FIREFLY NECROPSY (#2 of 4) - WHAT WENT WRONG?
POSTED BY: xed
UPDATED: Wednesday, December 25, 2002 02:25
VIEWED: 9694
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FIREFLY NECROSPY (PART 2) - WHAT WENT WRONG?
REASON #2: Series television can't support genuine tragedy in a weekly series.
Reason #1, Fox's inexplicable and insane decision to shelve the 2-hour pilot, hobbled and ultiamtely killed the show. By dumping a load of charactrs on us with whom viewers were unacquainted and baffled, it forced Whedon's writing team to play catch-up from the git-go. Worse yet, the pretty clearly had topatch exposition onto some of the episodes, bogging things down and clogging up the narrative flow.
That was Fox's fault.
However, the second reason why Firefly died must be laid squarely at Joss Whedon's door.
In series television with a continuing cast of characters, you can't do tragedy. Not every week.
It's too ambitious. It just won't work. It asks too much of a mass audience.
I mean, think about it for a moment -- imagine, if you will, "Oesipus Rex -- The Series." In the 2-hour pilot, Oedpisu discovers he married his mother and killed his father and he rips out his eyes and heads off to wander homelss as a blind beggar.
In episode #1...
Wait a minute.
There can't be any episode 1.
The whole thing doesn't work.
Tragedy is a one-shot deal. Things go bad, but there's a catharsis.
Seeing the Danish court flouder and fumble after Hamlet dies, however, just doesn't cut it.
"Hamlet - The Series." Tonight -- f weeks after Hamlet dies! Tune it to see what happens!
No.
Ain't gonna work.
This is the problem Joss Whedon incurred when he decided to make a series about "the people history stepped on."
'Twould make a great novel -- but a TV series?
Problem is, the people history stepped on soon become unbearably depressing. There's a reason,
ladies and germs, why "Gone With the End" ends with Scarlett vowing to rebuild her plantation after the nd of the Civil War.
The reason is that the rest of the story was just downhilll after that. You can see Scarlett O'Hara slowly subsiding into poverty, working oike a dog, her fancy dresses degenerating into rags, as she bit by bit sells off all her possessions to try and rebuild Tara. And maybe she succeeds -- but by the time she does, she's too old and has gone through too much hardship for us to really care.
Yes, folks, life is hard and things often don't work out. Setting a drama s ambitious as "Firefly" in such a real-world univers, as opposed to the antiseptic Republican country-club Telltubby-land of Star Trek, represents the show's strong point. But too much a good thing is no good. Salt helps flavor a meal, but that don't mean you want to eat a solid block fothe stuff for dinner.
Wtting an entire TV series int he realm of Things That Don't Work Out is a death wish, given the way mass audiences work.
Let me draw a parallel here with 2 other short-lived series -- those of you who go wayyyy back might recall "Hondo," a drama about a Confederate solider wandering around the south aftrer the Civil War. Incredibly depressing 60s Western. It lasted one season and then died.
Or how about the TV show "EZ Street"?
Superb 2-hour pilot film.
But, like "Hondo" and "Firefly," a show about people history has stepped on -- with
no genuine prospect of the worm ever turning.
"Ez Street" died fast.
Tragedy, people can take -- it's uplifting. But a non-stop flamenco dance by history
done on our cast of favorite characters, week after week...?
No way.
People will tune out. And who can blame 'em?
Blake's 7 has been cited as a counter-example, but it really isn't. Recall that
Blake and his merry crew did succeed in breaking up the evil empire at the
end of episode 3 by wrecking Star One. So Blake and his crew always had a
shot. They had a chance. There always remained hope.
What hope, pray tell, remains that Mal's side will wil lthe civil war?
Zero.
None.
The bad guys won and now Mal and everyone else has to live in their ugly
universe.
