Puck’s Blog

Just finished the watching the final episode on the Firefly DVD Set as well as most of the Special Features. There should be a word for “overwhelmed by a loss of potential future greatness that you can do nothing about”. I wonder if the Germans have one — they seem to have words for all sorts of complicated communications.

In case you haven’t seen me beaming about Firefly before, listen up. It’s the best first season of a science fiction show ever. Thing is, if you look back, that really isn’t saying much, except perhaps the original Star Trek series. But other than that, take a look:

Star Trek: TNG’s first season was uneven, unfun, and plastic looking. Later on after the actors and writers felt more comfortable with the characters it became a fine show.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s first season was pretty good, but they seemed to be searching for the show’s soul.

ST: Voyager, ugh, let’s not go there.

Babylon 5 which overall I count as one of the finest TV series ever had a pretty mediocre first season. Every time I’d see Sinclair I thought he had something shoved up his butt causing him to move and act so stiffly. But after that season, WOW.

But Firefly…

Firefly didn’t even get through a whole season thanks to the ineptitude and visionlessness (is that a word?) of the FOX TV execs. The show is (or sadly, was) great from the get-go and simply screamed of potential for even more greatness. This was a series that proved that television was a legitimate method of telling great stories, much like Babylon 5 and Buffy The Vampire Slayer were.

If you haven’t picked up the Firefly DVD set, go get it. You’ll become the owner of a show that will make you overwhelmed-by-a-loss-of-potential-future-greatness-that-you-can-do-nothing-about, and that’s really something.

And hey, maybe if the set sells enough, FOX will come to its senses and revive the show without us having to wait for the (planned) Firefly motion picture to do well first. Don’t get me wrong, a Firefly movie would be mighty fine (yes, the western lingo has rubbed off on me a might) but that’s one and a half hours every three years, while a TV series back in production would give me over twenty hours of Firefly per YEAR. Movies simply can’t compete.

I’ll leave you all with the Firefly theme lyrics

Take my love.
Take my land.
Take me where I cannot stand.
I don’t care,
I’m still free.
You can’t take the sky from me.
Take me out to the black.
Tell ‘em I ain’t comin’ back.
Burn the land
And boil the sea.
You can’t take the sky from me
(Music Interlude)
Have no place I can be
Since I found Serenity
But you can’t take the sky from me.

“You will be going to a special hell reserved for child molesters and people who talk in the theatre.”
- Shepherd Book, Firefly

Last night Mel & I saw Return of the King for the second time, accompanying my sister Tonya and her husband Eric. Even though we sat in that theatre for nearly three and a half hours (20 minutes pre-show with commercials, thank you very much) it was great, and I gained a few new insights, especially into Frodo’s attitude at the end of the film.

Behind us sat what appeared to be a rather large family. Mother and father in the middle, two 12 year old-ish boys on their left, and a girl and what appeared to be a quasi-date on the right.

Why is it that I remember well who was sitting behind us? Because about a dozen times during the movie I turned around to give them “the glare” because every single one of them but the mother was talking full-voice during the movie. Oh, they kept it down, but it wasn’t a whisper. Vocal cords were involved. One of the boys would exclaim “Whoah, cool! That’s… blah blah blah” when he saw something he liked. I’d turn and do “The Glare” at him and his father would respond to him OUT LOUD.

Not only were they talking, they didn’t seem to have any notion of why people were glaring at them. They didn’t even give a “What?” look back, they just seemed to note the look and ignore us.

Finally, after the daughter burst out in laughter (alone in the thetre, mind you — I’m certainly not saying “don’t laugh at the movie”) and turned to discuss something with her date, I’d had enough.

I turned around and said (quietly but forcefully) “What are you, the noisy family? You’ve all been talking the whole movie! Shut the hell up!”

It felt great, but kept me angry the rest of the movie, I think because I was subconsciously preparing for some kind of response from the father after the movie was over.

I’ll note that when we saw RotK the first time — noon on opening day — there was no unwanted noise at all despite a packed house of excited geeks. Rushing out to see a movie early means you’ll see it with other people who want to see and hear the movie without interruption.