“FIREFLY,” WN Sci-Fi
reviewed by Stephen Clark
‘Take my love/take my land/ take me where I cannot stand/
Burn the land/ boil the sea/ you cannot take the sky from me.’
This was the opening theme to FIREFLY, a boot camp/cowboy song with fiddles and guitars instead of electronic music. In 2002, FIREFLY was a sci-fi show that led a brief but exciting life, not even completing a full season. Centering around the adventures of Mal, a former soldier in a failed rebellion against the Alliance of inner planets, he and his crew on the SERENITY, a FIREFLY class of of obsolete ship, tried to make a living in the outer planets, which looks like the American west, with horses, six-shooters, and a code of survival that is more John Wayne than Captain Kirk. FIREFLY only lasted for fifteen episodes, three of them never aired. Its creator, Josh Whedon, had a good TV track record with BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER and other shows. Why did it fail? Fans blamed the lack of showing the pilot first, of network TV’s dislike of sci-fi, but I think it had too many WN elements in it to get a chance.
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