Firefly (or, Blasphemy to End Thread Necromancy?!?)

[Talya]

I present to you the most heinous sort of blasphemy and sacriledge.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11099862&postcount=102


Jeesh, this show wasn't even very good.

Browncoats, unite!

Firefly Forever!

[Eldan]

I thought it was pretty good, after the first two or three episodes, which dragged a bit.

Most of Whedon's other stuff isn't very good, though.

[Moglorosh]

I thought it was pretty good, after the first two or three episodes, which dragged a bit.

Most of Whedon's other stuff isn't very good, though.

He did something other than Firefly and Buffy? Lies.

[Eldan]

Phh. I think at least half of Buffy was pretty bad too :smalltongue:

[Talya]

Buffy/Angel, Firefly/Serenity, Titan A.E. and Toy Story were all outstanding. Dollhouse was good but not great, but his ultimate work to date has been Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog. In 1000 years, that musical will be our generation's Hamlet. :p

I can't wait to see how the Whedon-written/directed Avengers movie will pan out.

[Psyren]

The minute I read that lock-post I knew it would troll somebody around here. :smalltongue:

Honestly though, I don't think there's much to say about this show that hasn't already been said. It was cut short in its prime and hopefully, Fox is (slowly) starting to realize the negative impact (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheFireflyEffect) their impatience can have on viewership of similar shows going forward.

[The Rose Dragon]

I never watched Firefly. I really should, but there are only two possible outcomes, neither of which are positive.

1) I dislike it, rage against the fan hype and promptly turn into an insufferable pariah among the sci-fi geeks, and waste precious dollars on it.

2) I love it, get annoyed at what could have been and turn into a drooling fanatic among the sci-fi geeks, and waste precious dollars on it.

So, I am ever wary about watching it.

[Velaryon]

Firefly was a pretty good show, although I didn't even hear about it until well after it was cancelled. It's a shame that it got canned before it had a real chance to shine.

I don't think the movie was all that great though. Better to have that than nothing, but it still fell short of capturing the show's charm at least to me.

[DomaDoma]

I've seen halfway through season four of Buffy. I'm told that I should stop after season five, and given that Buffy's characterization in the one episode of season six I saw (I'm told it's one of the better ones) made Buffy after the Acathla thing look resilient and well-adjusted... I think I will. Even if said episode makes some plot points about season five a little more clear than I would like. (It was the first Buffy episode I saw; I don't just walk into spoilerland knowing full well what I'm getting into.)

[GloatingSwine]

I've seen halfway through season four of Buffy. I'm told that I should stop after season five, and given that Buffy's characterization in the one episode of season six I saw (I'm told it's one of the better ones) made Buffy after the Acathla thing look resilient and well-adjusted... I think I will. Even if said episode makes some plot points about season five a little more clear than I would like. (It was the first Buffy episode I saw; I don't just walk into spoilerland knowing full well what I'm getting into.)

To be honest you can pretty much stop Buffy after season 3 and not lose much.

[Talya]

I've seen halfway through season four of Buffy. I'm told that I should stop after season five, and given that Buffy's characterization in the one episode of season six I saw (I'm told it's one of the better ones) made Buffy after the Acathla thing look resilient and well-adjusted... I think I will. Even if said episode makes some plot points about season five a little more clear than I would like. (It was the first Buffy episode I saw; I don't just walk into spoilerland knowing full well what I'm getting into.)

Two of the top 10 buffy episodes ever happen in season 6 and 7. Actually, season 6 had the best big-bad villain at the end, too. (ha.) No, I wouldn't say stop after five. That would cause you to miss the brilliant "Once More, With Feeling," as well as "Chosen." No, keep watching.

[SuperPanda]

I personally loved Titan AE and Toy Story, though both of those Whedon worked on along with other people. I was unimpressed with Buffy and the general opinion I ran into was that eye-candy was the primary reason for watching it. Apart from on the internet I never found anything to credit Angel as a spectacularly well written deal.

On Firefly itself, I seem to have ruined the experience by being introduced to the series with the movie Serenity amongst all the hype which Firefly fans poured onto it. Was it bad? No it certainly wasn't bad. Was it the most amazing thing I've ever seen? No, not by a long shot.

As Science Fiction goes, I think it was about on par with Stargate (movie, SG-1 actually had some amazingly well done Sci Fi to it) and the original Star Wars trilogy. Science is implied in that there is part of the story "In Space!" but any actual science is about as relevant to the story a physics is to a final fantasy game. The "cultural evolution" of the story such that you had a hodgepodge of earth cultures mixed together with no coherent connections (Chinese and japanese writing with English words, wild west with a Samurai/Ninja assassin) creates a beautiful and visually pleasing world, but one that doesn't stand up to much consideration beyond the pure aesthetics of it. I think Titan AE did a much better job of setting up a sci fi future that was more or less believable culture wise.

From what I've seen, Whedon seems to be the George Lucas of this generation. Good ideas and beautiful sense of aesthetics but he benifits far more than he would like to admit by having someone to bounce ideas off of and/or reign him in a bit.

Toy Story was amazing (there were 6 other writers). Titan AE was wonderfully fun and pretty darn clever (co-written) Serenity was, well it was okay. As a film, on its own, it doesn't really stand up very well. Even firefly fans have told me that the film on its own doesn't hold water but when taken with the series is fun and very enjoyable. If the film Serenity was only for that minority audience, then well done Mr. Whedon. If it was for fans and new comers alike, then it was on the average.

I tried watching the first episode of Firefly sometime after seeing Serenity, but the setting just didn't capture my imagination mostly because it seemed so arbitrary. Wonderful aesthetics, poor internal consistency.

On a side note, I've heard similar things said about the Buffy and Angel TV shows. They are fun and visually pleasing, but get way too confusing to explain clearly.

[DomaDoma]

Anyway, the basic rule for Whedon, I think, is that he starts off great, becomes greater, then drags the characters through too many muddy ditches for me to enjoy watching it any more. Dollhouse probably would have developed that problem by the third season, if it had had one. (The compression shaved off most of the angst and left most of the drama, IMO.) As Serenity is essentially the second season of Firefly, I'd say it would probably be best as a three-season show. Though I gotta tell you, seeing First-Twenty-Minutes Jerkass!Mal dragged out over several episodes would make me rage mightily.

[Talya]

I was unimpressed with Buffy and the general opinion I ran into was that eye-candy was the primary reason for watching it. Apart from on the internet I never found anything to credit Angel as a spectacularly well written deal.


Eye candy? Not really. In later seasons, Willow certainly fits the bill. And Faith, in her few appearances, was always hotter than hell. But for the most part, no. I don't even like Sarah Michelle Gellar. Xander? Okay, cute, but not great.

What made Buffy (and Angel, and Firefly -- and was lacking in Dollhouse which kept it from reaching the same levels of awesome), were incredibly interesting characters and most importantly, the best goshdarned dialogue ever written. Buffy wasn't about Buffy herself, though she was certainly important. It was an ensemble cast. Rupert Giles -- Anthony Stewart Head really needs to do more acting. Truth be told, Buffy herself, and Angel himself, while entertaining, were not the most interesting characters on their respective shows. Giles, Willow, Xander, Spike, Fred, Wesley, Gunn...they all outshone their leading lady/man. In all cases, though, the incredibly witty dialogue, that ran the gamut from hilarious to tear-jerking, simply rocked.



Anyway, the basic rule for Whedon, I think, is that he starts off great, becomes greater, then drags the characters through too many muddy ditches for me to enjoy watching it any more. Dollhouse probably would have developed that problem by the third season, if it had had one. (The compression shaved off most of the angst and left most of the drama, IMO.)

Actually, i think that's part of what was missing from Dollhouse. I missed the Whedonangst.


As Serenity is essentially the second season of Firefly, I'd say it would probably be best as a three-season show. Though I gotta tell you, seeing First-Twenty-Minutes Jerkass!Mal dragged out over several episodes would make me rage mightily.

You must be the type of person who actually dislikes Belkar. Mal Reynolds is a jerk. A magnificent jerk. If he's not being a jerk, he's not Mal. Mal the jerk is the Mal I love. Now, he's not an evil son-of-a-you-know-what like the wonderfully bad Jayne Cobb, but he's still a jerk.

[DomaDoma]

You must be the type of person who actually dislikes Belkar. Mal Reynolds is a jerk. A magnificent jerk. If he's not being a jerk, he's not Mal. Mal the jerk is the Mal I love. Now, he's not an evil son-of-a-you-know-what like the wonderfully bad Jayne Cobb, but he's still a jerk.

Oh yeah, Mal is definitely a jerk. But normally, he's a fun jerk, not a hard-edged and cruel one.

I do dislike Belkar, though, so you do have something of a point. :p

[Psyren]

You must be the type of person who actually dislikes Belkar.

Are you trying to get this thread to 50 pages? :smallconfused:

[Talya]

Are you trying to get this thread to 50 pages? :smallconfused:

Hey, that'd be great. ;)

Seriously, I suspect there's a pattern...

my favorite characters on:
OotS - Belkar Bitterleaf
Firefly - Jayne Cobb
Buffy - Spike (before season 7, anyway)
Angel - Lorne (okay, that doesn't fit the pattern)

[The Rose Dragon]

Angel - Lorne (okay, that doesn't fit the pattern)

Poor Andy Hallett. May he rest in peace.

[Talya]

Poor Andy Hallett. May he rest in peace.

:smallfrown:

Yeah, that was sad.

The guy that played Doyle died too.

[Dienekes]

It was a good show with clever characters. Not every episode was absolutely amazing (Heart of Gold very lame episode in my opinion) but at it's worst it was just "meh" and at it's best it's a fun little romp.

However I am confused by how popular it is, and Josh Whedon is in general. Now I don't think he's a bad writer but far from amazing, and not everything he touches turns to gold as some of his fans would have you believe.

If you haven't seen it yet I definitely recommend you do, for Jayne Cobb if nothing else.

[Flame of Anor]

I never watched Firefly. I really should, but there are only two possible outcomes, neither of which are positive.

1) I dislike it, rage against the fan hype and promptly turn into an insufferable pariah among the sci-fi geeks, and waste precious dollars on it.

2) I love it, get annoyed at what could have been and turn into a drooling fanatic among the sci-fi geeks, and waste precious dollars on it.

So, I am ever wary about watching it.

Well, you know, it's like love. There are two possible outcomes, neither of which is positive.

1) You get your heart broken, rage against the media hype and promptly turn into an insufferable pariah among twenty-somethings, and waste precious time on it.

2) You fall in love, get angsty about mortality, and turn into a raging existentialist, and waste precious time on it.


