode was right at the end between Mal and Jayne. I'm glad if a little taken aback that they addressed their little 'spat' this early on.
- To conclude, I think this was a pretty strong introductory episode. There was some fantastic dialogue and character moments - largely from Mal - and I feel it set up the universe particularly well. Like, there are so many questions that I want to see answered - who or what are the Reavers? Is a back birth exactly what I'm imagining? Oh, and when are the Brown Coats going to make an appearance? I didn't realise they belonged in the Firefly universe until earlier on when I was Googling a transcript from which to mine quotes from. Honest to God, I've spent so many years thinking - for some reason - that they were from Fringe! I suppose the only major criticism against the episode I have is that there were perhaps too many ideas and they didn't necessarily all mesh together that well. Ultimately though - unlike Book - I think I made the right decision by choosing to take a (long overdue) sojourn on the Serenity ship.
Ah well. Never mind. You'll have to excuse me on account of my clumsiness if only because I'm so fricking excited. You see people have been gently encouraging me to watch this for a while and, now that I'm all done with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it's finally time for me to start. I wasn't so sure if this little experience warranted a thread or not at first but other people seem up for it and quite frankly if Deal or No Deal gets one - if not several - then so should this. Besides, I'm all for promoting productive discussion and this sub-forum looks like it needs some Firefly love. That, and it seemed highly appropriate to start a thread about space in this week of weeks. Ready? Then let's begin!
Serenity
- The first episode is an hour and a half? Cool! Great way to spend a Saturday night.
- So many things are called Serenity. The episode, the movie, the ship, the valley...
- I don't pretend to have much of a clue what's going on but the scope is good. I'll give it that. And to think I thought the episode would open with Mal and the crew pointing out the inaccuracies of Star Trek...
- I also don't want to spoil those who haven't seen it but Oh My God it's *him* from Dollhouse! And this is seriously surreal but I have a friend whose exactly like him. Well not exactly because she's a girl but all the same she 'plays' with those exact two dinosaur toys. I'm going to make sure she hears about this for sure.
- Random thought but I always used to think that the ship was called Firefly. It wasn't until recently that I realised my error but it's an easy enough mistake to make I guess.
- The main baddies are Evil Chinese Space People? It makes a nice change from it being Russians I suppose.
- ... I'm doing a lot of guessing and supposing, aren't I? But then again can you really blame me? I think it's fair to say that the viewer has been well and truly thrown in at the deep end. I'm not really complaining though. Whilst it's proving somewhat hard to digest all this new information, on the plus side the characters already feel so defined because they've known each other in some cases for six years or more.
- I wasn't really paying attention to the lyrics - more so the visuals - but the theme song is pretty good so far. It didn't dawn on me until after the end credits rolled however that it was the first Whedon titles to use actual vocals.
- Kaylee really loves the Captain doesn't she?
- Oh wait. It's two different people. This is why I don't usually comment on sex scenes. In fairness though, I didn't see who it was because I sort of didn't know where to look.
- 'Not Grandpa' is great.
- Mark Sheppard! He's in everything.
- I figured Patience would be a young, hot woman - an ex-dalliance of Mal's perhaps? Is she actually an old lady though?
- Yeah, cause he's (Simon) not evil...
- It was bugging me all episode whereabouts I recognised Dobson from and I had to go look up it after the episode ended. He's been in a lot of things but I know him best from playing two different characters on Buffy and Angel.
- Random thought - you'll soon get used to these if you've never *met* me before - but I'm impressed by how much I remember the Firefly characters. Mal, Zoe, Jayne, Simon (and later, River.) I've heard of them all at some point before.
- 'She's a ****, Shepherd.'
- Although you could argue it's unoriginal, I think that aspect of Inara's character is pretty interesting as well.
- The scene at the dinner table was great. Mal, Kaylee and Book are quite possibly my favourites so far.
- I can understand why they're using Chinese words every so often (I know what the premise of the Alliance is - America and China, right?) but I also sorta don't? Are there only two languages now left in the worlds?
- Speaking of which, I think it's relatively obvious that the doctor won't turn out to be their mole. That'd be all the tension of the episode gone.
- No don't kill Kaylee off. She's the nicest one.
- Is the woman in the crate a clone or some kind of artificial life?