Also, bear in mind, please, that Blake's 7 did NOT suffer from the limitations
fo comemrical TV. Written for BBC Channel 4, Blake's 7 lasted probably 'cause
Channel 4 got gummint fundin
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It's amazing what a shallow understanding you have of bushwhacked. Did you watch the episode or just read a recap?
The survivor of the ambushed ship wasn't tortured. He wasn't harmed in any way. He was forced to watch his friends and family brutalized, tortured, raped, skinned and eaten. Things like that can break your mind, if not your spirit, which was the point of the exercise in the frist place. This is how the reavers reproduce.
Your example of Ghandi and other notable figures out of history doesn't equate. Those figures are notable simply because they rose above the expectation of what could be tolerated. If you cast about your average city you are going to find damn few people who could possibly rise to Ghandi's level of moral and ethical purity.
Plus, this is a work of fiction. That character is a redshirt, what happens to him doesn't matter. He exists solely to provide a reason for the Alliance officer to let Mal and company go their merry way.
Get a grip.
Now, if you think the show was going to be about depressed losers living in the victor's universe, you're deluded. True, such a show would have been depressing. However, the variable you aren't accounting for is River. The point of this show is Mal fighting the civil war on his own. By keeping the Tams alive and free from Alliance control Mal is fighting and winning his civil war.
Now, in your next premature autopsy you're probably going to draw a line of comparison to Outlaw Star, at which point I will begin ignoring everything you have to say as sour grapes.
The more I get to know people the more I like my dogs.
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first of all tragedy works on TV, or at least pseudo-tragedy. Once and Again, the show that wasn't happy unless it left its audience bawling was usually nothing but tear jerking this, my-daughter's-a-lesbian that, and while it had funny eps, it was depressing after depressing after depressing bits of crap. And let us not forget shows like Six Feet Under. That show is nothing but tragic circumstance, from the father dying in episode one, to Nate getting cancer, to David, the closetted homosexual ALWAYS getting the short-end of the relationship stick. And let us not forget drug addict Claire.
and that show has garnere multiple awards and nominations. Tragedy works. I personally don't think Firefly was ever "tragic" in the Oedipal sense. The universe they live in is bleak. Fine. The world isn't always pretty either. The lack a tragedy lies in the characters like Mal who still strive to make it better for themselves. The man fought a war to make it better, to make it free, and he still fights that war, but the Alliance/Independents War is now one of morality. The Alliance controls most of the system worlds, but they don't control Serenity, or Mal, or anyone else on that ship. They are deciding their own destinies, wherever that may take them, just like the Doc did in Highjacking his sister.
This whole damn series is about hope and about striving to obtain freedom under any circumstance. Like Mal says, if the Aliiance keeps expanding, Serenity can just fly farther.
If you didn't understand that, watch the eps again.
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XED,
I started reading your post but about a half way through I realized that despite your verbose, authoritative stance, you're really don't know what the hell you're talking about. Sorry I don't have the time nor the inclination for a point by point rebuttal, but the bottom line is you didn't get it, or didn't like it.. I just can't care.
SergeantX
"..and here's to all the dreamers, may our open hearts find rest." -- Nanci Griffith
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Hey XED,
I am baffled. You, XED, are the one here with the despairing view of human nature. How else could you interpret a show that hinges on the decency of people in the face of depravity and injustic as hopelessly dystopian? Let's dumb it down a bit: it's a show about the underdog. Remember him? The long-respected populist anti-hero? I watch the show for Mal's suprising heroism, for Kaylee's "you just have to have faith in people," for Inara's compassion, for Zoe's steely loyalty, Wash's love of life, for Simon's raw courage, for River's promise, for Book's hard-won wisdom, for Jayne's empathy that he just can't seem to shake (gorramit!).
You call it dystopian when Niska gets away. Hello, y'ever hear of Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussain? So far Niska's gotten away, but what about next time? And you gotta know there'll be a next time. Because the hard fights are worth fighting, XED. Do you think we're all masochists, tuning in every week just to have our faith in humanity stepped on one more time?
