:: theLogBook.com DVD Reviews ::

I have never really been a rabid fan of Joss Whedon’s work, although I have enjoyed an episode of Angel from time to time. (I consider the puppet Angel to be a work of genius.) So Firefly pretty much flew under my radar when it premiered on Fox in 2002. With its reputation having increased thanks to the DVD set, and Sci Fi re-airing the series during the summer of 2005, I decided to check it out. And I’m quite glad I did, because Firefly is definitely one of the most enjoyable series I’ve had the pleasure of watching.

Now, I will say up front that those looking for a hard science fiction story are going to be disappointed. In mixing SF with the western and throwing a little bit of multicultural fusion in for good measure, Whedon has created a fantasy universe that isn’t necessarily concerned with scientific accuracy or sound projections of future cultural evolution. I’ll gladly trade that “realism” when the result is a project with such a unique voice and flavor that’s handled by such talented people. I think it was Nathan Fillion’s portrayal of Malcolm Reynolds that really won me over to the series; Whedon and his writers gave him a very distinctive voice that combined Western slang with the “educated” formal speech and vocabulary of a bygone era. I just flat out liked hearing this guy talk.

Fortunately, he also spent a lot of time talking to interesting people, including his crew. I especially liked Jewel Staite as Kaylee, the ever-optimistic ship’s mechanic, and Ron Glass as Shepherd Book, a priest with a mysterious past that apparently involved extensive firearms training. Alan Tudyk’s Wash was a good foil who wasn’t just around for comic relief, although his attempts at being the voice of reason didn’t often pan out. I liked the chemistry between Wash and Zoe, his wife and the ship’s first mate; the relationship helped give Gina Torres enough material to make Zoe a well-rounded character right off the bat. Mal’s noble-heart-wrapped-in-cynicism was nicely contrasted with Alan Baldwin as Jayne, who used his cynicism to mask a deeply felt cynicism. (It wasn’t much of a mask, I grant you, but that’s the kind of thinker Jayne was.)

I’m still trying to work out my feelings for Morena Baccarin’s Inara character, because I’m still trying to work out my take on the show’s depiction of sexual politics. Apparently Companions like Inara are held in very high social esteem, valued for their knowledge of sex and psychology. But there are ample instances of people viewing Inara, other Companions, and non-companion prostitutes as mere objects beneath the standards of basic civility and respect. That dynamic is pretty clear in the episodes Shindig and Heart Of Gold, but it’s ever-present in the tension between Inara and Mal. The developing relationship between them developed a little more quickly than I expected it to, but the two did play off each other very well.

To the extent that there’s an overall mystery to the series, much of it is provided by Simon and River Tam. Sean Maher gradually opens up Simon, breaking down his reserve as he bonds with the rest of the crew, and Summer Glau has no easy feat as River. The brilliant but psychologically damaged victim of Alliance experiments, a lot of what she has to do doesn’t make obvious sense, but it still has to fit into the stories, and Glau pulls it off rather well. Her background as a dancer gives the character a unique physicality as well, which became quite useful in later episodes.

The main cast is pretty large, but I don’t think any of the ensemble faded into the background. Instead, the various dynamics provided fuel for a lot of different stories. In writing the entries for theLogBook’s Firefly guide, I was often struck by how relatively basic the plots were - the crew goes to steal a thing or fight with a guy and then tries to get away. I don’t mean that to sound like I’m denigrating the show; I’m very impressed that the most interesting thing about Firefly isn’t necessarily what the characters did - they didn’t fight great wars or unlock cosmic puzzles as so many science fiction heroes did - but rather how they did it, as brought to life by the writers and actors. The conflicting loyalties of crew, marriage, and war between Zoe, Mal and Wash were so much more important to War Stories than Niska’s torture; Mal’s final confrontation with Jayne was far more dramatic than the blue-handed men’s pursuit in Ariel. These characters and this setting seem ideally suited to be the kind of thing an audience would want to check out on a weekly basis.

So why didn’t they? This DVD has a few theories, chief among them being the decision on Fox’s part to replace the two hour pilot with a one-hour introduction episode called The Train Job. I’m not sure how I feel about this theory, because the two hour pilot is on the slow side, and while it established Book and the Tams’ place on the ship, it left me feeling a little curious about the others. (The flashback-heavy episode Out Of Gas filled in some of those blanks later in the season.) I was also less than clear on the political status quo of this universe; an introductory narration to each episode helped there, but those narrations are missing from the DVD. I do appear to be in a minority as far as enjoying The Train Job goes, so there probably is something to the theory even if I don’t think it completely explains things. Maybe folks just didn’t know what to make of the show’s genre mix; maybe they were looking for a more realistic SF vision, or a more epic plotline. I dunno.

What’s clear from the copious extras here is that the people who worked on this show really enjoyed it. Whedon, co-executive producer Tim Minear, and actors Fillion and Tudyk participate in multiple episode commentaries in various permutations. Other members of the cast and crew chip in as well. In addition to the commentaries, there’s a documentary that’s mostly made up of interview footage of the cast and crew that gives a little glimpse into the show’s troubled development and labor-of-love status. Another featurette focuses on the design of Serenity herself and the way the show extended its rough camera work to the visual effects scenes. (If some of this seems like a precursor to the reimagined Battlestar Galactica, it should - effects house Zoic worked on both series.) There are also some nice deleted scenes, gag reels, a clip from Tudyk’s audition tape, and the earliest version of Firefly’s theme song, performed by Whedon himself. It’s a package that took me a lot of time to get through, and I think it helps set a pretty high standard for TV on DVD. There’s not as much of Firefly as I would have liked there to be, but what is on this set is certainly worth revisiting time and again.