The Story of Firefly and Serenity a.k.a. Why FOX Needs to Die in a Fire
Once upon a time, there was a man named Joss Whedon. Joss was best known for making a little TV show called Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as well as its spin-off Angel. After deciding that he was pretty good at this whole television thing, Joss created a third show in 2002 called Firefly, to combine two of his favorite, yet untapped, creative resources - westerns and outer space.
Wait, I thought this fandom was about something called Serenity?
Before I get into cast and plot details, I figure it's probably best to get right into the "Why FOX Needs to Die in a Fire" section and explain the difference between Firefly and Serenity, just in case.
To put it in vaguely polite terms, Firefly got screwed over by FOX from the very beginning. After executives decided that they didn't like the original pilot episode that Joss and fellow writer Tim Minear had written, they demanded that a new pilot be written within three days, or the entire show was getting dropped. Luckily, Joss and Tim are godlike at times, and managed to get a second episode written.
Then, when the show actually hit the air, it was put in a deadly time zone (Fridays at 8pm), was consistently pre-empted for sports events, and the episodes were aired out of order. So, the ratings sucked, everyone at FOX acted surprised, and the show was canceled after only 11 episodes. Oh, and as a final "screw you" from FOX, the last episode that they bothered to air? Was the original pilot episode that the executives had rejected at the beginning. Grrrr argh!
Anyway, after the show failed to be picked up by UPN (or any other channel), it went to DVD instead. All 14 episodes were put into a box-set of DVDs - in their proper order, thank you very much - which was released in December 2003. Between the people who had seen the show and loved it, and the Buffy and Angel fans who said, "Eh, it's a Joss product. How bad can it be?" the DVD had tremendous sales, which only grew bigger as people watched the show and pimped it out to others. Someone at Universal Pictures - whose name I cannot find, but who is clearly an intelligent and awesome human being - saw the DVDs and loved the show so much that a deal was made to create a movie that followed the series, which ended up being called Serenity.
And there's your crash lesson in Why FOX Sucks 101. *g*
The Big Damn Show Synopsis
The series takes place in the year 2517, in a future where Earth's population managed to outgrow the resources that could be produced, forcing people to move off into a new star system with dozens of new planets. Soon after colonization, a rift grew between the "core" planets (shiny, clean, and civilized) and the "border" planets (uncivilized, and greatly resembling the dusty Old West). In order to bring civilization to everyone, the two biggest superpowers from "Earth-That-Was" (the US and China, which is why everyone speaks a mixture of English and Chinese) formed a single government on the core planets called The Alliance, and demanded allegiance from all the planets in the system. When the border planets tried to assert independence, a civil war broke out, generally called the Unification War. In the end, The Alliance won, strengthening their power and corruption, and the Independents were forced back out to the border planets.
The show focuses on two Independent soldiers, Mal Reynolds and Zoe Washburn, and the crew of the ship Serenity (named after the longest, deadliest and final battle of the war) as they work odd (and dangerous, and sometimes illegal) jobs to try to earn enough money to survive, while protecting good people, shooting bad people, and working towards saving the world from Reavers, scary people with blue hands, and the Alliance itself.
The movie takes place two months after the last episode of the series, and answers a few questions (such as "What the hell are Reavers and where did they come from?) while leaving enough questions unanswered to warrant cinematic sequels. (*eyes Joss* We're waiting!)
The Big Damn Characters
(The Big Damn Crew, from l to r: Jayne, Kaylee, Shepherd Book, Simon, Inara, Mal, Zoe, Wash, and River)
Malcolm "Mal" Reynolds (played by Nathan Fillion)
Mal is Serenity's captain, a former Independent sergeant, and owner of one of the best pairs of tight pants ever. Rawr! Mal is temperamental and sometimes quick to anger, especially if the Alliance is involved, and he's very, very good at making enemies. But he's also fiercely loyal and brave, and is willing to fight to the death to protect the people he cares about. Of course, he'd prefer if it didn't come to that death part on his end. *g*
Zoe Washburn (played by Gina Torres)
Zoe is the second-in-command on Serenity, due to the fact that she served loyally under Mal during the war (*insert your own "serving under" joke here). Zoe and Mal's friendship was born out of the trials of the war - at the end of the Battle of Serenity Valley, only 150 of the 5000 soldiers Mal led survived, and he and Zoe were the only survivors from their platoon. She still calls Mal "Captain" and is the only person on the ship who is willing to follow his orders without complaint. Or, without much complaint, at least.