So you see, there's no point in either of them.



sarcasm mode disengage

[Jallorn]

I think what a lot of anti-firefly fans don't get is that what's so brilliant about Firefly, sadly, was the potential. There are so many plot threads and character conflicts woven into those 14 episodes that remain unexplored, not to mention they themselves are still wonderful and fun to watch and hold up well under repeated viewings. It's not that those 14 episodes are the best show ever made, it's that they're damn incredible and could have become the best show ever made.

Edit: Also, I think it's telling of the maturity of these forums that no one has broken out into a full on nerd rage yet.

[Moglorosh]

I never watched Firefly. I really should, but there are only two possible outcomes, neither of which are positive.

1) I dislike it, rage against the fan hype and promptly turn into an insufferable pariah among the sci-fi geeks, and waste precious dollars on it.

2) I love it, get annoyed at what could have been and turn into a drooling fanatic among the sci-fi geeks, and waste precious dollars on it.

So, I am ever wary about watching it.

Third option: You could watch it on netflix (because lets face it, you should already have netflix), thereby bypassing having to spend dollars on it. Then, love it or hate it, you've answered one of life's mysteries.

Also? Summer Glau.

[The Rose Dragon]

Third option: You could watch it on netflix (because lets face it, you should already have netflix), thereby bypassing having to spend dollars on it. Then, love it or hate it, you've answered one of life's mysteries.

Also? Summer Glau.

Tell you what: you get Netflix to accept users outside the United States, and I will get right on it.

[Mystic Muse]

Third option: You could watch it on netflix (because lets face it, you should already have netflix), thereby bypassing having to spend dollars on it. Then, love it or hate it, you've answered one of life's mysteries.

Also? Summer Glau.

Yeah. Get one month of Netflix, you spend 10 bucks or so, and you can get plenty of other stuff on there too.


EDIT:

Tell you what: you get Netflix to accept users outside the United States, and I will get right on it.

Yeah, that's a problem. Never mind.

[warty goblin]

I like Firefly, the characters are generally interesting, the dialog is funny, and the plotlines are pretty good, with lots of little details popping up on repeated viewing. It's not the greatest TV show or Sci-Fi show ever (that I reserve for Season 4 of Babylon 5), but it's absolutely enjoyable and well done. I like Serenity as well, and think it works pretty well as a standalone movie - that's how I watched it and I understood and enjoyed it just fine. You certainly get more out of it if you've watched the series, but it's hardly a necessary prerequisite.

Since this seems to be a discussion of most things Whedon, I also like Buffy. Well, all of it except maybe the last third or so of Season 7. It just felt...rushed, like they had a different conclusion in mind and suddenly had to pull a radical course correction to wrap things up since there wasn't going to be a Season 8. The last episode in particular was just plain bad IMHO. It's a pity, because some of the first episodes of S7 are good, and there was a lot of potential there.

Of course Season 6 is probably my favorite, so maybe there's just something wrong with me. Sure the overarching evil thing plotline was weak, but to me that stuff wasn't really the interesting part of Buffy. That was the interplay of characters, plot, and symbolism, and that worked very well in S6.

I've not finished Angel yet (got to, IIRC, Season 3 a while ago, then for some reason stopped watching pretty much anything for about a year), but I like that rather well also. I'm in rewatching mode now, further bulletins as events warrant.

[GolemsVoice]

My only problem with Firefly is that a friend of mine can't STOP telling me how great any of Wheadon's stuff is. Any of it. Dr. Horrible, Dollhouse, Angel, Buffy, Firefly, What-have-you. Great! I really do like that friend, but it get's really annoying when you can't have a normal conversation without him mentioning some episode of Whedon that in some way touches the topic we are talking about. And the internet is not much better, in a way. Dare not speak out agains Firefly or Planescape. Torment.

Now, I try not to let it control me, and I currently play in a Serenity Roleplaying game with him, and it's great, but sometimes I get the feeling we're his actors, and he just shoves us around to get his perfect post-mortem Firefly episode.

[Serpentine]

Meh. It's okay, engaging enough. Feels too deliberately stuffed-full of oh-so quotable quotables to me, though, and the fandom, well...
It does sound like the makers (and the fans) got ridiculously ripped-off, but I'm far, far more miffed about Pushing Daisies getting screwed over.

[warty goblin]

Meh. It's okay, engaging enough. Feels too deliberately stuffed-full of oh-so quotable quotables to me, though, and the fandom, well...


If one starts hating based on fandoms, everything becomes terrible. The problem isn't with the thing in question in the overwhelming majority of cases, the problem is that fans and fandoms seem to naturally tend towards the annoying and stupid. Hell I like Firefly and the fans still piss me off no end, particularly when the bitching about the show being cancelled starts up yet again.

It's one of those few times where the phrase 'get a life' feels completely appropriate.

[The_JJ]

I never watched Firefly. I really should, but there are only two possible outcomes, neither of which are positive.

1) I dislike it, rage against the fan hype and promptly turn into an insufferable pariah among the sci-fi geeks, and waste precious dollars on it.

2) I love it, get annoyed at what could have been and turn into a drooling fanatic among the sci-fi geeks, and waste precious dollars on it.

So, I am ever wary about watching it.

Or, like me, you could like it, but be bothered by a few episodes, generally meh at other Whedon stuff, and shelve it up there with the rest of your assorted geekery. Some of the episodes were pretty forgettable, the Message bugged me with its so easy to resolve problem, and I though that the Heart of Gold was terrifically meh, though I did think that Inara's response to the whole situation was terribly... human, which was nice. You don't often get that on TV.

[BiblioRook]

Meh. It's okay, engaging enough. Feels too deliberately stuffed-full of oh-so quotable quotables to me, though, and the fandom, well...
It does sound like the makers (and the fans) got ridiculously ripped-off, but I'm far, far more miffed about Pushing Daisies getting screwed over.
Oh man. As much as people love to stand up for Joss Whedon, I almost never see anyone speak up for the tragedy that is Bryan Fuller...

Talk about unresolved and canceled in it's prime :smallsigh:

[Jallorn]

I never saw anything about Pushing Daisies, but it looked cool. On a similar vein, Dead Like Me could definitely have gone on much longer, that was a good show.

[Tirian]

Two of the top 10 buffy episodes ever happen in season 6 and 7. Actually, season 6 had the best big-bad villain at the end, too. (ha.) No, I wouldn't say stop after five. That would cause you to miss the brilliant "Once More, With Feeling," as well as "Chosen." No, keep watching.

Meh. OMWF is an interesting device, but the only reason it was a memorable episode is because they deliberately put off every momentous conversation throughout the entire season up to that point.

And that's really what seasons 6 and 7 are. Flashes of brilliance in long deserts of banality. I watched them also after being told that the end of Season 5 is a natural getting-off point, and in the end it was neither enjoyable nor painful. All in all, I would suggest that Seasons 2 and 3 are close to must-see television and the rest is pretty average fare that is pretty much in life with everything else in television.

The amazing thing about Firefly (and Dr. Horrible, I suppose) is that they ended before Whedon had his typical opportunity to drain the life out of it. It gives us the ability to pretend that had Firefly gotten five seasons that they would all have been as good as the first.

[BiblioRook]

I never saw anything about Pushing Daisies, but it looked cool. On a similar vein, Dead Like Me could definitely have gone on much longer, that was a good show.

There was also a third show that actually was marginally my favorite of the three called 'Wonderfalls'
It was originally planned for three seasons, it barely got one. :smallannoyed:

[Lord Seth]

Meh. It's okay, engaging enough. Feels too deliberately stuffed-full of oh-so quotable quotables to me, though, and the fandom, well...
It does sound like the makers (and the fans) got ridiculously ripped-off, but I'm far, far more miffed about Pushing Daisies getting screwed over.How did it get screwed over? I haven't looked into it in too much detail, but it looks like it was given a reasonable time slot that it stayed with. People obviously just didn't want to watch it, and as a result, it was justifiably canceled.

While to this day I have doubts that Firefly would've caught on enough to get another season even if Fox had treated it better, I won't deny that Fox's poor treatment of it certainly did not help its ratings. But Pushing Daisies, from what I can see, didn't fail because of anything ABC did, it failed for a simple reason: People didn't like it.

[Eldan]

I know it isn't entirely the subject of the thread, but it came up last page:

Babylon 5. After hearing for years that it was the Messiah of SciFi shows, I gave it a watch. Five or six episodes in, my verdict was, basically: mildly interesting plot, no very memorable characters, lots of rubber mask humanoid aliens. I don't see what was supposed to be good about it. Anyone care to explain?

[Innis Cabal]

Well...there's the fact that it actually used CGI when it was a relatively new technology for television. You missed the Shadows or anything around that by only going six episodes in. They do deal with non-humanoid aliens every now and then.

You're also watching it in 2011 when it came out in 1993 and ended in 1997. So more than a decade after it was even on the television and almost two decades since it premiered. It's going to be a bit dated by todays standards.

The plot at the time was honestly quite fresh. After almost two decades...it's all be done by other people elsewhere and the inspiration of the whole thing got a lot of publicity because it was a fairly popular T.V show. So...age. Age is the problem.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

You know what, though? Jaynetown... one of the best episodes ever, with some of the best one-liners. Simon and Kaylee totally upstage Jayne, despite it being 'his' episode.

"My god, you're like a trained ape... without the training!"

"Bye now! Have good sex!"

"No... THIS is what going mad must feel like..."

"To Jayne! The box dropping, man-ape-gone-wrong-thing."

"But Capt'n, it's going so well..."

Of course, he did have at least one good line... "You guys had a riot? On account o' me? My very own riot?"

[Athaniar]

I recently started watching Firefly (I'm about halfway through now), and it's not that bad. Decent characters and stories, an interesting theme (space western!), and plenty of quotable... quotes. I'll hopefully finish it soon, and then try to get my hands on Serenity (the film, not the ship itself, which would be kinda hard, and would certainly get Captain Reynolds pretty upset at me). Also, the Ballad of Serenity is one of the best theme songs ever.

Speaking of Buffy, I think the third season was the best. The fourth was boring, the fifth even more so, the sixth was good only because of the Trio, and the seventh was full of deus ex machina and unlikeable characters. Some episodes were good, though, like Once More with Feeling.

[Adumbration]

I watched to about halfway through the first episode, got bored and wondered what all the fuss was about.

[Eldan]

The problem is, of course, that the first two episodes are relatively boring. After watching the pilot movie, my reaction was "Huh. That wasn't really all that good" too. Try watching a few more episodes some time. As I said, it gets pretty decent after a slow start.