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Once again Robert Sparling resorts to name-calling and abuse as a substitute for reasoned debate and insightful discussion.
Time to lower the boom on, Senator Joseph McCarthy. Let's rebut your pervasively uninformed comments point by point:
You launch into a baseless personal attack when you sneer" It's amazing what a shallow understanding you have of bushwhacked. Did you watch the episode or just read a recap?"
Show proof I didn't watch the episode or stand revealed as a liar and character assassin, sir.
Strong claims demand strong proof. Show us proof of your insulting claim that I didn't watch the episode. Otherwise we must conclude you are indulging the usual name-calling typical of people who have no arguments and no facts and no logic upon which to base their prejudices.
Robert Sparling lurches on, in the manner of a drunk suffering from Korsakov's Syndrome, when he avers, "The survivor of the ambushed ship wasn't tortured. He wasn't harmed in any way. He was forced to watch his friends and family brutalized, tortured, raped, skinned and eaten."
You have just contradicted yourself, sir.
Clearly you have no idea of the broad meaning of the word "torture." The worst kind of torture is psychological. And that's precisely what the survivor endured at the hands of the reavers.
Clearly, you just don't know what you're talking about when you aver the surviving wasn't tortured.
Robert Sparling goes on to claim: "Things like that can break your mind, if not your spirit, which was the point of the exercise in the frist place. This is how the reavers reproduce."
Provide proof.
Where is the hard evidence that "things like that can break your mind"?
Also, where is the hard evidence that the reavers reproduce by forcing victims to watch their families being tortured?
Again, show us proof or stand revealed and somone pervasively ignorant of what you discuss.
"Your example of Ghandi and other notable figures out of history doesn't equate. Those figures are notable simply because they rose above the expectation of what could be tolerated. If you cast about your average city you are going to find damn few people who could possibly rise to Ghandi's level of moral and ethical purity."
Now this is a good point by Robert Sparling. However, permit me to point out that tons of folks endured torture (physical or psychological) in places like Andersonville, Dachau, and elsewhere, without becoming reavers.
In fact, history seems to show that such emotionally traumatic events tend to produce people notable for their humane decency, does it not? Is not hte main syndrome of the concentration camp survivor victims' guilt? These people don't turn into reavers even though they watched their families tortured and murdered. These people came out of the experience with a sense of deep guilt for having survived -- just the opposite of the premise of "Bushwhacked."
The victims became suicidal, not homicidal.
Read your history, sir.
Autobiographies like Primo Levi's show us absolutely no evidence that "experiences like that can break your mind." On the contrary, such memoirs provide us with powerful testimony to the enduring nobility of the human spirit even under the worst circumstances.
"Plus, this is a work of fiction."
Once again Robert Sparling shows us who is clueless about this episode and about the series Firefly in general.
Have not many folks justly praised Firefly for its realism? How then can people who praise this series for it realism resort to the opposite claim when pressed -- viz., "it's just fiction."
Make up your mind, sir. Ought we not to care about what happens in firefly "because it's just fiction"?
Or ought we to care precisely because the characters are so well-written that they partake of "the inexhaustibility of the real," to use the mathematician's phrase?
You cannot have it both ways.
"That character is a redshirt, what happens to him doesn't matter. He exists solely to provide a reason for the Alli
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Xed,
I don't know what your axe is, or why you think anyone wants to hear it on this board, but you're just making pompous, argumentative ass out of yourself.
SergeantX
"..and here's to all the dreamers, may our open hearts find rest." -- Nanci Griffith
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all the little rants and attacks you just "rebutted" (it has two t's) should be directed at Mechanic. I'm the post one or two down from his. You'll recognize it by the name attached to it that says "RobertSparling" and not "Mechanic". I know I haven't been kind to you in the other posts, but if you want to rant about me, do it about stuff I posted at least.
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Normally I don't respond to posts like this because generally it turns into a big name calling exercise in futility, however this time I will make an exception.