Hoban "Wash" Washburn (played by Alan Tudyk)
Wash is the pilot of Serenity, Zoe's husband, and one of the members of the show's comic relief team. Wash became a pilot to see the sky - quite literally, since it was invisible on his polluted home planet. He's the nicest member of the crew, the sweet, endearing guy that you never, ever want anything bad to happen to. So, of course, Joss killed him off in the movie. Damn you, Joss! Damn you! *cries*
Jayne Cobb (played by Adam Baldwin)
For all that Mal is the brains of the operation, Jayne is the brawn. He's the hired muscle, the mercenary, the lead gun-slinger, whatever you want to call him. He's a guy with an entertainingly ambiguous code of ethics, and more brains than he pretends to have most of the time. He's also the other half of the show's comic relief team.
Inara Serra (played by Morena Baccarin)
Inara is the ship's requisite space hooker a Companion, which is sort of the futuristic equivalent of a courtesan. As a well-bred, well-educated and well-trained woman, she has a much higher social standing than most of the other crew members, which comes in handy on occasion. She and Mal share the biggest piece of the UST pie - even though they like each other, they have a very strained relationship due to his stubborn attitude, and her career.
Kaylee Frye (played by Jewel Staite)
Kaylee is the ship's bubbly and perky mechanic. She has no formal training in machinery, just an intuitive gift for making things work. A lot of people say she's like the soul of the ship; even Joss was quoted as saying, "If Kaylee believes something, it is true." She and Simon share the rest of the UST pie, only it's far more humorous UST in Kaylee's attempts to win Simon over despite his complete obliviousness to the fact that she likes him.
Simon Tam (played by Sean Maher)
Simon is the ship's doctor, although that's very, very far from where he started out. Simon and his sister River were raised on one of the core planets, and come from a very well-bred, high society kind of family. Simon was one of the top surgeons in his medical class, and was on the verge of a successful career and life when he found out that Alliance doctors were experimenting on River. He threw his entire life away to rescue her and take her on the run, and the protection that they get from Serenity is balanced out by his skills at fixing everyone up when they get shot.
River Tam (played by Summer Glau)
River is a brilliant psychic prodigy who was made psychologically screwy through experimentation by Alliance doctors. As a child, she was sent to a government learning facility known as "The Academy." While her parents and Simon believed the Academy was a private school, it was actually a cover for a government experiment in creating the perfect assassin. River was tortured and experimented upon, making her the delusional and erratic girl we all know and love. After being rescued and smuggled onto the ship by Simon, River slowly worked her way into being a member of the Serenity crew, and the journey to figuring out some of what the Academy did to her is a big part of the main plot of Serenity.
Shepherd Book (played by Ron Glass)
Book is by far the shadiest character in the series. Shepherds are the Firefly equivalent to priests and ministers, and although Book is shown to have a devoutly religious spirit, he also possesses a lot of knowledge about firearms, criminal activities, and hand-to-hand combat that are not typical of men of the cloth. In addition, he has "priority status" in the Alliance, although no one knows why, and as a warning, it's never revealed, in either the series or the movie. (Damn you, Joss! Damn you!)
Should I watch the show? Can't I just watch the movie?
Okay, I'll admit, you can get away with just watching the movie if you haven't seen the series. Lots and lots of people did just that when the movie was released. But seriously, I cannot recommend the show enough. It's so good that it got made into a movie after it got canceled! I mean, that doesn't just happen randomly. And it's not like the show is only popular because of Joss. It's award-winning too. There's only 14 episodes - with the pilot being two hours that's 15 hours of TV, 17 if you throw in the movie. That can totally be marathoned over the course of a weekend! And then you can be one of the cool kids, and understand the "big damn" jokes and things like, "Mine is an evil laugh!" (which I tried to find on youtube, but was denied - woe!) But seriously, go and watch the show, because I can only barely describe the awesomeness of it here. *g*
Wait, I thought this fandom was about something called Serenity?