[Innis Cabal]

You....really really can't hold something to it's -pilot- episode. That's...not really giving it the fair start it deserves. For anything.

[Kobold-Bard]

To be honest you can pretty much stop Buffy after season 3 and not lose much.

No, you really can't. Once More With Feeling is in season 6, and therefore you cannot stop until at least then. Are we clear on this, you DO NOT STOP UNTIL SEASON 6!!! :smalltongue:

Also, despite it not doing much for me The Body is in series 4/5 and is worth a watch too.

----------------

I was never into Firefly as much as my circle of nerdmigos. My ex always professed it wasn't just the best thing since sliced bread, it actually surpassed it, but I never got drawn into the whole cowboys in space thing they had going on. It was good (and the Jayne Hat was as perfect a b'day present as you could find for her), but it never really sucked me in as other shows do.

[averagejoe]

Why do these threads always turn into general Joss Whedon discussion? He seems to be the guy to have an opinion on, anyways.


I know it isn't entirely the subject of the thread, but it came up last page:

Babylon 5. After hearing for years that it was the Messiah of SciFi shows, I gave it a watch. Five or six episodes in, my verdict was, basically: mildly interesting plot, no very memorable characters, lots of rubber mask humanoid aliens. I don't see what was supposed to be good about it. Anyone care to explain?

I actually watched this show pretty recently. I tried it several times, and for some reason kept convincing myself to try again. Getting past the first sixish (IIRC) episodes out of the way was, to me, the hardest part. I dunno, at the beginning I had pretty much the same opinion as you did, but at some point everyone just kinda grew on me and I became very engaged. Londo really gets to be a lot of fun, and Garabaldi... well, he's a slightly toned down Captain Simian, which is disappointing, but toned-down Simian is still more awesome than most people. (Up next is spoiler-ish. I don't think it's anything really damaging to one's enjoyment of the show, but some people are particular. If it helps, this is all based more on the feelings I had when I was watching it than any sort of retrospective.)

Sinclair is probably the one captain I've seen who I've been entirely convinced of his devotion to the people under him. The captain who throws himself under the bus for people under his command is pretty much a stereotype, but with Sinclair... I don't know, it's hard to explain, but I think it's that he's their friend as well as their captain. Stories about people under the Captain's command being cast into doubt always seem to end up being about the captain, but the one B5 did was actually about that guy, and the captain just acted like a good friend should. It's a cliche that's somewhat tiresome, but for whatever reason I thought it worked pretty well on that show.

There was one episode in the first season where Sinclair did something heroic and captain-y, in the fashion of Kirk or what have you. Then, at the end of the episode, Garabaldi sat down with him and basically said, "Jeff, I can't help but notice that you keep putting yourself in danger like this. I fought in the war too, and I know what it's like. If you want to talk to me, you can." It was at that point that I knew the show was something special.

That said, I'm not sure I could recommend it. It kind of slides subtly downhill until you're like, "Whatever happened to the show I knew and loved?" Season four was so disappointing I'm not sure I'm even going to watch season five. :smallannoyed:

[Selrahc]

Anthony Stewart Head really needs to do more acting.

He does plenty of acting, it's just not in American stuff these days.

He's currently probably the best thing in Merlin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merlin_%28TV_series%29)(The series that runs in the Who slot when Who isn't on). And he turns in fantastic comedic performances in Bleak Expectations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleak_Expectations) on the radio. As well as various guest roles in British scripted dramas.

[Talya]

Ah, Babylon 5...doesn't hold up well to 15 years of aging.

However, it's in my list of "Shows I'd like to see remade from scratch by someone with a dark outlook, good budget, and a plan."

Even when Bab5 was new, it had budget problems. The scripts had great quotes, but JMS couldn't really write. The actors were, well, terrible. (Peter Jurassic and Andreas Katsulas {RIP} excepted.) The effects were bad even compared to the other shows at the time (ST:TNG and DS9.) It almost rose above those issues because (1) JMS had a plan, and (2) the plan was pretty darn good. The overarching plot was wonderful, and everything fit together if you gave it time.

Let the guys who made BSG:Reimagined remake it, but hold them to JMS's overall plot plan. These two shows were polar opposites--BSG had great effects, acting, and scripts, but absolutely no plan whatsoever. I think between them you'd end up with something special.

[Tengu_temp]

Firefly is a very good show, but oh boy, is it overrated by fans who think it's the best thing ever. So it's just like Evangelion or most Final Fantasy titles.

[Talya]

Firefly is a very good show, but oh boy, is it overrated by fans who think it's the best thing ever. So it's just like Evangelion or most Final Fantasy titles.

Meh, I was a casual Buffy/Angel fan who didn't know who Joss Whedon was until well after Firefly was over. Someone insisted I watch Firefly, that I'd like it. I was skeptical. It seemed...westernish. But then I watched it, and I was hooked -- on something that was over. I don't go around crying about its cancellation -- I even got to watch Serenity at the theater right as I finished the TV show (which gives you an idea of when I watched it.) It all fit, I had closure, I was happy. But now I knew who Whedon was.

As for Joss and longer shows...my least favorite elements of Buffy or Angel happened mid series. The Arc with Angel's fully grown son was utter crap. You can take that year out of the series and not miss it. Similarly with "The Initiative." Season 4 of Buffy was weak. Seasons 1-3 and 5-7 were great, but season 4 I could do without. This isn't a matter of Joss draining the life out of the show, it's a matter of occasionally, he has bad a bad idea for a plot. Given 7 seasons of firefly, i'm sure there would have been some of that as well.


(For referencing this against my personal tastes, my favorite show currently on television is White Collar. Chuck gets runner-up, with Burn Notice taking third spot.)

[Eldan]

I honestly liked Buffy best whenever a random monster came wandering in and had to be killed. Demon of the week episodes. None of the big bad guys ever seemed all that engaging to me.

Personal tastes... well, the only show I actually watch on TV is Doctor Who, but that's more limited exposure. BBC is the only English speaking station I get here, and I can't stand German dubs.

[Talya]

I honestly liked Buffy best whenever a random monster came wandering in and had to be killed. Demon of the week episodes. None of the big bad guys ever seemed all that engaging to me.

Personal tastes... well, the only show I actually watch on TV is Doctor Who, but that's more limited exposure. BBC is the only English speaking station I get here, and I can't stand German dubs.

I abandoned Cable/Satellite a while back. The Internet is the best source of TV ever. I do have a 4 Terabyte NAS box as a consequence, though.


Tell you what: you get Netflix to accept users outside the United States, and I will get right on it.

We have Netflix in Canada. It's still ramping up its content, though. It's worth the $7.99 a month, certainly, but it's missing too much stuff. I use it primarily to keep space on my NAS box (mentioned above). If it's on Netflix, I don't need a copy.

[Eldan]

There is, as far as I know, basically no legal source for me to watch TV on the internet. There are very few exceptions to that. So, that's out too.

[factotum]

Babylon 5. After hearing for years that it was the Messiah of SciFi shows, I gave it a watch. Five or six episodes in, my verdict was, basically: mildly interesting plot, no very memorable characters, lots of rubber mask humanoid aliens. I don't see what was supposed to be good about it. Anyone care to explain?

Assuming you mean the first five or six episodes of the first season, you had at least two main problems: dealing with the charisma vacuum that is Michael O'Hare at the centre of everything, and the fact the over-riding arc plot really didn't get going until season 2. What I would suggest you do is watch "Signs and Portents" and "Babylon Squared" from season 1, then move right on to Season 2 and Bruce Boxleitner's introduction--you can always go back and watch the missed season 1 episodes later.

As for the FX being fairly bad, yes, they are, but since B5 is generally held up for its storyline, those shouldn't matter--and indeed, they generally don't!

[The Big Dice]

Let the guys who made BSG:Reimagined remake it, but hold them to JMS's overall plot plan. These two shows were polar opposites--BSG had great effects, acting, and scripts, but absolutely no plan whatsoever. I think between them you'd end up with something special.
You mean the guys who claimed the Cylons had A Plan, but who later ditched it because they didn't actually know what the plan was and they wanted to go off in a different direction? And who then made a TV movies called The Plan just to explain how little forward planning they'd really done?

And they were the same people who were among the voices on BSG claiming that it wasn't really science fiction. Despite everyone living on space ships and being pursued by genocidal robots.

I'd sooner see JMS teamed up with someone like Russel T Davies. Except the sheer ego mass involved might cause some kind of personality singularity that would suck the entire planet into a black hole.

[GloatingSwine]

I never watched Firefly. I really should, but there are only two possible outcomes, neither of which are positive.

1) I dislike it, rage against the fan hype and promptly turn into an insufferable pariah among the sci-fi geeks, and waste precious dollars on it.

2) I love it, get annoyed at what could have been and turn into a drooling fanatic among the sci-fi geeks, and waste precious dollars on it.

So, I am ever wary about watching it.


Since there were only 18 or so episodes, you can pick up all of Firefly helluva cheap.

[Moglorosh]

Tell you what: you get Netflix to accept users outside the United States, and I will get right on it.

Since you said "dollars", I'm gonna guess Australia or Canada? If it's Canada I can't help you, although I would've thought it would be available...

If it's Australia, then you've got bigger things to worry about, like the fact that every living thing there has an insatiable lust for human misery and death.

[Talya]

Since you said "dollars", I'm gonna guess Australia or Canada? If it's Canada I can't help you, although I would've thought it would be available...

Yeah...

We have Netflix in Canada. It's still ramping up its content, though. It's worth the $7.99 a month, certainly, but it's missing too much stuff.

...it is. Sortof.

[Serpentine]

How did it get screwed over? I haven't looked into it in too much detail, but it looks like it was given a reasonable time slot that it stayed with. People obviously just didn't want to watch it, and as a result, it was justifiably canceled.

While to this day I have doubts that Firefly would've caught on enough to get another season even if Fox had treated it better, I won't deny that Fox's poor treatment of it certainly did not help its ratings. But Pushing Daisies, from what I can see, didn't fail because of anything ABC did, it failed for a simple reason: People didn't like it.To be fair, it does look like it was mostly just unlucky with the writer's strike. But the ending was rushed through, and it did win several Emmies.
It was just my sort of thing, and I'm sad that its run was so short and unsatisfying :smallfrown:

[Avilan the Grey]

I must say I have never understood Joss' greatness.
He sometimes write quirky characters and interesting concepts, but most of it ends in failure (cancellation) to the point of making you reluctant to start watching a new show with his name on it. I guess it mostly boils down to if you like his characters or not; if you are in love with them, then he is brilliant; if you are not, he is an average writer.

