I’ve just watched the first episode of Firefly and already I’m hooked.

It’s essentially a western in space, which sounds like a wierd idea until you think about it: Space being the new frontier, it’s just like the Old West. It’s sparsely populated, and everyone is just trying to make a living however they can. Josh Whedon’s execution of the idea is supremely cool. Most of the people in the world of Firefly, apart from the government types, are hard-edged business people. They don’t take any nonsense and they drive a hard bargain.

The captain of the Firefly class ship Serenity, played by Nathan Fillion is the epitome of this. He’s practically a hero from an Ayn Rand novel. When the doctor taken on board as a passenger tells the captain his moving sob story, the captain is only interested in what the doctor can do for him, since he’s caused a lot of trouble “for me and mine.” He knows when to walk away from a deal that’s too much trouble, avoiding a fight he can’t win, and when to use force to protect himself and his crew. And he says cool stuff like, “the purpose of government is to get in a man’s way” and, “you don’t know me son, so let me explain this to you once. If I ever kill you, you’ll be awake. You’ll be facing me, and you’ll be armed.”

If I have one criticism of what I’ve seen so far, it’s that the guns are drawn a little too often. The real old west was a lot more peaceful than the movies make out because for the most part guns were merely a threat rarely used. But this failing is forgivable in a TV show that needs to be action packed and exciting. And it’s so hard to repress a cowboy whoop when, during a tense hostage scene in which the bad guy cop has his gun to a girl’s head, Captain Reynolds comes running up, sees what’s happening and shoots the bad guy in the face without missing a beat! Yeehah! There’s no soul searching and “what have we done?” nonsense, they just chuck him out of the back of the ship and continue about their day, having done what needed to be done.

The rest of the characters are interesting and diverse. These include the ambassador, a euphemism for the woman who helps smooth the ship’s passage into certain ports by providing her, uh, services to the local men. There’s the always amusing, you-wouldn’t-want-to-get-on-the-wrong-side-of-him security man (”you don’t pay me to talk pretty, Captain” — and he doesn’t). And to soften the mood there’s Kaylee the mechanic who is far too sweet and innocent to be on such a spaceship, although I have a feeling she is yet to show her true mettle.

Top it off with a wonderful bluegrass soundtrack; the way some of the technology, like the space ship looks so rugged and creaky and yet there are glimpses of slick technology like smart paper; the fact that for once there’s no sound in space; and the diverse locations from space to futuristic cities to cattle-ranch outposts, and you’ve got a corker of a show. It’s looking like the best new sci-fi in a very long time.

Which makes it such a shame that Fox saw fit to cancel it. Maybe it was too sophisticated but I think sometimes these studios underestimate their audience. The fact I heard about it first on the usenet newsgroup alt.fan.elite suggests it could have been marketed better. (”Hello! Target demographic over here! Hello?”) There is hope, though, in the form of a movie version called Serenity, which will hopefully be hugely successful and spawn endless spin-offs and sequels.

So what are you waiting for? Go and buy the series and make sure you see the movie when it comes out.

Posted by Rob Fisher in Reviews