Directed by Joss Whedon, Firefly was a space drama set way into the future in the year 2157. The show aired on September 20th, 2002, and was too far-fetched for that time. Released on Fox network, the series followed nine people on board a spaceship in the year 2157, surrounded by the sheer darkness of the vast expanse of space, but each is observing different things.
Joss Whedon, also the screenwriter for the show, imagined a future where the two superpowers, China and the United States of America, come together to join hands and form an alliance, a government of sorts, that would bring the two polar opposite cultures together. Whedon went on to say that to him if the future did not look all that different from the present, we would still be dealing with the same problems as we do right now.
He called the ‘Firefly class’ spaceship Serenity, which had a crew of nine people aboard. The series had Nathan Fillion as Mal Reynolds, Serenity’s captain, and Gina Torres as Zoe Washburne, the captain’s right-hand woman and wife of Hoban Washburne, played by Alan Tudyk.
Morena Baccarin plays Inara Serra, a rich mistress renting a place to live on the spaceship, along with Adam Baldwin as Jayne Cobb, the guy with all the cool gun supplies. The show also has Jewel Staite as Kaywinnet Lee Frye, the sole mechanic on the ship, Sean Maher as Simon Tam, a runaway but extremely talented doctor; Summer Glau as River Tam, Sean’s genius sister with a potential for some mind-blowing abilities; and Ron Glass as Derrial Book as the token religious guy.
The show received all kinds of reviews, but the fact remains that even though it got to air only eleven episodes, it managed to turn the audience into a fan, getting views close to four million for every episode. It also received significant awards, eventually pushing Whedon to make a movie titled ‘Serenity’ to try to wrap up the show at least.
Firefly: The Plot
The show is based in a new galaxy with newer Earth and other habitable planets which humans have taken control over. Mal’s Serenity is his home, it gets him work and keeps him alive, and everybody on board is a crew member, all working to protect the ship.
The planets are being looked after and guarded by a form of a governmental alliance called the Alliance between China and America, the only surviving superpowers. On the newfound planets, this has brought a mixed form of life, with values and traditions from both the West and the East being incorporated into people’s lives.
The Alliance tries its best to maintain order over the main planets, but it can control only so much. The planets beyond the government’s control refuse to work according to their plan and try to live on their terms. They exercise more freedom than the core planets, but they are not as advanced as them in terms of technology either.
Mal’s spaceship, Serenity, also functions in the borders, somewhere at the edge with the least control from the Alliance. All his crew members are people with their issues, be they mental or legal. But every member is unique and different from the others, which is what Whedon has tried to emphasize. Everyone from a different background and past views their new world and processes things differently.
Firefly: The Cancelation
We know the show, Firefly, got canceled mid-season, airing only eleven episodes out of fourteen planned for its first season. The show was ahead of its time and also enjoyed its short-lived cult status. Whedon’s science-fiction vision for the show was so advanced that it left viewers at the time completely speechless.
Even after the show was canceled, Whedon made a movie based on the same plotline, and the show became comic books and games. The show was everyone’s favorite and loved by all. So, why did it get canceled abruptly without wrapping up its first season?
Fox Networks stated several reasons for canceling a show as loved as Firefly, even though it received awards and nominations even after it stopped airing. One reason that played a significant role in the show’s cancellation was related to Fox’s executive head’s mistake.
Whedon had plans to set the story for his audience understandably and continuously. His wish to air the hour-long episodes in an orderly and periodic manner was probably too difficult for the executive head to understand, which led to the episodes being aired confusingly, not following the order Whedon had in mind.
While this is a major reason for the show’s cancellation, other reasons also existed, like Fox’s expectations from Whedon were not met. Joss Whedon is known to be behind the iconic show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the network was expecting something similar that would hit home for the loyal audience from Whedon.
Firefly came out to be this futuristic space-based genre that was not only way ahead of its time in terms of technology, VFX, sets, and props but also turned out to be expensive. The kind of budget such a show required seemed impossible at the time, even for Fox. The show’s premise, which tried to mix the space world with philosophy and emotions, was a unique take on the genre and did not resonate well with the critics and the loyal Fox viewers.
The question arises that the show still managed to find for itself a cult-like following that some think continues to grow even now. Even at the time, a portion of the audience appreciated Joss’s attempt at creating something new and unique, and they became the ultimate fans of the show. Still, it seems the following was not large enough for the channel to be convinced that the show would work out.
It is a known fact that Fox almost did not even air the show’s first episode because there were troubles between Whedon and the executive heads regarding some of the characters and their storylines. Unfortunately, the show was also not promoted correctly at the time. The ads running for the show failed to let the audience know what kind of show Firefly was.
This might have been a big reason why the show failed to garner higher ratings. Something that feels extremely suspicious about the show’s makers is that they assigned the show no more than one season, which is ridiculous when you realize that a lot of the super popular shows in the present time did not all start with this big fandom.
It almost looks like Fox was never really keen on going ahead with the show and putting effort into it. Their half-baked efforts lead to a ridiculous attempt at promotions for the show with an even more ridiculous time slot. Whedon may have wanted to move ahead from Buffy’s The Vampire Slayer and its spinoff titled Angel, but it seems like Fox was not ready to let go of the former’s success and wanted to stretch it as much as possible.
Loyal fans of the show still exist in corners of the world. Though Whedon may have released the movie, Serenity, to provide fans with some form of closure and understanding of the show, they still wait for a possible reboot or a second season to pick up right from we left off. Reboot or not, fans or better, cult fans of the show continue to shower it with all the love it should have received twenty years ago.
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