That said I liked Firefly and Buffy (early seasons) and loved Serenity (much better than the series, IMHO).

[The Rose Dragon]

Since you said "dollars", I'm gonna guess Australia or Canada? If it's Canada I can't help you, although I would've thought it would be available...

Turkey. The DVD isn't sold in Turkey, so I have to buy it from America (or Britain, more likely), but either way, "dollars" is more internationally recognized than "liras".

[Zen Monkey]

I'm not a fan of Whedon's work, or of sci-fi, but somehow Firefly is the only thing I've seen where I wanted to enter the screen and be part of that world. Something about Serenity just seemed like it would be a good home.

[Tengu_temp]

That said I liked Firefly and Buffy (early seasons) and loved Serenity (much better than the series, IMHO).

That's a rare stance. Most people, myself included, prefer the series to the movie. I could go on why, but I'll just say one thing instead: I like maybe-crazy maybe-psychic River much more than Slayer-wannabe River.

[Talya]

That's a rare stance. Most people, myself included, prefer the series to the movie. I could go on why, but I'll just say one thing instead: I like maybe-crazy maybe-psychic River much more than Slayer-wannabe River.

She was always Crazy-Psychic-Slayer-River.

(See "War Stories.")

The movie Serenity was a very good couple of Firefly Episodes to end the series.


I must say I have never understood Joss' greatness.
He sometimes write quirky characters and interesting concepts, but most of it ends in failure (cancellation) to the point of making you reluctant to start watching a new show with his name on it. I guess it mostly boils down to if you like his characters or not; if you are in love with them, then he is brilliant; if you are not, he is an average writer.


Buffy lasted 7 seasons, Angel 5. Dollhouse even lasted 2. Most new TV series get cancelled in the first season. Five is a long series. 7 is exceptional. (A select few -- Smallville, SG-1, for example) manage ten. We won't discuss the anomaly that is Dr. Who.

I don't think Joss's shows get cancelled too early. Angel was cancelled not for low ratings, but because Fox raised the price of it so the network showing it (WB) could no longer afford to keep it. It still was given time to be "Finished." Dollhouse's cancellation was its own fault - it started off too slow. Few people could get past the first six episodes to where it started to get reasonably interesting. It, too, had closure.

Firefly is the only one that really got treated badly.

[thompur]

The thing about season 4 of Buffy(My favorite show of all time.fair warning) is that it was the only full season that wasn't greater than the sum of its parts. It had some of the best episodes ever(Fear Itself, Wild at Heart, Pangs, Hush, A New Man, This Years Girl, Who Are You?, Superstar, Restless), and the worst(Beer Bad), but it didn't...flow very well. It didn't help that Adam was such a lame villain.

[Talya]

The thing about season 4 of Buffy(My favorite show of all time.fair warning) is that it was the only full season that wasn't greater than the sum of its parts. It had some of the best episodes ever(Fear Itself, Wild at Heart, Pangs, Hush, A New Man, This Years Girl, Who Are You?, Superstar, Restless), and the worst(Beer Bad), but it didn't...flow very well. It didn't help that Adam was such a lame villain.

I agree with all this.

Riley was also a lame hero.

[Kobold-Bard]

The thing about season 4 of Buffy(My favorite show of all time.fair warning) is that it was the only full season that wasn't greater than the sum of its parts. It had some of the best episodes ever(Fear Itself, Wild at Heart, Pangs, Hush, A New Man, This Years Girl, Who Are You?, Superstar, Restless), and the worst(Beer Bad), but it didn't...flow very well. It didn't help that Adam was such a lame villain.

I liked beer bad :smallredface:

[Velaryon]

I've not finished Angel yet (got to, IIRC, Season 3 a while ago, then for some reason stopped watching pretty much anything for about a year), but I like that rather well also. I'm in rewatching mode now, further bulletins as events warrant.

I can understand that. Seasons 3 and 4 of Angel were pretty hard to get through, IIRC.


As for Joss and longer shows...my least favorite elements of Buffy or Angel happened mid series. The Arc with Angel's fully grown son was utter crap. You can take that year out of the series and not miss it. Similarly with "The Initiative." Season 4 of Buffy was weak. Seasons 1-3 and 5-7 were great, but season 4 I could do without. This isn't a matter of Joss draining the life out of the show, it's a matter of occasionally, he has bad a bad idea for a plot. Given 7 seasons of firefly, i'm sure there would have been some of that as well.

I agree with you 100% of Angel. Who knew that Angel's son would basically turn out to be Anakin Skywalker? He's better acted than in the Star Wars movies, but he's extra whiny and annoying to make up for it. That was definitely my least favorite part of the show.

[thompur]

I liked beer bad :smallredface:

Oh, I enjoyed it. Every episode of Buffy has something to like; clever dialog, cool monster, character developement(although not necessarily all in the same ep). You must understand that a "bad" episode of Buffy is usually better than the better eps of most shows.;-)

[Tengu_temp]

She was always Crazy-Psychic-Slayer-River.

(See "War Stories.")

In War Stories River has just shown that her maybe-psychic powers give her incredible instinctual accuracy. That's very diferent from the unrealistic and not really that cool She-Fu she pulls off in Serenity. Though frankly, Wheddon (and not only him (http://xkcd.com/311/)) has a fetish for bare-footed and inexplicably awesome in combat teenage girls, so I should've seen the transition coming.

Don't get me wrong, I love strong female characters. But when a creator puts the same character archetype in his works over and over again, because of Author Appeal? Yeah, things start to get a bit annoying then. Also, many people treat River as if she was the most interesting character on the show, and she's really not.

[Nerd-o-rama]

If we're talking about Buffy, I think the show just steadily slid downhill from Season 4 on. Whedon left to focus on other projects and Noxon had...issues. The writing got less tight, the villains got way lamer, and the soap opera got...well, maybe it didn't get worse, I just got tired of it.

There were still several neat episodes and concepts during that run, but all in all the show would have been better off ending at graduation and seguing directly into Angel. Which was okay for the first and last seasons, even if it got a little predictably Whedon.


Now as for Firefly, it had somewhat of an advantage in getting canceled early. It only had 2 or 3 bad episodes, and even they were what I'd call average for any other show. I also think Serenity did a good enough job of wrapping up the most pressing plot points, although in retrospect I think I'd have rather had the blue-gloved folks still around to get killed on-camera, instead of or in addition to a Grammaton Cleric who wandered in from Equilibrium.

And yes, I am aware they died in the comic bridge thing. Blue Sun was still distressingly absent from the movie.

[warty goblin]

In War Stories River has just shown that her maybe-psychic powers give her incredible instinctual accuracy. That's very diferent from the unrealistic and not really that cool She-Fu she pulls off in Serenity. Though frankly, Wheddon (and not only him (http://xkcd.com/311/)) has a fetish for bare-footed and inexplicably awesome in combat teenage girls, so I should've seen the transition coming.

She shot two guys from across a hanger while looking the other way. That's not great instinctual accuracy, that's the next best thing to impossible unless she's a bat or something. I don't find it any less realistic than her beating the crap out of hordes of much larger foes, simply because both of them are the next best thing to completely impossible.

I don't really care about either, since I don't watch TV shows for their scientific accuracy. I like Newtonian physics in my space battles because it makes them more interesting and exotic feeling, but after I got over my nitpicking phase this stuff just doesn't bother me the way it used to.

[Nerd-o-rama]

I think what's bothering Tengu is that they're next to impossible in different ways, with very different cinematic feels.

You can shoot three guys from across a hangar with your back turned because you have psychic powers or an otherwise enhanced brain. You can't really slaughter a horde of zombies with an axe with the same justification, although precognition probably helps.

[Tengu_temp]

River shooting several guys from afar without looking is both cool in how completely unexpected it was and a believable element of her character (if you can believe in psychic powers). River turning into a Slayer-wannabe came out of nowhere, was not established or foreshadowed at all during the actual series, and serves no purpose other than turn her into the favorite overused character archetype of Joss Wheddon. And that fight scene with the Reavers wasn't really that cool to me.

Man, let's hope nobody planning to watch Firefly and/or Serenity is reading this. Maybe I should use spoiler tags.

[Talya]

A lot of this...


River shooting several guys from afar without looking is both cool in how completely unexpected it was and a believable element of her character (if you can believe in psychic powers). River turning into a Slayer-wannabe came out of nowhere, was not established or foreshadowed at all during the actual series, and serves no purpose other than turn her into the favorite overused character archetype of Joss Wheddon. And that fight scene with the Reavers wasn't really that cool to me.

And this...


in retrospect I think I'd have rather had the blue-gloved folks still around to get killed on-camera, instead of or in addition to a Grammaton Cleric who wandered in from Equilibrium.

And yes, I am aware they died in the comic bridge thing. Blue Sun was still distressingly absent from the movie.

...were concessions made to making the movie functional as both a stand-alone story and as a continuation of the TV series, as well as a victim of missing information due to us not having the entire series at our fingertips because of early cancellation.

[Lord Seth]

Angel was cancelled not for low ratings, but because Fox raised the price of it so the network showing it (WB) could no longer afford to keep it. It still was given time to be "Finished."Sort of. What happened is that Joss was tired of them always waiting until the last minute to decide whether to renew the show or not, so he more or less demanded that they decide it early, and they picked cancellation. There's a good chance it would've been renewed instead if he hadn't made that demand.

[Tengu_temp]

A lot of this...
And this...
...were concessions made to making the movie functional as both a stand-alone story and as a continuation of the TV series, as well as a victim of missing information due to us not having the entire series at our fingertips because of early cancellation.

Oh well. I'd rather have one very good season and one worse but still very good movie than 8 seasons, half of which would be total crap. Of course, the best course of action would be if Firefly ran for around 3 seasons - the quality would be almost certainly bound to drop beyond that point, but for those 3 seasons the series would be very fun.

[averagejoe]

In War Stories River has just shown that her maybe-psychic powers give her incredible instinctual accuracy. That's very diferent from the unrealistic and not really that cool She-Fu she pulls off in Serenity. Though frankly, Wheddon (and not only him (http://xkcd.com/311/)) has a fetish for bare-footed and inexplicably awesome in combat teenage girls, so I should've seen the transition coming.

Don't get me wrong, I love strong female characters. But when a creator puts the same character archetype in his works over and over again, because of Author Appeal? Yeah, things start to get a bit annoying then. Also, many people treat River as if she was the most interesting character on the show, and she's really not.

Yeah, I tend to agree. I actually liked the, "Fight," against Early a lot, where she just kind of played mind games. It was fun, believable, in character, and much more interesting than super killer death machine. Then again, I tend to be of the opinion that only a few movies can pull off the climactic battle at the end thing, so maybe I'm just not the right audience.

