Well, by golly, we managed to finally watch the rest of “Serenity,” the 2-hour pilot/premiere/last-ever-aired episode of Firefly. And, let me just join in with the general consensus to say that Fox programming execs are dolts.
Not that the ep was flawless. The initial battle scene never quite jelled. And while there are good bits before that, the episode doesn’t really click until the first group meal aboard Serenity, when about eleventy-dozen of the show’s themes and personality interactions suddenly snap into focus.
By the end of the ep, anyone who would say that it was confusing, or didn’t introduce the characters well, or, Gosh, Joss, why don’t you run a different in media res episode for the premiere, and we’ll hold onto this two-hour thang until the show’s been cancelled, is a certifiable dolt.
Feh.
So after it was over, I inquired of Margie if she was up for another one. No, she replied, she wanted to get to bed at a reasonable hour, so she didn’t want to commit to another 1-hour episode. So, after a short bit, I started the ep over, with the commentary track by Joss and Nathan Fillion (Mal) turned on. I figured, Well, heck, I can listen to it in the background, Margie can leave when she wants, and I can head up when I’m ready, too.
The full 2-hour episode later, we both decided it was really time to hit the sack …
Oh, I wholeheartedly disagree. I wouldn’t have continued with the series if I had seen that monstrosity of a two-hour ep. The characters were nothing more than cliches, the suspense lacked….well, suspense, and the final escape relied on actual machina.
The only hints of promise in the episode was the nature of the Alliance-marked bars.
I believe that, as with Buffy, Whedon needed to write a bad movie to get himself started.
I’ll agree that the plot is a bit muddled in whole (the final threat almost completly comes from nowhere, and, yes, gets resolved through something as arbitrary as realigning the tetryon flux capacitor field).
As a series of scenes, though, it’s grand. And as an intro to the characters (and the universe in general), it’s more than adequate — certainly better than throwing in “The Train Job” instead.
Did Wesley Crusher come up with the idea that saved the ship?
If he did, it’s in his personal blog. 😉
Hmm, must stop by Television Without Pity’s archived recaps of Firefly again. Need another fix of this show until the DVD arrives.