Firefly - "Serenity" Review
By: Michael Hickerson

Written and Directed by Joss Whedon
Original Airdate: December 20, 2002

Plot: A client hires Mal and the Serenity crew to steal a shipment of abandoned Alliance gold—but it’s gold with Alliance makers on it and the client refuses payment. Needing currency to continue piloting Serenity, Mal is forced to take on passengers—all of whom have something to hide. Meanwhile, Mal tries to find a buyer for the shipment and runs afoul of the Reavers…

Warning: If you’ve not yet seen the two-hour pilot to Firefly, “Serenity” then you might want to think about turning back now. There are major SPOILERS just ahead for the episode that was supposed to introduce us to the universe of Firefly…

In short: Superb set-up, great introduction…why the hell didn’t FOX air this one first?!?

I wish someone at FOX could explain to me why we didn’t get to see the two-hour pilot to Firefly “Serenity” as the very first episode. And don’t give me that mumbo-jumbo about it not having enough action or being too cerebral. Forget all of that malarkey and really, honestly tell me—did you just not want Joss Whedon to succeed? Did you really think this pilot wouldn’t intrigue people enough to watch? Could we trade jobs for a while because apparently I would be far more qualified to run your network than you are…(and while I’m in control, get me the guys who did Futurama and The Tick on the phone because those are getting revived as well…)

Seeing “Serenity” aired last in just painful. It’s bittersweet. It shows everything that Firefly was and could have been but never got to be.

In short, it may be one of the best pilots that Joss has ever done.

And it’s a shame the network suits couldn’t see that.

Now, I like the pilots for Buffy and Angel—I think they both do a great job of setting up and creating the universe that we are to explore over the course of the season. But the Buffy and Angel pilots both had some things going for them, going into the series. In Buffy’s case, we had the movie, plus the show’s title Buffy the Vampire Slayer kind of serves as the mission statement for the show—if you tune in, odds are you’re gonna see the cute blonde kicking vampire butt. With Angel, we had three years of an established character in a universe going for it and a production staff that knew and loved it. So, both Buffy and Angel had a lot going for it even before the pilots saw the light of day—and thankfully, we saw them aired in order on WB and UPN.

That said, I think Firefly had a far more difficult road to travel and it did so with ease. Going in, there were no preconceived notions about Firefly. The title isn’t exactly indicative of what the show might be about and it’s a space ship show with horses in it. It’s not an easy sell, but it was one that “Serenity” handled very well.

In the course of just under 90 minutes of screen time, we have to meet the crew, find out a little bit about them and where they’re coming from, set up the universe, and tell a story that somehow ties all of this together. You think that’s easy, cause it certainly isn’t. After all, how many pilots live and die each year during pilot season because they can’t achieve all of those goals?

And yet, “Serenity” does it all so easily.

In my mind, this compares to the first episode of Deep Space Nine—and if you’ve read my reviews for any length of time, you know that’s a good thing. DS9 started off with a pilot that ably set up the situation, started some plots in motion and introduced us to all the characters. But along the way, it also made the choice to focus on Sisko and allow us to really get inside what made him tick. The good thing about DS9 was that it examined a part of Sisko’s backstory—the pain of losing his wife to the Borg and his blaming Picard for it and how he had to find a way to continue living and moving past that moment—without resovling the entire character arc that was Ben Sisko.

And that is exactly what “Serenity” did.

Yes, we had the interesting bits about who certain players were in the universe and we did get to see a bit of each character and their role on the ship and their worldview. But in the end, we got a lot of focus on Mal—and who he was and how he came to the point that we see today.

We had an adventure story in there—complete with a spy on board, the chase with the Reavers and double crosses trying to unload the shipment. But on so many levels, we got to see inside the internal workings of Mal and what makes him tick.

Mal was on the losing side in a war—in fact, he and his team were abandoned at one of the pivotal battles in the war to the Alliance. Six years later, Mac has his own ship, named after that battle and his own rules. He’s the captain of his own boat and what he says goes. He is the one in command and making the choices—whether they be which jobs to take or which passengers to take on. You can see that the war has hardened Mal. He’s turned gruff on the outside, but deep down he’s a good man who must make certain choices.

