A few days ago, I finished watching the final episodes of the only season of Joss Whedon’s visionary space-western dramedy, Firefly. Or as Whedon called it, one of the most-cancelled television shows of 2002.
Then yesterday, I watched the 2005 movie, Serenity, which was made to tie up loose ends in the story line and to satisfy the hunger of the cult following the original series had generated. It was curious to watch a major motion picture which had been created as a sequel to a “failed” television series.
For the uninitiated, here’s a synopsis. In the future, earth becomes overpopulated and a mass exodus leads to colonization of another solar system, one with dozens of planets all terraformed to support life and commerce. The planets closest to the system’s core are the most civilized and form a grand government called the Alliance.
The outlying planets are more hostile both in terms of geography and population. This is the frontier, untamed much like the American West of the late 1800s. This lends to the show’s Western motif and archetypes with are strangely but brilliantly mixed with Asian flourishes – the idea is Earth’s final remaining superpowers, America and China, have merged to form a new culture.
The resistance to government authority in the outer planets leads to a civil war, which is won by the Alliance. Which brings us to our heroes, former rebel army soldier Malcolm Reynolds (Nathan Fillion) and the smuggling crew of his Firefly-class spaceship, Serenity. And herein the show lies – with the adventures of a small group of outcasts and outlaws trying to find a place for themselves in the universe.
That’s drastically simplifying the show and the movie with is action-packed and vivid and hilarious, like anything you’d expect from Buffy-creator Whedon.
The ensemble cast is a mix of actors you’ve either never seen or just recognize peripherally (as in “Wasn’t she in an episode of The Shield” or “Wasn’t he Steve the Pirate?” Which, in the case of Zoe (Gina Torres) and Wash (Alan Tudyk), the answer is yes). But it gives the show the freshness I think it needs to get this wonderful, weird series off the ground.
And this brings me to this purpose of this post, which is not to promote DVD rentals and sales of Firefly, which of course I totally encourage you to check out.
But looming over all of this, is the fact that this wonderful, funny, adventurous, intrepid little TV show was cancelled – before the first season was even completed. Yes, by those geniuses at Fox who brought you just three seasons of Arrested Development.
And that’s not all. It seems I’m cursed to most enjoy television shows that meet an early demise. Take Freaks and Geeks or Sports Night. With more and more reality television usurping the broadcast waves that were once a place for shows like these, what does the future hold for finding more gems?
Sure I’ve got them on DVD to enjoy for a long time. But it still bugs me because in most of these cases, what we end up with is just an echo of what could’ve been if these shows would’ve been given a chance to grow and ripen into the full vision their creators had for them.
Like one of the hippie girls on Freaks and Geeks said to Lindsey while talking about the Grateful Dead album, “American Beauty.”
“I wish I never heard it. Just so I could hear it again for the first time.”
And yes, I know it’s just TV. But these are also good stories. And good stories should always have a chance to be told. And I think they do more than just entertain. They can be a path to inspiration, reminiscence, even understanding. And sometimes, they just give us a much needed break, an escape from the real for a half hour or so.
And as I sit down tonight to watch one of my new favorites, SciFi’s Eureka, I know I’m going to have a good time. Like I do every Tuesday night, I’ll lie on my couch or sit in the big chaise lounge, drink a Coke Zero, laugh hard and escape into the story.
But I’ll also wonder how many more times I’ll get to enjoy an episode, fresh and new. All good things must end. I just hope it’s not too soon, again.
