Back when I was a little geek growing up, there was a pretty basic divide in terms of audio-visual entertainment – there were your Star Trek fans, and your Star Wars fans. (Ok – this is probably a massive generalisation, especially if you are a proper sci-fi geek, but I’m not). I was a Star Wars fan through and through – Star Trek never really appealed that much, although I watched a chunk of TNG when it came out. Now – your Trek fans had alternatively good and bad films, and a long-running TV series that spawned a dozen other TV series’ over time. Your Wars fans, on the other hand, had a trilogy of great films (let’s not discuss the prequels at this point), but nothing on the TV front. I suspect that maybe Battlestar Gallactica might have been good here, but it was a while earlier. Personally I also liked Babylon5 very much – maybe there is a link there too.
Star Wars has been called many things over the years, but it’s usually described as a Space Opera. It is more about the fiction than the science – it’s ultimately about the meta-narrative of good vs evil, whereas ST was more about the quest for knowledge, ie the science end of sci-fi. Star Wars was great because within the meta-narrative you have multiple mini-narratives built around the relationships between a wonderful ensemble of characters, set in a vivid world that is both alien and yet familiar.
Finally I have found a TV series that fills me with enjoyment and emotion as much as Star Wars did when I was a kid. Firefly is that show, and it’s both a blessing and a curse – a blessing because it is one of the most wonderful TV series ever produced, and a curse because some blind executives over at Fox butchered and then killed it (they didn’t even show all 14 episodes that had been shot, and showed them out of order). Equally sad is that UK terrestrial TV never had a lookin – the Sci-Fi channel showed it, but it could really have done with a slot on, say, BBC2, in the way that 24 did, or Lost on Channel4 – a real opportunity for the UK public to watch it and love it. (I believe the film was better received in the UK too)
I saw the critically acclaimed Serenity (the movie which was based upon the TV series) when it arrived at the movies, and was reasonably impressed. However, the TV series blows it away completely, and helps it to make more sense and feel more complete. Joss Whedon brings the quality of character and script that made Buffy and Angel such massive successes, and applies them wonderfully in the unique future world of Firefly. The man truly can write wonders.
It’s hard to express in words the real power of emotion I felt when I reached the end of the boxset (borrowed from my sister, and duly added to my wishlist for a copy of my own) and realised that I was at not only the end of the series, but quite possibly the end of Firefly ever. And so much has been left unsaid, and incomplete, even if you add Serenity onto the end of it.
If you were a fan of the original Star Wars, then I can’t urge you more strongly to go out and buy the Firefly boxset – it’s only £20.97 at the moment on Amazon, for 4 disks (14 episodes) worth of top quality entertainment. Buy now. I don’t know if there is even a remote possibility left for Joss Whedon to do some more of this series, either on TV or film, but buying the boxset seems the best way to help.
(FWIW there is also a 3-part comic book that covers the time between the ‘end’ of the TV series, and the beginning of the film. The combined book edition is due out in February, and you can preorder on Amazon. Ditto for Serenity the movie)
mrBen