Before I get into cast and plot details, I figure it's probably best to get right into the "Why FOX Needs to Die in a Fire" section and explain the difference between Firefly and Serenity, just in case.
To put it in vaguely polite terms, Firefly got screwed over by FOX from the very beginning. After executives decided that they didn't like the original pilot episode that Joss and fellow writer Tim Minear had written, they demanded that a new pilot be written within three days, or the entire show was getting dropped. Luckily, Joss and Tim are godlike at times, and managed to get a second episode written.
Then, when the show actually hit the air, it was put in a deadly time zone (Fridays at 8pm), was consistently pre-empted for sports events, and the episodes were aired out of order. So, the ratings sucked, everyone at FOX acted surprised, and the show was canceled after only 11 episodes. Oh, and as a final "screw you" from FOX, the last episode that they bothered to air? Was the original pilot episode that the executives had rejected at the beginning. Grrrr argh!
Anyway, after the show failed to be picked up by UPN (or any other channel), it went to DVD instead. All 14 episodes were put into a box-set of DVDs - in their proper order, thank you very much - which was released in December 2003. Between the people who had seen the show and loved it, and the Buffy and Angel fans who said, "Eh, it's a Joss product. How bad can it be?" the DVD had tremendous sales, which only grew bigger as people watched the show and pimped it out to others. Someone at Universal Pictures - whose name I cannot find, but who is clearly an intelligent and awesome human being - saw the DVDs and loved the show so much that a deal was made to create a movie that followed the series, which ended up being called Serenity.
And there's your crash lesson in Why FOX Sucks 101. *g*
The Big Damn Show Synopsis
The series takes place in the year 2517, in a future where Earth's population managed to outgrow the resources that could be produced, forcing people to move off into a new star system with dozens of new planets. Soon after colonization, a rift grew between the "core" planets (shiny, clean, and civilized) and the "border" planets (uncivilized, and greatly resembling the dusty Old West). In order to bring civilization to everyone, the two biggest superpowers from "Earth-That-Was" (the US and China, which is why everyone speaks a mixture of English and Chinese) formed a single government on the core planets called The Alliance, and demanded allegiance from all the planets in the system. When the border planets tried to assert independence, a civil war broke out, generally called the Unification War. In the end, The Alliance won, strengthening their power and corruption, and the Independents were forced back out to the border planets.
The show focuses on two Independent soldiers, Mal Reynolds and Zoe Washburn, and the crew of the ship Serenity (named after the longest, deadliest and final battle of the war) as they work odd (and dangerous, and sometimes illegal) jobs to try to earn enough money to survive, while protecting good people, shooting bad people, and working towards saving the world from Reavers, scary people with blue hands, and the Alliance itself.
The movie takes place two months after the last episode of the series, and answers a few questions (such as "What the hell are Reavers and where did they come from?) while leaving enough questions unanswered to warrant cinematic sequels. (*eyes Joss* We're waiting!)
The Big Damn Characters
(The Big Damn Crew, from l to r: Jayne, Kaylee, Shepherd Book, Simon, Inara, Mal, Zoe, Wash, and River)
Malcolm "Mal" Reynolds (played by Nathan Fillion)
Mal is Serenity's captain, a former Independent sergeant, and owner of one of the best pairs of tight pants ever. Rawr! Mal is temperamental and sometimes quick to anger, especially if the Alliance is involved, and he's very, very good at making enemies. But he's also fiercely loyal and brave, and is willing to fight to the death to protect the people he cares about. Of course, he'd prefer if it didn't come to that death part on his end. *g*
Zoe Washburn (played by Gina Torres)
Zoe is the second-in-command on Serenity, due to the fact that she served loyally under Mal during the war (*insert your own "serving under" joke here). Zoe and Mal's friendship was born out of the trials of the war - at the end of the Battle of Serenity Valley, only 150 of the 5000 soldiers Mal led survived, and he and Zoe were the only survivors from their platoon. She still calls Mal "Captain" and is the only person on the ship who is willing to follow his orders without complaint. Or, without much complaint, at least.
