Firefly - The Complete Series

The world is divided into people who get Firefly and people who don't. In this series Joss Whedon created one of the most realistic post-war visions of the future ever committed to tape, that at the same time spoke about yesterday and today. Maybe a little too much today for its own good.

The series is anti-corporate, anti-government and, while it takes the stand that some things are worth fighting for, it is largely anti-war. No wonder FOX did everything in its power to kill it off, including airing episodes out of order, skipping weeks after airing only three eps and, inevitably canceling the show without even airing episodes 12, 13 and 14 (out of 15). This was particularly damaging, as Firefly had a greater sense of ongoing plot than any other Whedon series in its first year. Viewers were left wondering, on more than one occasion, when a character would reference something we hadn't seen yet.

The backstage dramatics aside, Firefly is intelligent and, like Buffy, mythic - except this time Whedon is dealing with the myth of America: the Frontier, the Civil War, the rise of the Corporation, etc . . .

Firefly is a demanding show. It asks its audience to appreciate the shades of Grey in its characters' moral scale. The villains are not comfortingly dressed as an alien race. In 500 years mankind will still be its own worst enemy. Technology will be in the hands of a privileged few, and others will in "The Black" - Whedon's frontier third world - where it is possible to exist without the interference (or benefit) of civilization and government. Things will be dirty, and used. Firefly creates a universe that almost totally opposes that of (that bastion of television sci-fi) Star Trek: its Federation-like central power (the Alliance) is interpreted as being oppressive and dystopic. We are on the side of those who resisted (like the Maqui) and lost.

The acting is strong, the writing as excellent, funny and moving as on any Whedon show, and the effects and sets create a consistent, believable world. It is a shame the series didn't have a more hospitable environment in which to grow and become all it could have been.

As my brother said, this is Star Trek should have been. It's funny, but it also has more layers than that and the characters have various strengths and weaknesses. You know, like real people. Not like the cardboard cutouts in most TV series, who each have one defining characteristic.

The only flaw is the Inara character, who is a "Companion," the polite name for a unionized hooker. Sometimes this is used to advance the plot, but there are a number of sex scenes (fairly explicit for prime time TV) which serve no purpose except to fill time. So you might want to put the little ones to bed as you enjoy this fine series.

At first it looks and sounds light and even amateurish, and then you understand it is fully positioned on another level. It is a mixture of several genres within the frame of a science-fiction film entirely contained in , and around, a special spaceship called Serenity, a spaceship that is a firefly, a bug, a burning insect. The first genre is the functional and psychological happenings within a team of nine people who are together for both the best and the worst, in order to transform the worst into the best, or at least the better by being together. The team is limited to nine people, a perfect diabolic and satanic number, and no manipulation like Serenity is the tenth character will take that dimension away. Nine is perfect because you always have at least one who is totally set apart from the regrouping of people into couples or pairs. And in the end you wonder who is the one who is really apart, who is totally odd, alone because of the various and subtle compositions with only one couple that is really defined as such and all the others being transient, multiple, varied, changing, shifting at various levels of possible realization. In a way it is Star Trek revisited but without all the hullaballoo that goes along with the soldiers, the mechanics, the petty personnel of a flagship. The second genre is of course, recurrent and varied too, the western but in many realizations too. Of course we have the very traditional space western or space cowboy film, like in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, seen from the point of view of the driver marooned on the side of the road after having been forced to lend his car. But there is more. We can think of other models: Dead or Alive, Bonanza (even), Mad Max, a vague allusion to Star wars with the Alliance, a lot of Jules Verne, William Gibson and a few others, even at times, though they might not know it, Ron Hubbard, and the bordello in the desert is so close to some Indian bordello in some Bollywood classic. We do not have John Wayne and the Indians, but we can afford not to have that genocidal side of the western. The next genre is more trendy and modern with some kind of loose and yet very emotional sensual, erotic even, life or imagination. Many allusions, visual or linguistic, and even here and there an allusion to gay people, slack, as they come up like in one episode, though this side of personal life is warded off nicely, and the allusion to crazy, insane and yet envisaged incest was purely rejected from the series and is a supplementary scene, meaning, a censored one, even if self-censored. We could go on for ever with that game. But what is important is that the film or the series is highly original in the end. It is deeply human and humane, deeply attached to justice and fairness, even with someone who trips into treachery for a slight moment, or one episode. At the same time it is ruthless and even maybe cruel by indifference like when bringing the millionaire to the easy lady he had made pregnant and whose child he had tried to steal knowing that he was going to be shot blank on the spot by the mother, or also when they get rid of the bounty-hunter by just pushing him into space where he is going to die slowly, except of course if he shortens his life himself and commits suicide. The series is also highly imaginative and each episode really has a knack and appeal of its or their own. We enter the episode and we will be released only when the case is concluded. Each episode is perfectly self-contained, even when what is announced in one episode does not take place in the next one because the announcement is the punch line of the concerned episode and it would unbalance the next episodes if it were made true. So they whirl around with a pirouette, when they bother, or they just forget, or they think of it and discard it to the supplementary scenes. Self-containment is the best quality of each of these episodes. In other words quite a successful series that, it is true, found its magic achievement in that final symbolic metaphoric blending of Serenity and River, of the escaping spaceship and the mentally disarrayed girl. Then the team is one and the odd shot of that team becomes the heart and soul of it in this final blending. The route has been run from the beginning to the end and the final harbor has been reached beyond all the deserts and dangers possible. They can live happily ever after. There is a certain fairy tale dimension in this series, and it is one of its stronger assets.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines

A wonderfully mixed crew of nine, and raw space adventure
I am so sorry ended too soon. Terrific set.

I can't say enough good thing about the actual content of this set. The series is fantastic, and unfortunately way too short. (Thanks a lot FOX). The only reason this isn't a five star review is because the production values on the dvds themselves are really terrible. The menus are simpler than something a three year old can make with iDVD, and the cases are like the cheap ones they put the discs in for the dollar DVD bargain bin at most discount stores. I hope the upcoming bluray release gets more attention.