Firefly 12 - 14

[schneefink]

That was it? Seriously? Not fair!


The Message: Oh, Simon. The beginning was cute, then touching, and when Tracey woke up I first thought this could be interesting, but as soon as he saw Kaylee I knew what was going to happen, and when Book mentioned the Fed station I knew how it was going to end. Not really exciting. I'm just glad they didn't have Simon knock out Tracey, that would have been too much.

Heart of Gold: I want to forget this episode existed. That was just so unnecessary. In the beginning, when the one girl asked "but who would help us?" I almost shouted "the A-team!" and then came the cut to Mal, heh. When it turns out Mandy (?) asked Inara for help I had hope, but it didn't last long. Why oh why did we need a love scene between Mal and random woman who is supposedly a Companion and yet finds him irresistible for no reason at all? And hey, Mandy, good for you if you didn't know Inara was interested in Mal, but way to go and tell him, idiot. I loved Inara's talk to Mal after he came out of Mandy's room, but it was completely ruined by her breaking down in tears. Seriously? A short moment with deep breaths, hands pressed against her face, maybe shoulders shaking, and then looking up again, okay, but this? No.
The villain hates women, that's why he's evil! Strange that all the important life-saving in this episode is done by men, even Zoe is just standing there shooting. Mal and Inara have a moment over his dead lover's corpse - come on. Amazing Grace at the funeral? *hides face* Also apparently the brothel doesn't even have a midwife for some reason. And of course it only serves men.
I'm not sure how I feel about Zoe wanting children. I wish they'd left it out so I don't have to think about it.
Things I liked: River's "it's starting!", Kaylee and Wash ("tell me I'm pretty", heh. Although: they left the ship unsupervised and apparently not secured, are they stupid? And they could at least have shown something about getting the thugs off the ship.)

Objects in Space: A River episode! Poor River, an untrained and ill telepath. How old is she? I liked how she runs through the ship, picking up things (especially from Simon, ouch, and Zoe and Wash - poor River, and a double invasion of privacy), and the crew meeting overheard from both sides.
Firefly is very, very good at scary villains. The bounty hunter and Kaylee - ouch. He was obviously insane, which worked very well, and so well developed that I was surprised by his death.
Go, River, being sneaky and scary and awesome! And Simon, awww. River about Simon, heh, and Simon directing Zoe how to operate on him - and Wash with the brow-mopping! And Kaylee and River playing again! And Jayne and Book annoyed that they missed all the excitement.

I don't think I'll be able to get Serenity here, so that was it for a while :( (I've already seen it, but it was a while ago and I hadn't seen the series then.) But from what I remember there must be a long time between the series and the movie so that Book could set up his community.
And to be honest, I'm not sure I want to think about the movie now. I know how it ends, and when I watched it it was just that pilot guy that died, but now? Ow.

I'm surprised the Reavers didn't appear more often! Only twice, from what I remember: once in a ship, following them, and once the tortured guy. But there's no shortage of bad guys in this world.

Characters ♥ I love all of them, except Mal and Inara. Mal mainly because of how he treats Inara. And Inara because she's too much tell: we don't know anything about her, and while Book is a deliberate mystery with Inara it just seems like an oversight. She has a crush on Mal regardless of how he treats her, she's a Companion, she's basically nice, proud, but other than that? Meh. (I once read about "how to test if a character is three-dimensional": how well can you describe them without mentioning their profession or their role in the plot? I can do it easily with everyone but Inara.)

But the others! Simon and River, Zoe and Wash, Kaylee, Book and even Jayne, awww. I love that we get to see everyday live and friendships on the ship, that there's actual character development, and there's a lot in the background that there wasn't enough time to explore.

I'm so glad I finally got around to watching this (although I wish I could have done it without falling sick.) And I still have the bonus material. :)

Comments

[ladyofsalzburg.livejournal.com]

Yay firefly. That is all

[schneefink.livejournal.com]

Best way to sum it up :D

[mad_maudlin]

I read somewhere that, had the show gone a full season, Joss had planned to reveal that Inara was terminally ill--that's why she decided to take off and see the 'verse instead of staying in the Core. But I don't think that thread was ever picked up in the supplemental comics, and certainly not in the movie. It would've cast an interesting light on things in retrospect, but I'm not sure it would've actually redeemed some of the characterization choices.

[schneefink.livejournal.com]

Huh. Okay, that would explain a large part of her backstory, but it doesn't give her a lot more personality. And if she was terminally ill, why did she care so much about finding clients?
I have a suspicion that I wouldn't have liked what they would have done with Inara and Mal/Inara if the series had been longer, but maybe I'm being pessimistic, and anyway it doesn't matter now.

[tari-roo.livejournal.com]

Heart of Gold was kinda a train wreck of cliche and ridiculouness. But I really liked Objects in space - not as a final episode but as a good one.

Serenity was enough to tie it all up for me and I could say a sad farewell to a potentially wonderful show.