[Zen Monkey]

Also, many people treat River as if she was the most interesting character on the show, and she's really not.

For me, Book takes that prize. Although, he's a mite fuzzy on the subject of kneecaps :smallcool:

[averagejoe]

I dunno, Book is mostly interesting because he's mysterious, I think. Same reason why people respond to River, really. Joss really doesn't write interesting characters so much as he writes fun and entertaining ones. Which is just as good most of the time, it's just a different thing. When you get right down to it, there isn't a lot to most of the Firefly characters. Most of the questions about their lives will have one relatively simple blanket answer. Despite being the one who doesn't have a Cool Backstory(TM)-or perhaps because of it-it's really Jayne who has the most going on as far as depth goes. (And, no, Jayne isn't my favorite or anything. I just really liked the avatar. :smalltongue:)

The main strength of the show's characters is in their togetherness, their interactions. It's like how Jayne and Booth become good friends, to give one example. I never would have seen it coming watching the first episode, but it completely makes sense when you see it onscreen. And that's both endearing and neat to me.

[MammonAzrael]

I dunno, Book is mostly interesting because he's mysterious, I think. Same reason why people respond to River, really. Joss really doesn't write interesting characters so much as he writes fun and entertaining ones. Which is just as good most of the time, it's just a different thing. When you get right down to it, there isn't a lot to most of the Firefly characters. Most of the questions about their lives will have one relatively simple blanket answer. Despite being the one who doesn't have a Cool Backstory(TM)-or perhaps because of it-it's really Jayne who has the most going on as far as depth goes. (And, no, Jayne isn't my favorite or anything. I just really liked the avatar. :smalltongue:)

The main strength of the show's characters is in their togetherness, their interactions. It's like how Jayne and Booth become good friends, to give one example. I never would have seen it coming watching the first episode, but it completely makes sense when you see it onscreen. And that's both endearing and neat to me.

Booth? Do you mean Book?

Otherwise, I agree with you. Especially about Jayne, surprisingly, being the character with the most depth. I think that is one of the reasons Jaynestown is one of my favorite episodes.

[averagejoe]

Booth? Do you mean Book?

Oh, geez. >.> I probably got that from Bones. I don't even really watch that show, but it's my sister's favorite.

[Philistine]

As for Joss and longer shows...my least favorite elements of Buffy or Angel happened mid series. The Arc with Angel's fully grown son was utter crap. You can take that year out of the series and not miss it. Similarly with "The Initiative." Season 4 of Buffy was weak. Seasons 1-3 and 5-7 were great, but season 4 I could do without. This isn't a matter of Joss draining the life out of the show, it's a matter of occasionally, he has bad a bad idea for a plot. Given 7 seasons of firefly, i'm sure there would have been some of that as well.

Mostly agreed on Angel. The conflict for me is that I really did enjoy the Darla arc which led directly to the Connor shenanigans. First, just about anything that came after Darla's story was going to suffer by comparison; second, the writers had pretty well painted themselves into a corner by saddling Angel with an infant son. Even with that in mind, though... There were only a handful of moments through the entire Connor arc (a season and a half!) that rang true for me, while everything else just felt... off, like it belonged in a different show with different characters. I really only watched early S4 for DarkWesley (Is it just me, or was AD waaaaay more convincing as tortured-past-guy than DB?); and after the squicktastic mess that was Connor/Cordy I stopped watching until S5. Though I eventually did go back and watch all of S4 on DVD.

Buffy, OTOH, seemed to lose coherence after S3. Yes, many of the best individual episodes come from S4-7, and I can't think of an episode from those years that I'm as eager to forget as "I Robot, You Jane" or "Reptile Boy;" but viewed as complete seasons all of the post-HS years seem a bit... unfocused. Disjointed, even.

Whedon's biggest problem seems to be in getting new shows firing on all cylinders. The first few episodes of Dollhouse, the first couple of Fireflys, most of Buffy's first season... That (sort of) works on minor networks, where they may not have the extra resources to can a show until the next year unless ratings really take a nosedive, but the larger stage demands that a show hit the ground running and grab audiences' attention right out of the gate. That is not the man's strong suit.

[Xondoure]

Connor was great until they aged him. Unfortunately I knew they were going to as soon as he appeared, no one had spoiled it, I just knew they were going to do it, because new father isn't as interesting as teenage angst.

[Ursus the Grim]

I'm going to be THAT guy.

You see, I've seen some of Firefly, about four or five episodes, and I have to say the story really didn't grip me. Watching one episode didn't leave me wanting more.

You know what did, though, and I'm going to highly recommend it for anybody who likes Firefly but hasn't seen this show. Heck, I recommend it for just about everybody.

Farscape.

Bout time somebody mentioned it in this thread. Like Firefly, its an epic tale about fugitives stuck on a ship with a rough captain. Like Firefly, it was too brief. Luckily, it made it five seasons before being abruptly cancelled to make room for a plot-light sci-fi who shall not be named (Hint. It involved stars and gates). Honestly, I found Farscape's characters more interesting than Firefly's. It had all the archetypes and tropes, but subverted and explored them in so many ways. It will strike you as wierd, wierder than Firefly, but suspend your disbelief and the muppets and prosthetics will serve as aids for a grand sci-fi journey.

Give it a shot with an open mind, it may soothe the burn of Firefly's brief life.

[DeadManSleeping]

I have had the intention of watching Farscape for years now. I just never seem to get around to it.

But I also like Stargate, so watch your mouth :smalltongue:

Since this is a Firefly thread, I should probably mention that I own the Firefly collection, Serenity, both comic series, the RPG book (no supplements yet), and the Firefly Companion (which includes original episode scripts, interviews, and behind-the-scenes stuff), so anything you say about "Firefly fans" should probably be applied to me.

Granted, I also don't rant and roar about the series' greatness, or do much to push it on other people, so.

[Mauve Shirt]

I watched a few episodes of Farscape recently. It seemed like a combination between Firefly (fugitives on a spaceship) and Doctor Who (lame but forgivable alien puppets and special effects.) Unfortunately its writing didn't catch me as those two shows did. Perhaps I didn't watch enough episodes.

[DeadManSleeping]

a combination between Firefly and Doctor Who

Why, madamoiselle, if you continue to drip such honey in my ears, I shall be forced to take action. Notably, running away from bees. :smalltongue:

[Flame of Anor]

I have had the intention of watching Farscape for years now. I just never seem to get around to it.

But I also like Stargate, so watch your mouth :smalltongue:

This exactly. :smallwink:


Why, madamoiselle, if you continue to drip such honey in my ears, I shall be forced to take action. Notably, running away from bees. :smalltongue:

:smallconfused:

:smallbiggrin:

[Ursus the Grim]

I have had the intention of watching Farscape for years now. I just never seem to get around to it.

But I also like Stargate, so watch your mouth :smalltongue:

Since this is a Firefly thread, I should probably mention that I own the Firefly collection, Serenity, both comic series, the RPG book (no supplements yet), and the Firefly Companion (which includes original episode scripts, interviews, and behind-the-scenes stuff), so anything you say about "Firefly fans" should probably be applied to me.

Granted, I also don't rant and roar about the series' greatness, or do much to push it on other people, so.

Hey, don't get me wrong. I was a huge fan of SG-1, but once someone pointed out the 'weekly monster' trend I just couldn't overlook it, and when Richard Dean Anderson left, it kinda just got sad for me. Ironically, shortly afterwards is when Ben Browder and Claudia Black got on board, but I had missed too much of the series to really get back into it.

Atlantis and onwards? Well, I'm not going to say anything about that.

Perhaps Farscape does have a weak point in its writing, but I never noticed it. I found the characters and comically unfortunate situations to be the most interesting aspects, as well as the development of John and Aeryn (and John) to be amazingly complex at times.

It was just a suggestion, wasn't trying to push it on anybody. Don't want any brownshirtscoats knocking on my door. :smallbiggrin:

[Mauve Shirt]

Why, madamoiselle, if you continue to drip such honey in my ears, I shall be forced to take action. Notably, running away from bees. :smalltongue:

I don't know how the honey is getting in your ears. I mean, you're reading this, right? Or do you have some text-to-speech thing? :smalltongue:
Also, as I said, the writing's not as good, and the characters not so compelling. At least, not immediately. I'd imagine they grow on you more as the show goes on. It is a pretty weird show. My roommate said the show just got weirder and weirder.

[averagejoe]

I'm going to be THAT guy.

You see, I've seen some of Firefly, about four or five episodes, and I have to say the story really didn't grip me. Watching one episode didn't leave me wanting more.

You know what did, though, and I'm going to highly recommend it for anybody who likes Firefly but hasn't seen this show. Heck, I recommend it for just about everybody.

Farscape.

Bout time somebody mentioned it in this thread. Like Firefly, its an epic tale about fugitives stuck on a ship with a rough captain. Like Firefly, it was too brief. Luckily, it made it five seasons before being abruptly cancelled to make room for a plot-light sci-fi who shall not be named (Hint. It involved stars and gates). Honestly, I found Farscape's characters more interesting than Firefly's. It had all the archetypes and tropes, but subverted and explored them in so many ways. It will strike you as wierd, wierder than Firefly, but suspend your disbelief and the muppets and prosthetics will serve as aids for a grand sci-fi journey.

Give it a shot with an open mind, it may soothe the burn of Firefly's brief life.

I'm not a huge fan of that show. I mean, I like it okay, but it falls flat too often. Which in some ways makes me a bigger fan than my enjoyment would suggest, because they try different things, and a breath of fresh air is always welcome. I do have to say, though, I really enjoyed Michael Chriton Actor (forget his name)'s performance.

See, he kept talking in a funny voice, but at some point you realize that during times of stress he tends to slip into his native Kansasian (or wherever he came from. I'm really bad at recognizing regional accents) accent. Then you kind of get the idea that he probably educated himself out of life in the boonies, and he probably developed a new accent to leave his old life behind, and so on. And none of this was ever gone over in the story to my recollection, it was all done by the actor. There's more to it, but I enjoy that kind of thing as it's a technique fairly unique to TV, and one I've never seen anywhere else. A lot of the others were just kind of meh to me, but Chriton was a great actor/character.

Also, it is a fact that humans are superior.

[Serpentine]

I like Stargate, but it bugs the bajeebus out of me how there's pretty much no non-humanish aliens, and every planet looks exactly the same and has the same weirdly old-fashioned pseudo-medieval colonists.
I saw Farscape a couple of times, but not enough to have a good idea of it. Think I liked it, though.

