So Nice, I Watched it Twice

A slightly random observation, but I watched the first episode of Firefly last night and liked it much, much better than I did the first time I'd seen it. The key is that the storytelling is brilliantly subtle about revealing what's going on. As the second scene begins, you're already in the thick of things and nobody's stepped back to explain "Earth That War," why the outer planets are so poor, that the Alliance won the war, what a Brownshirt is, or anything. The storytelling just proceeds. When you first watch, though, you're so taken in by trying to "figure it out" that it's a little hard to appreciate how delicately the whole contraption's been constructed.

It's something one must keep in mind when dealing with any sophisticated TV show. I've seen the first three seasons of The Wire all at least three times, and my relative rating of them shifts over time (in particular, season two is superficially seductive but starts to look clumsy compared to the other two, while season three has a lot of hidden resonances) in a way that makes me believe the current month's worth of Sopranos-talk will all need to be revised once people finally have the chance to watch the entire run on DVD.

Comments

Haven't seen Firefly yet, but was very impressed with Serenity (the movie version). Except, of course, for the drawn out final fight scene--that was pretty lame.

But on the whole the concept seemed very ambitious and intriguing.

Posted by Scott Kern | June 28, 2007 9:40 AM

I'm just starting to watch the sopranos, from start to finish (just finished season 2 last night - I think more happened in the finale there than the entire rest of the season.) Having heard how it ends, it was interesting to see the parallel there with the ending of the first season, which was very similar in sequence if maybe not in tone.

Firefly was bomb and so was Serenity. I wish they had been more successful.

Posted by Drew Miller | June 28, 2007 9:43 AM

I can't really confirm Matt's argument, since when I got the box set I did a Fox and watched the second DVD first by accident.

Scott: if you liked Serenity, you'll love Firefly. It's miles better - the action setpieces are toned down and the characters are given room to breathe.

Posted by Ginger Yellow | June 28, 2007 9:53 AM

er, Matthew, it's Browncoats ... But thanks for the Firefly love ...

Posted by Cannot_stop_the_signal | June 28, 2007 9:55 AM

Firefly was a great show and much better than Sereneity. Too bad many people (including myself) didn't watch until it came out on DVD and was already cancelled.

Posted by Dave | June 28, 2007 10:13 AM

The flipside of this point is that it may not matter how wonderfully complicated and sophisticated your storytelling is...if it fails to entertain the audience on a "surface" level.

The problem with THE SOPRANOS ending was that it didn't work on that "surface" level. People making excuses about it, are missing the point. It's not that there's anything wrong with a show trying to be more intellectual or "deeper" than that and it isn't that people are just too dumb to understand the ending. People wanted to be entertained on that "surface" level by the ending...because a lot of the show had worked on that "surface" level, especially the 1st three years. People are trying to retcon THE SOPRANOS into high art and while those pretentions or aspirations may have always been there, the show was also very much a violent soap opera that appealed to the audience just as entertainment.

FIREFLY bombed because...

A. Whedon's clever writing really doesn't have that much appeal to the general public. His stuff, even when it's really good, has much more of a niche tone to it.

B. Whedon made a show that was supposed to unfold over time, in an era where you really need to grab the audience by the throat immediately.

Mike

Posted by MBunge | June 28, 2007 10:37 AM

I went the opposite way on season 2 of The Wire... found it initially a bit frustrating, but appreciated it more and more with repeated viewings. Chris Bauer's portrayal of the corrupt union boss Frank Sobotka was especially brilliant, arguably even better than Gandolfini’s portrayal of Tony Soprano.

Posted by RC | June 28, 2007 10:58 AM

FIREFLY bombed because...

A. Whedon's clever writing really doesn't have that much appeal to the general public.

Yeah, that "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" thing was a complete failure, I hear. Real niche interest.

Posted by ajay | June 28, 2007 10:59 AM

FIREFLY bombed because...

Fox murdered it by putting it in the worst timeslot possible for its audience (Friday night, in the days just before DVRs hit the mainstream) and not promoting it in any way.

Posted by dob | June 28, 2007 11:06 AM

I agree 100%. Of all the prematurely canceled shows over the years, Firefly is the one I grieve for the most.

