Still No Programming - Firefly Instead
/Another day of not writing programs. Did watch some Firefly though. Still quite enjoying it, but it does seem a bit of a missed oportunity. It is/was the next big thing from Jos Whedon, the man who brought you Buffy and Angel. It is supposed to have these much vaunted "story arcs" which run for several episodes (or even seasons). Like Babylon 5. However, in amongst your story arc episodes where the plot moves on (I call these "Luke, I am your father" events) you have to have a bunch of "fillers". And that is where Firefly falls down a bit.
In B5 they had to have fillers too, but theirs explored the future in an original and interesting way. In Firefly I've already seen a "train heist gone wrong" and an "accidental duel with bad guy" episode, both of which could have come out of any number of shows and had no futuristic consideration at all (apart from the fact that the train floated above the rails).
I'm sticking with it for now (and you should take a look too) because the cast and the production values are superb, and the characters and dialogue are well up to Whedon standards, but I just wish he'd got to grips with some SF issues, bearing in mind the thing is supposed to be set in the future. If you want to see it you'll probably have to track down the series on DVD, since the Fox Network did a very good job of "stealth promoting" the show and I think it ended up on at three in the morning or something.
In B5 they had to have fillers too, but theirs explored the future in an original and interesting way. In Firefly I've already seen a "train heist gone wrong" and an "accidental duel with bad guy" episode, both of which could have come out of any number of shows and had no futuristic consideration at all (apart from the fact that the train floated above the rails).
I'm sticking with it for now (and you should take a look too) because the cast and the production values are superb, and the characters and dialogue are well up to Whedon standards, but I just wish he'd got to grips with some SF issues, bearing in mind the thing is supposed to be set in the future. If you want to see it you'll probably have to track down the series on DVD, since the Fox Network did a very good job of "stealth promoting" the show and I think it ended up on at three in the morning or something.