Lexx is where it's at, yo :cool:

[Flame of Anor]

I like Stargate, but it bugs the bajeebus out of me how there's pretty much no non-humanish aliens, and every planet looks exactly the same and has the same weirdly old-fashioned pseudo-medieval colonists.

The Goa'uld are very non-human. The Asgard are...pretty non-human. The Replicators are extremely non-human. The planets look the same because they were selected to be able to support human life, and the colonists are pseudo-medieval because they were taken off Earth at that point in culture, and there weren't enough of them to advance their culture very much.

[Serpentine]

The Goa'uld are very non-human.They look human.

The Asgard are...pretty non-human.IIRC, they look human and/or look like big ol' balls of light.

The Replicators are extremely non-human.They pretend to look human.

The planets look the same because they were selected to be able to support human life, and the colonists are pseudo-medieval because they were taken off Earth at that point in culture, and there weren't enough of them to advance their culture very much.They are small populations that are completely isolated from any others. They should have changed dramatically - possibly to the point of heading towards a whole new species, or at least subspecies, potentially. And I find it very hard to believe that so many planets would look exactly the same as one another, just because they were "selected". Is the universe really that dull? Did the people who put them there think humans were only able to survive in somewhat misty gently-hilled small-treed vale-land?
It's taking "Land of Different Hats" or whatever it's called to dramatic extremes.

[Flame of Anor]

They look human.

Budget, my dear lady. And the curious lack of excellent character actors who look like fanged worms.


IIRC, they look human and/or look like big ol' balls of light.

They look like Roswell aliens.


They are small populations that are completely isolated from any others. They should have changed dramatically - possibly to the point of heading towards a whole new species, or at least subspecies, potentially.

That's silly. Evolution happens over the course of millions of years--they've only been away for a millennium or two, if that.


And I find it very hard to believe that so many planets would look exactly the same as one another, just because they were "selected". Is the universe really that dull? Did the people who put them there think humans were only able to survive in somewhat misty gently-hilled small-treed vale-land?

Well, to be frank, with such small populations, they were probably right in thinking that. If you don't have enough people to get a very well organized infrastructure going, you just can't survive in someplace like Scandinavia or the Sahara.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Stargate SG-1 is proof that British Columbia is the optimal environment for humans.


Seriously, at least SG-1 had a valid excuse for constantly running into people who are clearly just humans in wigs on a local set, unlike many other long-running science fiction series. There's also, as mentioned, the Goa'uld in their natural state, Asgard, 99.99999% of all Replicators, and the occasional badly-CGI'd "monster" of the week - giant bugs, intelligent crystals, Species 8472 from Voyager, dragons, what have you.

Now, what pissed me off was how all of the aliens spoke perfect English without even a token attempt by Daniel to pretend he was interpreting. I admit constant translation would have been annoying and killed any tension or humor in dialog scenes, but Jack O'friggin' Neill isn't going to suddenly be fluent in the language of every culture in the galaxy (most of which split off from Earth languages several millennia previous) just because a genius Egyptologist or alien soldier happens to be standing next to him and making no effort to actually translate anything but proper nouns.

Or did they pick up a Translator Device MacGuffin and I missed that episode?

[SuperPanda]

Not on topic:

I found Stargate SG-1 to be on the whole good sci fi, usually it was cleverly written and well within the realm of believable, that said I loved that the show laughed at itself far more often than I'm used to seeing. In Season 5 there is an episode devoted wholly to lamp shading several of the things you talk about being in the show, so the show producers were intamatly aware of it and worked references to those things into the dialogue and other character's reactions. Universe and Atlantis sadly didn't follow this. SG-1 also made fun of other sci-fi themes such as O'neil trying to name earth's first FTL ship the Enterprise and trying to name the Zat guns "Phasers".

The fact that almost everyone they met looked human was because part of the premis of the show was that they were human. The lack of cultural drift is that in most cases the groups were being controlled/influenced by an outside force. The episodes where this is not the case deal with cultural drift more often than not (the Tollan come to mind). The number of human like aliens sadly approached Trek levels as the show went on, though they did have the impressive invisible inscetoids somewhere in there. The ascended glowy light FX were disappointing, but I think it was suppose to be equal parts cheesy and cool. Alot of Sci-fi goes for equal parts corny and nifty if only because its really expensive and hard to pull off genuinely impressive. I think Who's Dalek's are the avatar's of this compromise. Our of context they look incredibly stupid, in context they are incredibly awesome.


On topic: River going she-hulk was actually the point that I mentally switched off on Serentity (film) and hearing that this was not actually supported by anything in the series proper is the first thing someone's told me that makes me interested in trying to watch Firefly again.

When I sat down to watch Serenity I had no idea of who anyone in the show was apart from my older sister saying that she loved the engineer girl and thinks of herself as a similar person (the two are nothing alike, but then if I was going to compare myself to a sci-fi character it would probably be Tennat's Doctor and I'm not much like him either). So I was completely blind on the cast.

Mal never solidified in the film for me because he'd already had his introduction and development and the film assumes that you know he's the protagonist. So I never got anything about him apart from he's a confederate Indiana Jones mimic in space (and without the bull whip). His jerkiness didn't seem enough to characterize him so much as his circle. he seemed more like he's part of a rough crew who joke harshly with each other and have no respect for law or order (apart from his own).

On jerk characters. I think belkar is funny and got tons better with his
"fake" character development, but I won't shed a tear over his death either. I've loved House M.D. and found his antics very entertaining up until the current season. He was wearing thin right before the finale and when I saw it my reaction was "please tell me thats the series finale because that's a beautiful and poetic place to end things" - and because he'd crossed a line that I don't think I'd forgive him for. In the past a lot of his jerky behavior had some pretense of kindness or mentor ship or guidance to it. In general it left at least some of those involved better for it be it healthier or smarter, or what-not. Jerk protagonists being spiteful and cruel because they enjoy it is not something I enjoy. Jerk protagonists being spiteful and cruel because its what they think is required to do the job they are doing can be done interestingly. This brings me to my favorite character from Serenity:

The Assasin.

Props to Whedon for writing and creating an interesting and honorable villain figure who seems to be trying to do the right thing as he understands it to be right. Alignment wise he struck me as Lawful Neutral with good leanings, honor is far more important to him but when he learns he has been an accomplice to evil it shatters his world view. Everything about the character pretty much states that when he leaves at the end of the movie and tells Mal that they will never see each other again, he's off to commit suicide because under his moral views he has failed and deserves death. From what I've heard, word of god is that he does not, but that actually lessens the character considerably in my view. It makes him less interesting.

With the obvious Asian culture themes drawn for the assasin figure one of two reactions would have kept him in the very belivable and interesting catagory: 1) (Japanese- Samurai like honor code) - I have failed, not just myself and my government, but I failed all the colonies by assisting in this evil. Everything I am and everything I have believed is a lie and I have committed horrible crimes in their name. There is only one fitting punishment and I must carry out the sentence myself. That is my redemption.
2) (Chinese traditional honor code) The government has betrayed be and forced dishonor upon me and everything I've stood for. I must have revenge for this. You (Mal) have shown me this truth, for this I owe you a great debt. I may not like you, and I do not think you have honor, but until my debt is paid you may count me an ally.

option 1 is how it was played out, with the word of god basically saying that he abandoned his sense of honor rather than accept the price of his failures. Option 2 would have been an interesting way to take one of the best developed characters (from the film alone) and add them into the Serenity cast list for the theoretical 3rd season.


Other characters:

I decided I liked Wash right about the time they killed him.
The brother doctor/scientist was introduced as the sympathetic character at the beginning and then shoved into a corner and not seen again (as far as I can remember). I was set up to like him only to have him play no role in the film (that I can remember at all).
The engineer had a single fun line about battery powered boyfriends which was spoiled by having my sister comparing herself to the engineer girl.
The tough guy with a girly name felt too much like he was suppose to be the planted traitor/antagonist and didn't actually seem to do anything that I can remember.

River was a fun minor character up until she picked up weapons that looked like they should have snapped her wrist and when super hero on us. The movie suddenly switched from space western to comic book in a way that had no foreshadowing (she's shown pushing her body and mind to the limits not past them) and completely trumping the Reavers (which she was never even suggested as being on a similar level to).


-----------

So the film, Serenity, in short felt like it could have been something great and simply fell short of that. The reception of the fan base seemed to be praising it on what it could have been, which is sort of like praising the Star Wars prequels based on a fan script for them somewhere on the internet while ignoring what actually was on the screen.

[Serpentine]

Budget, my dear lady. And the curious lack of excellent character actors who look like fanged worms.So, what you're saying is... Yes, they look human?

They look like Roswell aliens.How often do you see them? I haven't seen that many episodes, but I've seen a fair few, and I've never once seen any Roswell aliens.

That's silly. Evolution happens over the course of millions of years--they've only been away for a millennium or two, if that.Not true, or not quite. Yes, on the whole it does happen over millions of years. However, there are often very sudden jumps in speciation. This is especially true where a small, select population has been suddenly moved to an entirely different ecosystem in one go. The population is completely cut off from the parent population, mutations build up and are expressed quicker and more prominently, and natural selection works harder.
Now, I thought they would've been transported in ancient times, a good several thousand years ago. If that's not true then, yes, they wouldn't be entirely new species or anything most likely. But they shouldn't be exactly the same - or close to it - as another small population plonked somewhere entirely different and equally cut off.
See island speciation - an actually very apt analogy.

Well, to be frank, with such small populations, they were probably right in thinking that. If you don't have enough people to get a very well organized infrastructure going, you just can't survive in someplace like Scandinavia or the Sahara.And so I'm meant to believe that every single habitable planet in the galaxy has the exact same flora (and distinct lack of fauna which also bugs me (but is certainly not unique to Stargate))?
Humans have managed to survive in almost every single environment on this planet - up to and including Scandinavia and the Sahara. Even given the assumption that the transporting aliens would have so much specific choice that they can select the exact same environment every single time, then why 1. haven't they spread to different parts of the world or 1a. why is every part of the world exactly the same, and 2. why hasn't the local ecosystem changed at all, by all appearances?

I just hate it when a sci-fi, that has an entire galaxy or universe of potentially fascinating planets, comes back to the exact same thing every single time. It's a waste of potential, it's boring, and it makes it very hard for me to maintain suspension of disbelief.
See also: Doctor Who always coming back to Earth, particularly England, particularly in the last few decades, at best in the last couple of thousand years.

[Eldan]

One of the very first Doctor Who serials was actually about Cavemen, IIRC...