He’s a thief, but he’s also a good man. He will gladly steal from the Alliance. He will also sell what he’s stolen to whoever will offer him currency. Just so long as he gets to keep on flying his ship and taking care of his crew. And it’s really in his relationships with the crew that we see the man behind the mask. Mal is deeply concerned about Kaylee when she’s shot—so much so that he allows Simon to back him into a corner. He also has some amount of affection for Inara and that might be returned—as we see when he tries to say goodbye as the Reavers close in. Also, Mal is a man who will not make innocents pay for his mistakes. Seeing his concern for the civilians on his ship as the Reavers close in was a nice touch. Mal wants them to be safe and not brutalized by the Reavers, should Serenity be boarded.

And in the end, we see Mal’s definition of a good day. He gets to keep flying. He’s fought the fight on his terms and won. Sure he changed the rules and made up a lot of it as he went along, but he survived. He kept his crew in tact and alive. He got paid and he can continue forward—toward whatever he may be striving toward (and we’re not really sure yet at this point, nor do I think we really find out over the course of the 14 episodes that we got see). Mal has had a good day and he’s happy and content.

And the next day, he has to get up and do it all over again.

Certainly the idea of an anti-hero tortured by his past in nothing new for a Joss Whedon show, but I think that Mal works on a lot of levels Angel hasn’t hit yet. Mal has made all his own choices—he has no demon that rules his body for years until he was cursed with a soul and made to suffer. Also, Mal has experienced the ultimate betrayal of being willing to give up his life for a cause only to have the cause abandon him. Yes, we’ve seen Angel walk on the dark side and give up his cause but it’s never betrayed him as we see Mal betrayed here. And I like that a good deal. It provides for some great tension and a good dynamic. And it also makes a shame that FOX was short-sighted enough to pull the show just as it got going. Honestly, as much as I love the concept of a Firefly movie and I will be there opening day, I have a feeling we lost some of the depth of the characters we might have got had the show been allowed to live out its entire life on our television screens.

And while “Serenity” concentrates on Mal and his character arc, we also see a lot of other things set in motion as well.

The biggest is the River story line. Here is a girl that her brother, Simon, threw away a promising career to rescue and live on the lam. We have no idea what was done to her here or how or why, but we have some idea that the Alliance isn’t going to give up on her easily and this could lead to complications for the crew down the road. I like that we got just enough to intrigue us here and keep me wanting to come back for more.

We also met Jayne, who is really a lot of the comic relief here. But he’s comic relief motivated by being selfish—interested in what is best for Jayne. Again, it’s another tragedy of the series that we don’t see why it is that Jayne follows Mal (yes, we see that it’s potential for profit, but I have a feeling it was more) and why he’s with Serenity. Of all the crew, I’d have to say Jayne is the biggest wild card and we see that hear from the beginning. He’s also the one most likely to voice what everyone is thinking, despite the consequences. Certainly we see that at the dinner scene where he is dismissed by Mal for being crude.

Also, it was interesting to see that a ship of thieves was given legitimacy because they had what basically was a prostitute on board. Oh sure, she’s a hooker with a heart of gold but honestly I felt like Joss was setting up more than that with Inara. Again, I think we got just enough of a glimpse here to see who and what she was and her role but there was more to come later, had the series progressed as Joss intended.

Overall, I have to say that “Serenity” is a strong start to a series and it’s just painful to see it now, knowing that it could have started off Firefly the right way instead of the haphazard way we got. (Nothing against “The Train Job,” mind you. In fact, watching if AFTER seeing “Serenity” and it’s a better episode. But then again, it doesn’t take a genius to fun a network as we’ve seen over at FOX the past couple of years).

Oh and there I’d promised myself I wouldn’t be bitter or let that slip out into this review.

So, I guess that’s about it for now, except a few small things..

--I loved our first time meeting Wash and the dinosaur battle. It made me wonder if Joss was using left over stuff from Toy Story that just didn’t make the final cut there.
--I love Kaylee. She’s just so cute in that girl next door way.
--I really like the visual feel for the show. It just all works well and having space be silent is a nice choice.

So, that’s about it for now. All in all, “Serenity” is a strong start and shows how great Firefly could have been if the network hadn’t dropped the ball. It’s a bittersweet episode to look at now—so brilliant, but yet that brilliance never got the chance it deserved.

My rating: 9.5 (out of 10.0)

“We’re not gonna die. We can’t die, Bendis. You know why? Because we are so very pretty. We are just too pretty for God to let us die.”
--Malcolm Reynolds.