Scott: Serenity should really be watched as the final episode of the Firefly series. That's basically what it was. If any of you reading this have not watched either, then definitely watch the series first followed by the Serenity movie in the end.

As for why Firefly bombed? I no longer even try to figure this stuff out. Shows I think are fabulous often bomb. Shows I can't sit through 2 minutes of often have 10 year runs.

I do think, however, that Firefly would have been a much more successful series on say HBO or the SciFi channel where it could have been given a longer chance to develop and could have given people more chances to find it. With a lot of network shows, if you miss it, it's gone. On HBO and SciFi they have so many follow-up repeats that if a show starts getting a buzz you can go find it later. With DVD and the internet that is becoming less of a problem, but still...

Posted by Kent | June 28, 2007 11:10 AM

Call me old-fashioned, but I get similar results by re-reading good books.

Posted by serial catowner | June 28, 2007 11:13 AM

"The key is that the storytelling is brilliantly subtle about revealing what's going on. As the second scene begins, you're already in the thick of things and nobody's stepped back to explain "Earth That War," why the outer planets are so poor, that the Alliance won the war, what a Brownshirt is, or anything."

This is pretty much standard for any decently-written sci-fi or fantasy work. You've got a lot of background to cover, but you have to cover it in a way that people will actually want to watch. History lessons are boring, after all; smuggling contraband through alliance territory (or whatever the first episode was about) is not.

Posted by Andrew Myers | June 28, 2007 11:16 AM

My appreciation of both seasons one and two of The Wire has grown on subsequent viewings-- when you're not trying to figure out who the hell everyone is and what's going on (and you know what's going to happen), you can see just how intricately-constructed the show is. Actually, this is true for seasons three and four too (even though I loved them so much on the first viewing that it was hard to go up)-- damn, the Wire is an incredible show.

Posted by Algernon | June 28, 2007 11:19 AM

How wonderful to see a discussion of Firefly here!

I rented the entire series last year (having missed it completely when it aired) and thought it was excellent. One thing that really surprised me was how completely the new Battlestar Galactica ripped off the faux-handheld camera in computer generated space sequences thing. That was a trick that I thought was really cool and inovative when I first saw it in BSG. Well, it's still cool, but it was only innovative when Firefly first introduced it.

What always amazes me when I think about it is that there are nine characters on that ship, and very quickly we get to know each one of them individually. How many shows with large casts have you watched, only to scratch your head wondering, now who's that guy again? That never happened to me watching Firefly.

Each episode is a lot of fun. The way the series just kind of peters out at the end is heart-breaking.

I think Fox is kind of notorious for sandbagging good shows with weird timeslots and lack of promotion. The way Futurama was handled was unforgivable. It was perpetually in a 7:00 Sunday timeslot. Who watches TV at that time? Well, people who watch football, I suppose. And nearly every episode of the show in the second season was preempted by football on the east coast. Very frustrating. I have heard similar complaints about Fox's handling of Space: Above and Beyond, which I have not watched but have heard some people rave about.

Definitely the advent of the cable network show is a boon to future projects like Firefly. HBO is not the only network that gives shows like this a chance. There's also USA, TNT, and FX (yeah, Fox Jr., but look at what they've accomplished with the Shield!).

Posted by Rob Mac | June 28, 2007 11:38 AM

> I agree 100%. Of all the prematurely canceled
> shows over the years, Firefly is the one I grieve
> for the most.

Unfortunately I watched them backwards, but I too really enjoyed both /Firefly/ and /Serenity/ and would have liked to see more. However, one also has to ask how much more they could have done? I suppose they could have taken a number of episodes to work through the information revealed in /Serenity/, but not an unlimited number. And there can only be so many inhabited planets in one solar system; Firefly had visited and p***ed off the police and top gangster on most of them. There weren't too many more cattle rustling stories left to tell.

Cranky

Posted by Cranky Observer | June 28, 2007 11:39 AM

ajay: Actually, Buffy remained on the verge of cancellation for much of its run, despite a burst of favorable media during the midpoint of its run. It was on a third-tier network and had a relatively small but devoted audience. That devoted audience now makes its cultural significance seem greater than one would expect from a show that achieved its level of success. It wasn't a runaway smash or anything.

Posted by Tom | June 28, 2007 11:47 AM

This is pretty much standard for any decently-written sci-fi or fantasy work. You've got a lot of background to cover, but you have to cover it in a way that people will actually want to watch.