[hamishspence]

So, what you're saying is... Yes, they look human?
How often do you see them? I haven't seen that many episodes, but I've seen a fair few, and I've never once seen any Roswell aliens.

There's a picture of an Asgard here- and it mentions some of the episodes they appear in.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asgard_(Stargate)

[The Big Dice]

How often do you see them? I haven't seen that many episodes, but I've seen a fair few, and I've never once seen any Roswell aliens.
After O'Neill gets the Ancient Database downloaded into his brain and dials up the Asgard homeworld, they start showing up quite a lot. Thor was a regular recurring character and Loki (I think) was a crewman on the Prometheus at least until the humans understood the workings of the Asgard hyperdrive.


And so I'm meant to believe that every single habitable planet in the galaxy has the exact same flora (and distinct lack of fauna which also bugs me (but is certainly not unique to Stargate))?
It's not that different from every alien planet on Star Trek looking like it's either a studio set, a botannical garden or a patch of desert just outside LA. Or every alien planet on classic Doctor Who looking like a quarry in the south east of England. Budget and time limit the amount of truly alien environments to very few in most science fiction shows.

Though Farscape, by dint of having been filmed in Australia, manages to get some stranger looking locations thn most Canadian productions.


Humans have managed to survive in almost every single environment on this planet - up to and including Scandinavia and the Sahara. Even given the assumption that the transporting aliens would have so much specific choice that they can select the exact same environment every single time, then why 1. haven't they spread to different parts of the world or 1a. why is every part of the world exactly the same, and 2. why hasn't the local ecosystem changed at all, by all appearances?
Or C, time and budget. Which are the deciding factors in everything you see on TV. Or D. The people who set up the Stargates liked temperate rainforests.

I just hate it when a sci-fi, that has an entire galaxy or universe of potentially fascinating planets, comes back to the exact same thing every single time. It's a waste of potential, it's boring, and it makes it very hard for me to maintain suspension of disbelief.
The answer is always, time and money. A TV show is made at breakneck speed on a budget that is usually smaller than the people making the show would like. That forces compromise. In some cases, the compromises it forces actually work in the show's favour, in others not so much. But in most cases you'll find that the environments they film in are within a certain distance of the base of operations for the production. Because if they aren't, it takes too long to get there and costs too much.

See also: Doctor Who always coming back to Earth, particularly England, particularly in the last few decades, at best in the last couple of thousand years.
Ironically, Doctor Who is filmed in Wales nowadays. They go to great lengths to find bits of Cardiff that look like they might pass for bits of London, with varying degrees of success.

[averagejoe]

So, what you're saying is... Yes, they look human?

Well, they do the whole yeerk thing. When they say, "Goa'uld," in the show, a lot of the times they're referring to the alien and/or its host interchangeably. The actual goa'uld species looks like this (http://specs2.deviantart.com/art/Goa-uld-Symbiote-47358282?offset=20).

They could have done with some different cultures, though. I can't speak to the anthropological likelihood of this or that, but it probably would have made for more interesting stories.

[Serpentine]

After O'Neill gets the Ancient Database downloaded into his brain and dials up the Asgard homeworld, they start showing up quite a lot. Thor was a regular recurring character and Loki (I think) was a crewman on the Prometheus at least until the humans understood the workings of the Asgard hyperdrive.Oh yeah, I remember that one dude... Forgot about him.

It's not that different from every alien planet on Star Trek looking like it's either a studio set, a botannical garden or a patch of desert just outside LA. Or every alien planet on classic Doctor Who looking like a quarry in the south east of England. Budget and time limit the amount of truly alien environments to very few in most science fiction shows.Yep. Annoys me there, too. I have said a couple of times that Stargate isn't the only one that has these issues, not by a long shot.

Though Farscape, by dint of having been filmed in Australia, manages to get some stranger looking locations thn most Canadian productions.I bet there's a kookaburra somewhere.

Or C, time and budget. Which are the deciding factors in everything you see on TV. Or D. The people who set up the Stargates liked temperate rainforests...
The answer is always, time and money.Out-of-story reasons do not help breaking of suspension of disbelief.

[The Big Dice]

Out-of-story reasons do not help breaking of suspension of disbelief.
Suspension of disbelief has to be willing, or it's not actually being suspended. As an audience member, we have to be willing to accept that what we see on screen is what the cast are saying it is. Otherwise we're just watching thesps in costumes talking.

[Axolotl]

See also: Doctor Who always coming back to Earth, particularly England, particularly in the last few decades, at best in the last couple of thousand years.Would you rather they went back to the good old days where every alien society the Doctor visited looked like a quarry?

[Serpentine]

Suspension of disbelief has to be willing, or it's not actually being suspended. As an audience member, we have to be willing to accept that what we see on screen is what the cast are saying it is. Otherwise we're just watching thesps in costumes talking.So... responsibility for the quality of what I'm watching rests solely on my own shoulders? :smallconfused:

Would you rather they went back to the good old days where every alien society the Doctor visited looked like a quarry?I'd rather they got a bit more creative with their locations and times.
Still love it, though.

[Axolotl]

I'd rather they got a bit more creative with their locations and times.
Still love it, though.But the thing is creativity costs money. Most of the episodes are set in contempary Britain because that's what's available. Dr Who is still being made on a British TV budget and they really can't afford to make a whole new alien society for each episode.

[paddyfool]

So the film, Serenity, in short felt like it could have been something great and simply fell short of that. The reception of the fan base seemed to be praising it on what it could have been, which is sort of like praising the Star Wars prequels based on a fan script for them somewhere on the internet while ignoring what actually was on the screen.

@SuperPanda,

Like you, I watched Serenity before the series, and like you, I didn't immediately watch the series because I wasn't that impressed (although, on the other hand, I wasn't actively ****ed off, as I was by the SW prequels), because my friend's fanboyism was putting me off, and because I just don't watch that much TV anyway.

Then, a few years later, I watched the series, loved it (after the slow start), watched the film again, and liked it a lot better. (It's designed to build on the character progression already established in the series, so really doesn't work as well as a stand-alone film). Dunno if you'll have the same reaction, but you might.

[Talya]

The Goa'uld do not look human at all. In fact, I rather think you'd like them, Serpentine. :smallcool:

http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs13/f/2007/025/f/5/Goa__uld_Symbiote_by_specs2.jpg

You mistake the hosts that these parasitic organisms live in for the Goa'uld themselves. And yes, the hosts look human...because they are human.

[Serpentine]

That is a good start ('specially the "yeerk-like" bit :smallcool:), but nonetheless: how often do you see them? Alternatively: how often do you see them in non-humans?

[Talya]

Well, actual aliens are extremely rare in Stargate mythos. All human-like species, even the roswell-alien asgard, appear to share a common ancestry and were seeded throughout the cosmos.

The Goa'uld are a rare exception; an intelligent species that evolved independant of the human origins, however, their original hosts on their homeworld were the Unas...

http://www.gruponemesis.com/tv/guia/sgate/7/sg707.jpg

Now, the Unas were definitely humans in a rubber suit. It was just a very well done and very alien-looking rubber suit.

SG-1 mostly avoided the star trek aliens-are-humans-with-pointy-ears-and-or-head/nose-ridges trope by simply not having aliens. Usually. The human-like species on other worlds actually are humans (or at least, the decendants of them separated by millions of years of evolution.)

[grolim]

Well you rarely see them in non-humans because over the millenia they have kinda gotten used to playing gods and all the fun they can have in human bodies. Their original hosts were the Unas from their own home world, definitely better for the big bad warrior type but going to humans were a definite step up.

As for why there were so few alien races yes the budget etc were the big cause of that, but in-universe they gave the reason. The original Ancients seeded the galaxy with life and designed it to look like them. Sure there are other forms of life that evolved here but the vast majority of it is human because it was designed to be.
Non humans you have just as a short list, Asgard, Gou'ald, Unas, Nox, Furlings, the alien race that freed some humans and now live with them the guys that Sam flew the spaceship race with, the sentient computer race, the microbe/bacteria race that almost took over the SGC, the shape changing race that played spirits to the Indians, the crystals, the guy who kidnapped Daniel to find out what happened to his mate in Babylon, thee race that took over the SGC in Foothold, the water-based lifeforms that the Russians discovered, the Lucian alliance has some alien bounty hunters, and thats just what I can think of off-hand.

As for why don't their societies change more or they advance, they are kept that way by the gou'ald. Advanced enough to be useful but not to be a threat. Most of the tech advanced societies they meet in the series were abandoned or fogotten by the gou'ald and then progressed. They don't move and spread far from the gate because that is where they are made to stay so they are accessible.

They have shown many worlds that aren't so pleasantly habitable as well. There were several that had radiation problems or such and people were only there as a prison or for mining, the ice world with the people in the dome, but generally the gou'ald pick places that are at least comfortable to hang out unless there is a specific reason not to, secret base, valuable resource to mine, etc.

I liked SG-1, but to me it was never made to BE good sci-fi rather it was made to be feel-good sci-fi. Good guys are Big Damn Heroes, campy one-liners, over the top bad guys etc. It was more for fun than seriousness and they knew it, just look at the episode 200.

[DeadManSleeping]

Well, actual aliens are extremely rare in Stargate mythos. All human-like species, even the roswell-alien asgard, appear to share a common ancestry and were seeded throughout the cosmos.

I don't remember the Asgard having genetic ties to other races. As I recall, there are the following distinct, unrelated beings: humans, Asgard, Goa'uld, Furlings. There are also the Ancients (genetically related to humans, and thus human-looking) and the Nox (who look like humans for absolutely no reason but I forgive them because the Nox lady is very attractive).

Pretty much every other "alien" species in Stargate is absolutely totally human, or evolved/devolved human.

They all speak English because it makes writing the show easier, I presume.

[Talya]

I don't remember the Asgard having genetic ties to other races.

You're right. They said they used to look much more human, but their genetic cloning program overtime turned them into the beings they appeared. This actually creates the trope Serpentine is complaining about, despite never seeing a human-looking Asgard in the show.

[Lyra Reynolds]

@SuperPanda,

Like you, I watched Serenity before the series, and like you, I didn't immediately watch the series because I wasn't that impressed (although, on the other hand, I wasn't actively ****ed off, as I was by the SW prequels), because my friend's fanboyism was putting me off, and because I just don't watch that much TV anyway.

Then, a few years later, I watched the series, loved it (after the slow start), watched the film again, and liked it a lot better. (It's designed to build on the character progression already established in the series, so really doesn't work as well as a stand-alone film). Dunno if you'll have the same reaction, but you might.

