Newbie ramblings

Wednesday, June 22, 2005 4:21 AM

I suspect that most folks on this site have been absorbed in things Firefly since the show aired in 2002. I'm a bit of a latecomer, myself. And through no one's fault but my own.

My husband was a Firefly devotee while it was running, and I believe I never sat down with him for more than 15 minutes of it at the time. Well, I had my reasons: our son wasn't quite a year old, and my TV time was limited. And of course the show was gone in the blink of an eye, leaving me no chance to catch up with off-season re-runs.

I rented all four discs of the Firefly DVD set from Netflix (love that company!) -- and have seen the complete series over the past month or so. And the stories and characters and ... the _culture_ of Firefly have completely gotten under my skin. There is no one episode that "clicked" me into fandom, and no one character who alone seized my interest. Yet I found myself frankly reluctant to return the last DVD to Netflix today, and I'm wondering how long I can stand not owning the set (and I simply never buy DVDs).

So here are a newbie's fleeting, new-love impressions of this phenomenon... I'm so drawn to the marginality of Serenity. There's this aesthetic of everything being secondhand, jury-rigged, under the radar/table, catch-as-catch-can, and yet despite this it is a world solidly created and well-loved and imbued with the full range of human meaning. I love that this future universe is no Star-Trek-style utopic Earth-centered melodrama. Social class distinctions are real. Oppressions are real. Cultures are different, in ways far deeper than usually portrayed in other shows by a little alien latex work. I love the characters' mysteries and tantalizing hints at hidden truths. I am a real sucker for the whole tortured-soul soft-hearted decent-man petty-criminal package that is Malcolm Reynolds. I am drawn to the Tams' brother-sister relationship -- so refreshing to see a sibling bond taken seriously, as something deserving of real personal sacrifice, real loyalty. I love the atypical marriage of Zoe and Wash, how secure they each are with their own and each other's strengths and weaknesses.

More I could say, but I'll close here for the night. I'm beyond thrilled to have blindly lucked into tickets for the Charlotte sneak preview this Thursday night! Can't wait to meet some of you there.

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