- River Tam! (For those wondering how I know who so many of the characters are, I believe David Tennant is a Firefly fan. I looked up it ages ago in conjunction with that).
- The story behind her's quite interesting too.
- Jayne strikes me as being a bit larger than life (?) but I quite liked the 'torture' scene. It's a good performance from Adam Baldwin as well.
- It might not happen this episode and it might not happen the next but the Firefly crew are definitely going to cross paths with the Reavers at some point. I feel like I should be more afraid of them though (and this is coming after Zoe's description of what they would do!)
- Kaylee no.
- 'You are psychotic.'
- Mal's comment about his crew in effect being the underdogs and still managing to win was fantastic.
- I like how Jayne's pretty much Tarzan; wild eyes and insane. When that stray bullet randomly hit the Captain was that from him?
- Stop shooting members of the Firefly crew! I'll also be very surprised if Kaylee survives back on the ship.
- Mal to the rescue made me smirk. I imagine the Gorram Reavers are going to get the lawman's body?
- The scene where the crew escaped from the Reavers was much more suspenseful the first time imo.
- Perhaps my favourite encounter in the episode was right at the end between Mal and Jayne. I'm glad if a little taken aback that they addressed their little 'spat' this early on.
- To conclude, I think this was a pretty strong introductory episode. There was some fantastic dialogue and character moments - largely from Mal - and I feel it set up the universe particularly well. Like, there are so many questions that I want to see answered - who or what are the Reavers? Is a back birth exactly what I'm imagining? Oh, and when are the Brown Coats going to make an appearance? I didn't realise they belonged in the Firefly universe until earlier on when I was Googling a transcript from which to mine quotes from. Honest to God, I've spent so many years thinking - for some reason - that they were from Fringe! I suppose the only major criticism against the episode I have is that there were perhaps too many ideas and they didn't necessarily all mesh together that well. Ultimately though - unlike Book - I think I made the right decision by choosing to take a (long overdue) sojourn on the Serenity ship.
0
Comments
Mal: [Standing next to Jayne] I'm standing right here.
Jayne: You're coming through good and loud.
Mal: 'Cause I'm standing right here.
The treatment the show had by FOX was appalling. It was given the worst slot any show can be given and the pilot wasn't aired until much late in the show run, and like any pilot, the pilot set the show up so any episodes aired before would of confused viewers and caused them to change the channel.
Browncoats was the nickname of the people who fought the Alliance, so Mal and Zoe are/were Browncoats.
You may find the 2nd episode a bit redundant with regards to Character introduction as "Serenity" wasn't liked by the network and "The Train Job" was shot as a 2nd Pilot and was the first episode shown.
It weren't too bad if you like men, either.
While I don't agree with a lot of what Little Monster has just said - average !!, I do agree with the last paragraph, the show was absolutely shafted by Fox, who just didn't get it and didn't give it a chance. The didn't like the original pilot and Joss ended up writing The Train Job (now shown as episode 2) as an alternative pilot at the last minute over a weekend.
It's criminal it ended when it did, but at least we got the movie, which I urge you to watch after you have finished watching the series
Just one word left to say - Shiny
The film thankfully explains what was happening and the cause of the reavers.
If the series had been more scifi like the film was, I'm sure it would have done even better.
Nathan Fillion - recurring role as Caleb in Buffy, then in desperate housewives and has hit the big time in Castle. Also did Dr Horrible.
Gina torres - established anyway but would go on to be Jasmine in Angel and be a series regular in Suits. Plus many television guest appearances such as Hannibal and Pushing daisies.
Alan Tudyk - Played Alpha in Dollhouse, series regular in suburgatory and voice over roles in Wreck it ralph and Frozen
Morena Baccarin - Recurring role in stargate sg1, Starred in the short lived remake of V, earned an emmy nomination on Homeland and now recurs on Gotham
Adam Baldwin - Already established but would go on to do 5 seasons of Chuck and now does The Last Ship
Jewel Staite - recurring role in wonderfalls and did the last two seasons of Stargate atlantis
Sean Maher - Guest appearances in shows like Arrow and The Mentalist. Played a big role in Joss whedon's much ado about nothing
Summer Glau - Gone to be a bit of sci-fi veteran with roles in The 4400, Sarah connor chronicles, Alphas, The Cape and Arrow. Although if Summer glau is a regular in a show, you can bet it will be cancelled after a season or 2.