I had the same experience. I tried watching Serenity first, on my brother's recommendation, but didn't finish it because none of the characters could interest me. I actually felt like I was missing a huge chunk of backstory! Which turned out to be right when I found out there was a tv series. A friend made me watch it (she'd watch Buffy in return - I was a huge Buffy fan back then), I got hooked, watched Serenity and liked it much better the second time around. :) Even though it's not as good as the series.

[The Big Dice]

So... responsibility for the quality of what I'm watching rests solely on my own shoulders? :smallconfused:
The responsibility for accepting the limitations of what you're watching rests on your shoulders. And that goes equally for TV as it does for movies.

[Serpentine]

It's the film/show's job to convince me that what's going on is believable. I'm not exactly especially hard to please in that regard.

[hamishspence]

Props to Whedon for writing and creating an interesting and honorable villain figure who seems to be trying to do the right thing as he understands it to be right. Alignment wise he struck me as Lawful Neutral with good leanings, honor is far more important to him but when he learns he has been an accomplice to evil it shatters his world view. Everything about the character pretty much states that when he leaves at the end of the movie and tells Mal that they will never see each other again, he's off to commit suicide because under his moral views he has failed and deserves death. From what I've heard, word of god is that he does not, but that actually lessens the character considerably in my view. It makes him less interesting.

This seems like it's missing a big point of the Operative's personality- he knows that what he does is evil- he knows that he's a monster and has no place in the "better world" he wants to create- but he thinks that his evil deeds are necessary for it.

It's not "being an accomplice to evil" that shatters his view- it's the true nature of what "a world without sin" could be like, that does.

[mangosta71]

There's another reason for aliens to be humanoid - our form is pretty well-optimized from an evolutionary viewpoint. Symmetry demands an even number of limbs. At least 2 are necessary for mobility, and 2 is indeed the ideal number in terms of efficiency. 2 is again the ideal for the number of arms - beyond that you're getting duplication of effort, which means you're getting a much smaller return on the investment.

[hamishspence]

Couldn't an alien more closely resemble a centaur? Quadrupedal form has its own benefits- stability, for example.

[Nerd-o-rama]

This seems like it's missing a big point of the Operative's personality- he knows that what he does is evil- he knows that he's a monster and has no place in the "better world" he wants to create- but he thinks that his evil deeds are necessary for it.

It's not "being an accomplice to evil" that shatters his view- it's the true nature of what "a world without sin" could be like, that does.Exactly. What broke the Operative was seeing what all his and the Alliance's supposed ideals amounted to in the real world. The ends, it turned out, were even worse than the horrible means.


There's another reason for aliens to be humanoid - our form is pretty well-optimized from an evolutionary viewpoint. Symmetry demands an even number of limbs. At least 2 are necessary for mobility, and 2 is indeed the ideal number in terms of efficiency. 2 is again the ideal for the number of arms - beyond that you're getting duplication of effort, which means you're getting a much smaller return on the investment.

With the obvious caveat that four legs are better for overland speed and four+ legs are better for stability, and more "arms" are probably better for climbing and possibly tool-use. Humans are jacks of all trades, master of none, and we've done so well because we have the brain capacity and tool-using ability to focus our efforts where necessary.

Having a more efficient, if slower, set of legs probably helped us not all get eaten by lions, admittedly.

[Flame of Anor]

I liked SG-1, but to me it was never made to BE good sci-fi rather it was made to be feel-good sci-fi. Good guys are Big Damn Heroes, campy one-liners, over the top bad guys etc. It was more for fun than seriousness and they knew it, just look at the episode 200.

I agree, though I think that good sci-fi doesn't have to be hard sci-fi; fun sci-fi can be just as good in its own way.


...wait, wasn't this a Firefly thread? :smallredface:

[Weezer]

With the obvious caveat that four legs are better for overland speed and four+ legs are better for stability, and more "arms" are probably better for climbing and possibly tool-use. Humans are jacks of all trades, master of none, and we've done so well because we have the brain capacity and tool-using ability to focus our efforts where necessary.

Having a more efficient, if slower, set of legs probably helped us not all get eaten by lions, admittedly.

Actually bipeds are faster in the long run than quadrepeds. Humans have beaten horses in marathons and a pre-weapon hunting technique was to run after deer until they died of exhaustion.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Actually bipeds are faster in the long run than quadrepeds. Humans have beaten horses in marathons and a pre-weapon hunting technique was to run after deer until they died of exhaustion.

Exactly. Slower, but more efficient, means we can just keep running when horses or lions or antelope have to stop.

[Zen Monkey]

There's another reason for aliens to be humanoid - our form is pretty well-optimized from an evolutionary viewpoint. Symmetry demands an even number of limbs.

It seems like we would benefit from having a prehensile tail. You could carry a tool or your offspring, and still have your hands free. You could hang from things. Seems handy.

[Flame of Anor]

It seems like we would benefit from having a prehensile tail. You could carry a tool or your offspring, and still have your hands free. You could hang from things. Seems handy.

Well, yeah, and we'd benefit from having another several arms, but not enough to evolutionarily justify the extra resources the body would need to expend for them.

[Nerd-o-rama]

It seems like we would benefit from having a prehensile tail. You could carry a tool or your offspring, and still have your hands free. You could hang from things. Seems handy.

Maybe if we'd stayed arboreal we'd have kept them, although other great apes did and they also don't have tails. Possibly we're large enough that tails of non-cumbersome size could no longer effectively support our weight? Or we could have just gotten unlucky in that particular aspect of genetic drift.

And while we're on evolution, no, speciation does not happen over the course of 4000 or 6000 years, especially in a species like us who can use tools to adapt rather than having segments of the population die out. At most you'd get, like, pigment changes, or biochemical changes in response to disease like those guys in the Broca Divide who adapted to their environment by eating a high-histamine diet. Although the Broca Divide might be a bad thing to cite when I'm trying to talk about real biology...

[mangosta71]

More telling than the lack of genetic drift is the lack of cultural drift, though. Look at how much our culture has changed in the past 20 years. Those people were still essentially the same after however many millenia?

[Jallorn]

More telling than the lack of genetic drift is the lack of cultural drift, though. Look at how much our culture has changed in the past 20 years. Those people were still essentially the same after however many millenia?

They were being manipulated by figures posing as gods. The Goa'uld kept their culture from drifting.

And for that matter, we don't actually know that they were entirely isolated, there is that great big honkin' plot device people can use to travel across the galaxy. Admittedly it was mostly only used by the Goa'uld and Jaffa on some worlds, but others are completely unfazed by SG-1 coming through the gate, which would indicate others might be able to as well.

Also, IIRC, the Ancients predate all other life in the Milky Way, and used the Dakara superweapon to create humanoid life patterns. Of course that has lots of plot holes, and the Asgard are from the Ida galaxy, so we should probably leave that one alone.

[Joran]

There was also a third show that actually was marginally my favorite of the three called 'Wonderfalls'
It was originally planned for three seasons, it barely got one. :smallannoyed:

You get a gold star from me. Wonderfalls is my favorite "what could have been, why did they cancel this, this is why we can't have nice things" show. For all those who enjoyed Firefly's dialogue, I cannot recommend Wonderfalls highly enough.

But yes, Bryan Fuller has a knack for creating endearing shows and then having them brutally canceled. Dead Like Me (2 seasons), Wonderfalls (half a season), Pushing Daisies (2 seasons). Yikes.

[Mauther]

There's another reason for aliens to be humanoid - our form is pretty well-optimized from an evolutionary viewpoint. Symmetry demands an even number of limbs. At least 2 are necessary for mobility, and 2 is indeed the ideal number in terms of efficiency. 2 is again the ideal for the number of arms - beyond that you're getting duplication of effort, which means you're getting a much smaller return on the investment.

I believe the film touched on this, and the series came back to it once or twice. Basically the Gao'uld use humans because biologicaly we're pretty simple and reliable. Kind of like volkswagons. So their ability to do repair and life extensions with the host bodies was simplified. Also, the Goa'uld as a race of parasites were relatively lazy, so once they had a slave population they tended to keep it homogenous just for simplicity sake. Multiracial empires take work.

On the language issue, they actually mention it on one of the extras for the first season. Basically, the writers got tired of constantly having to handle Daniel's translating every single episode, so they slowly phased it out. No explanation was ever given, it was just done to speed up the story.

And for the cultural drift issue, mot of the races encountered were kept under alien dominion until very recently, so they were in an artificial stasus, since the Goa'uld used the original social model to maintain control. There were a handful of "independent" human societies, but the Goa'uld tended to take any opportunity to wipe humans out as soon as they posed a threat. The Tollan were one of the only independent human societies that was advanced enough to protect themselves.

[Mauther]

...
On topic: ...
The Assasin.

With the obvious Asian culture themes drawn for the assasin figure one of two reactions would have kept him in the very belivable and interesting catagory: 1) (Japanese- Samurai like honor code) - I have failed, not just myself and my government, but I failed all the colonies by assisting in this evil. Everything I am and everything I have believed is a lie and I have committed horrible crimes in their name. There is only one fitting punishment and I must carry out the sentence myself. That is my redemption.
2) (Chinese traditional honor code) The government has betrayed be and forced dishonor upon me and everything I've stood for. I must have revenge for this. You (Mal) have shown me this truth, for this I owe you a great debt. I may not like you, and I do not think you have honor, but until my debt is paid you may count me an ally.

option 1 is how it was played out, with the word of god basically saying that he abandoned his sense of honor rather than accept the price of his failures. Option 2 would have been an interesting way to take one of the best developed characters (from the film alone) and add them into the Serenity cast list for the theoretical 3rd season.


the cultural defaults for the Fireflyverse are American and Chinese. So it makes sense that the operative would lean toward the "Chinese" system, and the dialogue of the scene does go that way. It even sounds like he's trying to extend an olive branch to Mal (which Mal quickly slaps down, lights on fire and urinates upon.) In the deleted scenes, Mal gives him about the most scathing indictment Mal can level on anybody "What a whiner." Mal's not killing the operative, but he's responsible for the deaths of just about everyone the crew cares about. Mal's not giving him a ride anywhere.

[Katana_Geldar]

Watched it last night as I bought a season pass off iTunes. I have to get my dad to watch this as he loves Westerns and sci-fi.

And it helps that in my roleplaying group, I am playing a companion in our firefly game.

[Carduus]

I agree, though I think that good sci-fi doesn't have to be hard sci-fi; fun sci-fi can be just as good in its own way.


...wait, wasn't this a Firefly thread? :smallredface:

I think that's why Firefly works. They sublimate the science to the plot, the way a good space opera should. While it may end up occasionally dancing closer to science fantasy than science fiction, it still keeps you gripped into the overarching storyline.