Hoban "Wash" Washburn (played by Alan Tudyk)
Wash is the pilot of Serenity, Zoe's husband, and one of the members of the show's comic relief team. Wash became a pilot to see the sky - quite literally, since it was invisible on his polluted home planet. He's the nicest member of the crew, the sweet, endearing guy that you never, ever want anything bad to happen to. So, of course, Joss killed him off in the movie. Damn you, Joss! Damn you! *cries*
Jayne Cobb (played by Adam Baldwin)
For all that Mal is the brains of the operation, Jayne is the brawn. He's the hired muscle, the mercenary, the lead gun-slinger, whatever you want to call him. He's a guy with an entertainingly ambiguous code of ethics, and more brains than he pretends to have most of the time. He's also the other half of the show's comic relief team.
Inara Serra (played by Morena Baccarin)
Inara is the ship's requisite space hooker a Companion, which is sort of the futuristic equivalent of a courtesan. As a well-bred, well-educated and well-trained woman, she has a much higher social standing than most of the other crew members, which comes in handy on occasion. She and Mal share the biggest piece of the UST pie - even though they like each other, they have a very strained relationship due to his stubborn attitude, and her career.
Kaylee Frye (played by Jewel Staite)
Kaylee is the ship's bubbly and perky mechanic. She has no formal training in machinery, just an intuitive gift for making things work. A lot of people say she's like the soul of the ship; even Joss was quoted as saying, "If Kaylee believes something, it is true." She and Simon share the rest of the UST pie, only it's far more humorous UST in Kaylee's attempts to win Simon over despite his complete obliviousness to the fact that she likes him.
Simon Tam (played by Sean Maher)
Simon is the ship's doctor, although that's very, very far from where he started out. Simon and his sister River were raised on one of the core planets, and come from a very well-bred, high society kind of family. Simon was one of the top surgeons in his medical class, and was on the verge of a successful career and life when he found out that Alliance doctors were experimenting on River. He threw his entire life away to rescue her and take her on the run, and the protection that they get from Serenity is balanced out by his skills at fixing everyone up when they get shot.
River Tam (played by Summer Glau)
River is a brilliant psychic prodigy who was made psychologically screwy through experimentation by Alliance doctors. As a child, she was sent to a government learning facility known as "The Academy." While her parents and Simon believed the Academy was a private school, it was actually a cover for a government experiment in creating the perfect assassin. River was tortured and experimented upon, making her the delusional and erratic girl we all know and love. After being rescued and smuggled onto the ship by Simon, River slowly worked her way into being a member of the Serenity crew, and the journey to figuring out some of what the Academy did to her is a big part of the main plot of Serenity.
Shepherd Book (played by Ron Glass)
Book is by far the shadiest character in the series. Shepherds are the Firefly equivalent to priests and ministers, and although Book is shown to have a devoutly religious spirit, he also possesses a lot of knowledge about firearms, criminal activities, and hand-to-hand combat that are not typical of men of the cloth. In addition, he has "priority status" in the Alliance, although no one knows why, and as a warning, it's never revealed, in either the series or the movie. (Damn you, Joss! Damn you!)
Should I watch the show? Can't I just watch the movie?
Okay, I'll admit, you can get away with just watching the movie if you haven't seen the series. Lots and lots of people did just that when the movie was released. But seriously, I cannot recommend the show enough. It's so good that it got made into a movie after it got canceled! I mean, that doesn't just happen randomly. And it's not like the show is only popular because of Joss. It's award-winning too. There's only 14 episodes - with the pilot being two hours that's 15 hours of TV, 17 if you throw in the movie. That can totally be marathoned over the course of a weekend! And then you can be one of the cool kids, and understand the "big damn" jokes and things like, "Mine is an evil laugh!" (which I tried to find on youtube, but was denied - woe!) But seriously, go and watch the show, because I can only barely describe the awesomeness of it here. *g*