Hurrah for SGA, Castle and other tv shows :)

[schneefink.livejournal.com]

Objects in space: River as Serenity! Awww. After the Message and Heart of Gold I was very relieved that the final episode was good. My favorite is still War Stories, together with Out of Gas, Ariel, the last one and the pilot; they are how I thought all of Firefly was going to be based on how enthusiastic everyone is about it. But no show has no less-than-brilliant episodes :)

And yes, there will always be other spaceships to explore!

[sholio]

I have a suspicion that I wouldn't have liked what they would have done with Inara and Mal/Inara if the series had been longer

I suspect that you are right, especially in light of some discussion that was circulating awhile back about one of the potential storylines they'd tossed around for Inara. I found a link to it, but be warned that it contains talk of rape and general rage-inducing WTFery: here it is. This may or may not be something that they'd actually have done if the show ran long enough -- it sounds more like something that was brought up in the writers' room and got nixed for being too dark -- but that they considered it at all says a lot, I guess, about how the writers saw Inara, Mal, and their relationship.

[sholio]

War Stories, Out of Gas and Ariel are my favorites, but even through the weaker episodes, I loved the richness and generally unique feeling (for TV, anyway) of the universe they put together. Among other things, I liked how rough and dirty everything was; it really felt like a world that people lived in, where stuff was constantly breaking and you couldn't always get fresh fruit or afford the things you needed. From a sci-fi fan perspective, another thing I loved about it is that it all took place in a single solar system (I think the show was clear about this, and that it wasn't just fanon?); there was no faster-than-light travel and, in fact, nothing that wouldn't work in a hard sci-fi universe, with the possible exception of River's powers, but even that is dubious enough that there's generally no clear evidence one way or another whether she actually has powers or just regular augmented human abilities.

I liked the conversation between Zoe and Wash about having kids because I thought it felt like a very believable sort of discussion that couples have. One of my regrets about the cancellation when I first watched the series is that I would've loved to see where it went; not that I'd necessarily want to see them have kids, but watching TV couples in a sci-fi context negotiate the relationship stuff that real couples negotiate is fun for me. (Then the movie happened and I remembered that sooner or later Whedon ALWAYS breaks my heart where couples are concerned, so it's probably just as well that I didn't have a couple more seasons to really sink in.)

One nice thing about the movie is that it discards enough of the TV canon -- it has to, in order to wrap everything up in two hours -- that it's not too difficult to see it as AU to the series; there is enough that's either changed or left out that you just about can't make it fit smoothly with TV continuity anyway, so I am perfectly willing to view it as a "might have been" rather than what actually happened. (Denial: it's not just a river in Egypt!)

[schneefink.livejournal.com]

Yes, the world they created was great because it felt like it had real background, real people and real problems. (It had a strange lack of Asians when you consider that everyone was speaking Chinese, though.)
And I loved that I got the feeling that it was all about the characters, not the action.

I think I remember reading that it took place in five solar systems that are close together, but I don't remember a canon explanation.

I suspect the conversation between Zoe and Wash would have been easier to like for me if they had been able to follow up on that, but iirc by that point they already knew about the cancellation, so it feels like just a throw-away line that nevertheless has huge consequences for the characters, how I see them and how I imagine their future. (Doesn't help that I dislike the whole episode.)

About the movie as an AU: there are some elements in it that I really like, and from what I remember it's overall well done, which makes it hard to cherry-pick the details I like and ignore everything else. But I might start practicing.

I remember when I was still new in fandom and couldn't understand all the "river in Egypt" references and why people would be in denial over things happening on a TV show... Seems like such a long time ago *g*

[schneefink.livejournal.com]

WHAT. That's just... no words. If that episode would have been filmed I'm glad the show got cancelled before.

[schneefink.livejournal.com]

Also, I love that so many people love Firefly and like talking about it ♥

[sholio]

♥

Another thing about Firefly that's rather neat is that it seems to cross over readily to the non-fannish world -- there are a lot of people who don't consider themselves fannish people in general who will admit to being fans of Firefly, and make fanstuffs, etc. The author Steven Brust wrote a novel-length Firefly fanfic that is available for download on his pro site XD. And while I've never been that involved in Firefly fandom, even from the outside I've noticed that it has a lot of neat, creative fanstuff, like Notes on a Fridge (on a Spaceship), which (along with similar epistolary & imaginary-found-item fic) provided part of the inspiration for "Postcards to Jeannie". (ETA: Actually, re-reading it ... I guess I should say quite a lot of the inspiration for it! I'd forgotten that it was that much of an influence on the style I'd used in that and similar fic.)

[schneefink.livejournal.com]

I just stayed up too late reading that novel/fic xD

And the Notes on a Fridge are adorable! (Heh, good thing Ronon's drawings are less creepy ^^)

[michelel72.livejournal.com]

It had a strange lack of Asians when you consider that everyone was speaking Chinese, though.

Have you seen How Much Is That Geisha in the Window (http://fanlore.org/wiki/How_Much_Is_That_Geisha_In_the_Window%3F)? (Vid here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZr9wsZz_bk).)

[schneefink.livejournal.com]

Yes! I love Fanlore as a resource (even though they have far too few articles. Not even an entry about Wash.)

I also found 春雨 (Spring Rain) (http://archiveofourown.org/works/98108/chapters/134397), a story where Simon and River are Chinese.