Serenity (the movie, not the pilot episode) is brilliant at this, in a different way than "Serenity" (the pilot, not the movie) was. I didn't quite latch onto it when I first saw the movie because I already knew everything there was to know from watching the series, but listening to the commentary track made me realize how intelligently and elegantly Whedon dealt with the problem. He frontloads most of the exposition into the first ten minutes or so of the movie, but keeps changing context on you so that you don't have a chance to get bored: "It's the studio logo - oh, they're doing the old studio logo --> destroyed planet thing, with voice over --> oh, the v/o is actually a teacher in a classroom --> which turns out to be a hallucination/memory in the mind of this girl in a lab --> which turns out to be a holographic playback being watched by the antagonist."

The thing about judging Firefly that needs to be kept in mind is that they only made the 14 (right?) episodes, not all of which aired. Most shows, even the great ones (Buffy comes to mind) take about half a season to hit their stride. However the show would've developed, I don't think we saw anything close to the fulfillment of its potential.

Posted by Quarterican | June 28, 2007 11:58 AM

B. Whedon made a show that was supposed to unfold over time, in an era where you really need to grab the audience by the throat immediately.

It deserves to be said that FOX also aired the episodes out of order. What was supposed to be first ("Serenity") was postponed until the end of the season, and what was supposed to be episode 5 ("The Great Train Robbery") was aired first. Which meant the viewers were not introduced to the characters or their situation in any way that made sense.

Posted by Antid Oto | June 28, 2007 12:21 PM

"As for why Firefly bombed? I no longer even try to figure this stuff out. Shows I think are fabulous often bomb. Shows I can't sit through 2 minutes of often have 10 year runs.

I do think, however, that Firefly would have been a much more successful series on say HBO or the SciFi channel where it could have been given a longer chance to develop and could have given people more chances to find it."

I think that's right, as the success of BSG shows. It's just as "niche" a show in it's own way in that it deals with serious issues in an adult, nuanced manner. Sadly there isn't much room for that in mainstream TV. That said who knows how it might have gone down if Fox hadn't screwed up the scheduling so royally and then ditched it when it wasn't a blockbuster?

Another modern classic that Fox created then canned is of course Arrested Development. It's bizarre that Fox, of all studios, should be responsible for a significant proportion of the best American TV in the last decade, and yet at the same time it cancelled most of those shows.

Posted by Ginger Yellow | June 28, 2007 12:22 PM

Serenity has flaws, but when my wife and I teach workshops in science fiction writing, we cite its opening ten minutes as a brilliant collection of science-fictional expository techniques.

I thoroughly agree that watching good TV in multiple-episode blocks on DVD is substantially different from watching it in weekly episodes, says the guy who wandered away bored from the first couple of episodes of Deadwood back in the day, but is now inhaling the DVDs like they're the most interesting thing in the world.

Posted by Patrick Nielsen Hayden | June 28, 2007 12:28 PM

Also, if you like both Serenity and Firefly, pick up Serenity: Those Left Behind, the comic written by Joss Whedon to bridge the gap between the two.

Posted by Antid Oto | June 28, 2007 12:36 PM

Re: It was on a third-tier network and had a relatively small but devoted audience.

However that audience included a fairly large fraction of the most desirable demagraphic from an advertiser's POV: younger folk (teens to 30 somethings, inclduing women) with disposable income so it survived easily, and was snapped right up by UPN when WB balked at Whedon's asking price after season 5. Whereas a show with its ratings whose audience was mostly senior citizens would have been dumped midway through season one.

Posted by JonF | June 28, 2007 12:37 PM

"Also, if you like both Serenity and Firefly, pick up Serenity: Those Left Behind, the comic written by Joss Whedon to bridge the gap between the two."

Word is that he's working on some new Firefly comics, due out in autumn.

Posted by Ginger Yellow | June 28, 2007 12:49 PM

Echoing Rob Mac, it's great to see MY discussing Firefly/Serenity. As badly as Fox handled the programming of this great program, I do wonder whether or not it could have made it with the shows run in the proper sequence in a great time slot. There (sadly) just haven't been large audiences for space-based sci-fi over the years on television (see: original Trek).

