Firefly – The
Complete Series
 When the "complete TV series on
DVD" craze began, I thought it was a great idea. Some television deserves repeated
viewings -- and popular shows in syndication get cut to ribbons in an attempt to jam more
commercials in. Buy a season or two of a good show (and most shows have only a season or
so of really worthwhile episodes) and you can watch at your own pace.
That was just fine for shows like The Sopranos or The
Honeymooners or a scant few other series, but then things started getting ridiculous. Friends?
Give me a break. On the other hand, as the old joke has it, who am I to judge another
person’s hell?
Two recent releases have made me remember what was so
refreshing about the whole boxed-set TV explosion. One is the release of the first season
of The Wire (just get it -- you won’t be sorry); the other is the release of Firefly
– The Complete Series.
Firefly was a Joss Whedon series -- he’s the
guy who created Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, the only two television
shows that jam as many pop-culture references into an episode as The Simpsons. Firefly
was a trans-genre concept, combining the convention of a sci-fi space opera with the feel
of a western. It sounds like a stretch, but it actually works pretty well -- and, given
time, it might have been huge.
We’ll never know for sure. Fox managed to screw with
it at just about every step of the way, from canceling its two-part pilot to yanking it
after airing only seven episodes. I missed seeing it on broadcast television -- as did
most TV owners. The release of Firefly – The Complete Series gathers
together all 14 episodes that were completed and reveals it to be a hilarious and
endearing effort.
It’s not perfect -- some of the dialogue and plot
devices are pretty creaky -- but Firefly has a loopy energy and off-kilter charm
that are very addictive. At least, they would have been, had the series been allowed to
find its audience. Speaking of "finding an audience," why do TV executives
insist on moving shows around so that even their fans get confused about when they can see
them? Is this something that makes sense only to someone pulling down a six-figure salary?
But I digress -- my point was that the complete Firefly is really good episodic
fiction. Once you buy into the concept, it’s pretty nigh irresistible.
The production values are impressive, too. The main set is
the ship itself -- a Firefly-class starship called the Serenity. Like the various Enterprises,
the Serenity gives the show a solid sense of place -- more so than the Enterprise,
actually, because there’s no use of generic-looking corridor or hanger-bay footage.
The Serenity has a specificity that makes it seem very real. It looks very
lived-in.
The show’s special effects are extremely good -- not
blockbuster-movie good, but it’s obvious that Fox spent some money here. It was shot
in 1.78:1 ratio, which is lovingly presented in the four DVD set, and the picture quality
is first-rate.
The sound is impressive Dolby 2.0 Surround -- not as
impressive as 5.1 surround, but way better than most TV shows even dream of. It’s
obvious that the show’s sound engineers cared.
The set comes with some nice features, including the
now-obligatory (but in this case pretty interesting) "making of"
mini-documentary and an Easter egg of Adam Baldwin singing.
If I haven’t focused on what Firefly is about,
that’s deliberate. One reason the show never found its audience on Fox was that it
was shown out of sequence, and incomplete at that. Whedon tends to work best in larger
arcs, and the show’s first season was kind of about what the show was going to be
about. In other words, it’s a voyage of discovery.
But like everything else Whedon has done so far, it’s
also about how people survive in a universe that is at best indifferent, and at worst
downright hostile: by creating a family and cracking jokes. That means the show lives and
dies on the quality of its cast, and Firefly had a really, really good ’un.
I adored the family the cast and crew of Firefly
created -- and perhaps the universe isn’t as indifferent as I’ve made it sound.
There’s life after network death after all: In 2005, there will be a feature film
based on Firefly called Serenity. Check out Firefly – The Complete
Series and find out why that is good news indeed.
...Wes Phillips
wes@onhometheater.com
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