Ron Glass - Appearances in SHIELD, CSI and Major crimes.
Also appears as horribly racist baseball manager Ben Chapman in the Jackie Robinson biopic '42'.
Firefly is sci-fi. But like any good show (regardless of time period or genre), it's more character-driven and gritty, rather than being all about clean spaceships and a life very unlike anything we've ever known. In a way, the future presented in Firefly is far more believable.
Firefly will always hold a special place in my heart. It's like the crew of that ship are part of my family. For a brief period their lives were part of mine, and there aren't many shows, let alone sci-fi, that can make you feel that.
Mal's return and dealing with the lawman was my favourite scene, and the one that got me hooked (or would have done, if I hadn't already seen the movie). It had been said earlier that Mal wouldn't dare kill an Alliance lawman because of the repercussions. Not so. I think the real reason Mal didn't just kill him earlier was what he said to Simon at the end. Paraphrasing, "I won't shoot you in the back. If I shoot you, you'll be awake and facing me with a gun in your hand". It's a good pilot for setting out the characters like that.
I was trying to avoid quoting long blocks of text but that bit was great.
Interesting. You're the first person I've seen who hasn't been overwhelmingly positive. Not that I'm trying to vilify you for your opinion or anything - your logic about the show never really being given a chance to take off is a perfectly valid reason not to like it imo.
Whatever happens, I'm looking forward to seeing how the story unfolds.
I just knew before it looked it up that it'd aired in the Friday night death slot. Ouch! You'd figure that Fox would have faith in Joss Whedon's vision or something but nope!
Ah I see. Thanks for explaining. I heard of them a few years ago at a Doctor Who Comic Con Panel (someone wondered if there'd be a crossover or something) and I always assumed they'd be related Fringe because I believe it deals in similar stuff - parallel universes and whatnot?
Re episode 2: That's interesting. Still, I guess it might be interesting to see the show tackles an introductory episode from a different angle?
ETA: I liked Mal and Simon's chat too. Although his ethics feel extremely familiar - including his disciplining of Jayne earlier on at the table - I feel like they add an interesting dimension to the story. Aside from maybe River Tam and possibly Book, his character's the one I'm intrigued by the most.
I am difficult to please when it comes to sci-fi shows. Normally the shows everyone raves and loves, are the ones i normally do not think much too. I try to give valid reasons for why i don't like things. I can't stand it when people just label something as crap and boring, because it isn't really a valid explanation to explain why.
Actually, I believe there's only 1 language.
The top 2 most common languages are mandarin (#1) and english (#2)... it only makes sense that once you start treating Earth as a whole (which is what happens once there's space colonization.. you no longer differentiate by country, but by planet), and give it 500 years, the end result is a single language using english and mandarin mixed together.
What's funny is the opposite is happening today in China. I've seen several chinese movies where they all speak mandarin, but swear in english.
Like a leaf on the wind.
The film is much better than the series. Mainly because it keeps it tight.
Joss has said that the film is based on the story arc of what would have been season 2, if there had been a season 2. There are some similarities, as they have to establish the characters etc as not everyone seeing the film would be familiar with the TV show, it certainly isn't just a repeat of the series on film though.
As for it being better, I love the film, I've seen it so many times I could probably quote you most of the script, I don't think it is better though, just different and bigger scale, just as you would expect from a movie - it's a shame we never got the chance to see what the TV show could have developed into, with a few seasons under it's belt I think it would have been magnificent - mind you if this had happened then we would never have got the film.
Pacing has been the trouble with a lot of shows recently.
Most have gone way too slow.
One of the few shows that I think has got the pacing right is 'Person of Interest'. It gives just enough plot so you have an idea where it is going, but not enough to give the game away.
The plot for the film should have been for at least the last half of season 1, overlapping into season 2, rather than starting in season 2.
Me too.
Frankly, before I joined DS I had never heard of the show and got curious as to why a prog that was cancelled so quickly had such a loyal following. So curious that I checked them out on Amazon and ordered the series and Serenity at the same time as they were dirt cheap.
I binge watched them in a day as I simply couldn't stop as it was so riveting.
I LOVE Kaylee, Jewel played her to the hilt......