@astine: Good point. That actually might be the case. :)

As for Kaylee, she really reminds me of Willow from Buffy. It is almost as if Joss Whedon simply transplanted the character to a new show. Even some of their mannerisms are similar.

The actress was born in Canada and grew up in Maui which may explain odd dialect. Or not. Perhaps that too was supposed to be a part of the character.

And that was totally Google Chrome on WinXP, not Safari on the Mac. Just FYI.

Interestingly Mal and Inara also have odd moments when they seem to be more reciting to each other rather than talking. This usually happens when they are civil and are making perfectly respectable small-talk. The writing of some of the dialogs between these two is a bit cumbersome at times. I much prefer them in their normal bickering mode – their back and forward is usually spontaneous and amusing.

Actually, I always got the impression that this was part of the characters. The two have latent sexual romantic:P tension which is usually expressed through arguing. When they’re not arguing, they’re working to avoid expressing or revealing anything so their formalities are just that: formalities. They carefully rehearse their conversations in their heads before they even begin them. Then again, maybe I’m reading way too much into this. :)

The only time the conversation really felt wooden to me was when Kaylee was speaking to Simon, but that was due more to her unidentifiable dialect than her actual lines.

As to the ‘Western’ aspect, I didn’t notice it. Maybe I’m the only one who isn’t put off by the notion that rustic lifestyles will continue into the distant future, but superimposing a space setting onto the 19th century feels more natural to me than a lot of those space operas that assume we will somehow achieve some sort of socialist utopia. But that’s just me.

Well, I can kindoff see the acting problem many people mentioned. Some scenes are a bit wooden, but this is not a constant and did not mar my enjoyment on the first viewing – at least not yet.

Kaylee is the designated techno-babble girl so she gets all these dull, meaningless lines that are designed to be indecipherable. These sorts of things can fall flat even at the hands of a seasoned acting veteran.

Interestingly Mal and Inara also have odd moments when they seem to be more reciting to each other rather than talking. This usually happens when they are civil and are making perfectly respectable small-talk. The writing of some of the dialogs between these two is a bit cumbersome at times. I much prefer them in their normal bickering mode – their back and forward is usually spontaneous and amusing.

I pretty much figured that Serenity was the end of the series seeing how they killed off Wash and Brook. Btw, I will need to watch it again once I finish Firefly just to get the full experience. :)

[quote post=”2694″]As an aside – I’ve started using Feedly as my RSS reader (very good BTW), and it displays the comments to your posts, but without the author’s name. I suspect this is their problem, not yours, but thought I’d mention it. [/quote]

Hmm… I actually never used a feed reader that would include and parse comments. No clue why is it skipping the authors though – I haven’t touched the comment feed in any way so I imagine the issue might be on their end.

I’m going to disagree with most of the replies – I absolutely and completely feel in love with Firefly.

It conjoured up a universe fully formed, with a depth going far beyond the screen. The only other tv show I can think of that conjoured such depth are Stephen Poliakoff’s dramas (about as far from Sci-fi as you can get – but I urge each and every one of you to watch his stuff).

I don’t really understand Fox, they don’t want firefly to escape their clutches, but have made their intentions to shelve it permanently very clear.

As an aside – I’ve started using Feedly as my RSS reader (very good BTW), and it displays the comments to your posts, but without the author’s name. I suspect this is their problem, not yours, but thought I’d mention it.

Well, I am with Jambarama on this one. Though I saw Firefly (at least bits of it) first and then the movie, I was never as enthusiastic about both. The movie was ok, but a bit too much “us against the whole universe and we still made it” to be believable. As for Firefly, it was certainly a nice serie and a very good setting, but the acting was a bit disappointing for me. I mean, it is not that I didn’t like them at all (I bought the movie’s DVD after all), but I don’t think it was that amazing.

I did the same thing – Serenity, then Firefly. The first time I watched all the Firefly episodes I really liked them. The characters are generally quite good, the dialog is snappy, and the plots are clever. The universe was compelling, believable, and very interesting. However my wife didn’t like them much, she thought they were ok, but not great.

The second time through I started to see what she meant. There is a lot of kitschy dialog, music, & situations. At some parts the acting is just bad – it looks like an actor acting, rather than a person responding. Kaylee did this a lot. I also thought Simon got more and more irritating, always flipping out about his sister in a predictable and wooden way. Summer also became somewhat annoying, I wanted to shout “we get you’re disturbed, can you just keep your mouth shut!”

So I’d agree with you on the first go around. Watch them a second or third time and see if they don’t wear thin.

Heard it was awesome, did a similar “minimum amount of time between deciding to check out X, and actually watching X” thing, saw all the episodes over the course of about a week (that being around about August) and loved the unholy living crap out of all of it.

Someone really ought to look into how much it would cost to get a second season made, there’s a butt-ton of fans out there who I’m sure could be convinced to pay monies towards a good cause.

I did the same thing as you regarding this great (but short lived) Sci-Fi series. I saw Serenity about 1 year ago (not knowing it was based on the Firefly TV show) and was intrigued by its story. I then went out soon after and picked up the series on DVD. I think it took 3 nights for my wife and I to watch the entire series because we were so hooked by halfway through the pilot episode. We were going to bed 2-3 hours later than usual because we didn’t want to turn it off.
The character development and background stories were excellent, and this show easily could have been very successful if Fox hadn’t doomed it from the start.

Anyway, it was possibly the best SciFi series I have ever watched and was killed off long before its time.

Actually, the RPG is on sales at the shop downstairs from my place… But that might be a bit too far for you, Luke.