Also, thanx to all who have talked up "Wire" on this site; I plan on attacking it via DVD this coming weekend, having missed it on HBO

Posted by Jackpine Savage | June 28, 2007 1:03 PM

ayay- "Yeah, that "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" thing was a complete failure, I hear. Real niche interest."

Uh, you do realize that not that many people really watched "Buffy"? Even at its absolute ratings peak on the WB, it would've been one of the worst rated shows on FOX, let alone NBC, CBS or ABC.

That doesn't say anything about the quality of the show, and you can argue that it would've gotten better ratings on a better network.

Mike

Posted by MBunge | June 28, 2007 1:15 PM

Antid Oto - "It deserves to be said that FOX also aired the episodes out of order. What was supposed to be first ("Serenity") was postponed until the end of the season, and what was supposed to be episode 5 ("The Great Train Robbery") was aired first. Which meant the viewers were not introduced to the characters or their situation in any way that made sense."

Having watched the actual first episode and then what was supposed to be the first episode, I completely understand why FOX made the switch. "Serenity" did a good job of establishing the show, but did a poor job of making anybody want to watch the show who wasn't already predisposed to do so. It was a show that expected an audience to be there for it. Not that airing "The Great Train Robbery" first was such a great idea, either.

Mike

Posted by MBunge | June 28, 2007 1:21 PM

I hate sci-fi, but the two shows my son brought back home from college with him -- Firefly and Farscape -- were mostly really enjoyable. Too bad that Firefly had such a short run, and (esthetically) too bad Farscape had too long of a run.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | June 28, 2007 1:27 PM

Serenity should really be watched as the final episode of the Firefly series. That's basically what it was.

Actually, if you watch Serenity while thinking of it as an outline for the next two seasons of the series's story arc - spacing out events as Whedon would have, and adding back in all the humor and character interactions that got compressed out of the movie - it's a lot more fun. Even the controversy near the film's end would have been typical as a twist say, halfway through season three.

Posted by Swordsmith | June 28, 2007 2:02 PM

"Call me old-fashioned, but I get similar results by re-reading good books."

Matt and this commenter raise a fairly significant issue for the academic study of any work aimed at a pop audience (including most novels every written in English): if a work changes when it is studied
(rather than, let's say, consumed), doesn't that imply that the act of studying has a certain inherent self-defeating quality to it?

In other words, if a TV show watched carefully 3 times is really so different from the same show watched once, shouldn't we consider the latter the "real" show?

Posted by Sam Penrose | June 28, 2007 2:46 PM

The Wire Season 2 rocks. My favorite by far.

Sobotka was one of the great characters ever.

Whedon is good almost always. Firefly The Series especially.

Special treat in the DVD's is Minear and the director, name escapes me, discussing Episode 5? (the one in flashback which starts with Nathan falling on the metal grid.)

Posted by Armando | June 28, 2007 3:26 PM

Firefly failed because Fox, in their dubious wisdom, decided not to air the pilot first, so people didn't really start to care about the characters until the 5th episode--by which point a lot of the Whedon fans had already given up on it.

Posted by Jason | June 28, 2007 3:27 PM

Loved "Serenity" and was just absolutely delighted to find out from my daughter that it was based on a series known as "Firefly" which I have begun watching. Just love it. Very entertaining. Glad it's not just me that digs it so much.

Posted by bjobotts | June 28, 2007 6:32 PM

What's wrong with Season 2 of the Wire? Was Ziggy too kooky?

Posted by aeroman | June 28, 2007 9:41 PM

Yeah, Ziggy didn't help. I think by the end of Season 1, most fans are enraptured by the Barksdales and want to see more. Instead we get these union dudes... Not a bad arc but in the end the average Wire viewer wanted more Stringer and Cheese screen time.

Still I think Season 2 was pretty great too--it showed The Wire getting more ambitious. Just not quite as good as the other seasons.

Posted by Scott Kern | June 29, 2007 9:18 AM

Strongly disagree!

The first episode of The Wire season 2 was the most perfectly crafted hour of television ever written. It was almost entirely character creation, with, quite literally, in the last 10 seconds, a single tick forward in the plot.

I watched it, and then I immediately watched it a second time. Just stunning.

Posted by pjcamp | June 30, 2007 1:45 AM