Xed,
I have to say I'm a bit confused by you. I have managed to get through the first and second posts of your "Firefly Necopsy" despite, in my opinion, them being very longwinded. Although you mention on several occasions about how much you liked the show and its characters, the overall tone and anger in the words you write towards them, or any person who has a different opinion then you is very overwelming. Here is a quick example:
Quote:
"It's amazing what a shallow understanding you have of bushwhacked. Did you watch the episode or just read a recap?"
Show proof I didn't watch the episode or stand revealed as a liar and character assassin, sir.
Strong claims demand strong proof. Show us proof of your insulting claim that I didn't watch the episode. Otherwise we must conclude you are indulging the usual name-calling typical of people who have no arguments and no facts and no logic upon which to base their prejudices.
The angry defensive tone here sets the mood for the entire post and derails any hope of a civilized discussion.There was no "claim" of anything. It was just an opinion of one person saying that they didn't agree with you followed by merely asking a question. "Did you or didn't watch the episode?" That's it, no character assassination, just a question. And since when do we need prove of anything to simply ask a question. I don't know you at all to determine if this hostility is intended in all of your writings or not,for this hostility can be sensed in the original posts as well. Perhaps you are too close to the work to notice it yourself, but make no mistake because for all of your obscure references and the odd writing style in which you deliver them, to me there is a very clear anger behind those words.
Ok, if you sat through that then I have a couple of other opinions as well (crowd moans):
Quote:
Where is the hard evidence that "things like that can break your mind"?
Also, where is the hard evidence that the reavers reproduce by forcing victims to watch their families being tortured?
Mal says it in Bushwacked:"They made him watch. He probably tried to turn away but they didn't let him. The only way to deal with such a thing, I suspect, is to become it.First he will try to make himself look like one..."
And everything Mal said happened, so since we didn't write the show or have any other information to go on we must regard that as the hard evidence available, or fact until told otherwise.
Quote:
"Plus, this is a work of fiction."
Once again Robert Sparling shows us who is clueless about this episode and about the series Firefly in general.
Have not many folks justly praised Firefly for its realism? How then can people who praise this series for it realism resort to the opposite claim when pressed -- viz., "it's just fiction."
Make up your mind, sir. Ought we not to care about what happens in firefly "because it's just fiction"?
But is it just fiction. Its not real. Its not even pretending to be real. Its 500 years in the future and the last I checked there were no routine interstellar trips available. The mere genre itself, Science Fiction, immediately sets in our heads that we are going to see things that are just fantasy, just musings from some persons head. These are not the things that are going to happen. Its just the work of an individual or group of individuals, thats it. In that context we have to allow a certain amount of leeway. If someone tells me 500 years in the future that this could happen then fine, I am no more an authority on it then they are. To me its a plausible reason why Reavers are created. Perhaps to an avid historian or professor of the human spirit and the drive of humanity it is unfounded. But that's not me so I'm fine with it, and since it would be an impossibility to make this show 100% real, we have to have a certain amount of blind faith
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You may have a point there. Liberator always had a shot at doing damage to the Federation, and they almost always kept a step ahead of Servalan while thumbing their nose at her. They were nothing more than a pain in the butt to the Federation, but they were quite good at it.
To be honest, I see the potential in those characters to be in just the right place at the right time to cause real damage. The Wild West was full of outlaw-heroes and legends that survive long after the Frontier closed. A good many of those folks were ex-Confederates who lost their shirts at Gettysburg and the ilk, so they figured they had zilch to lose. (Jesse James was one of the prime examples of this)
Now, add some indications that the Alliance is nowhere near as strong as it looks. In the pilot, Zoë mentions the Reavers are "getting closer every year." The core worlds are depending on the colonies for goods and cheap labor, but lacks the armies to enforce anything like the sterile corporate fascism implied on the Core worlds. We also don't know if the fight for colonial independence caused some uncomfortable rumblings back home that is also taking resources to quell. Now, exploitation of colonies can quell internal discontent for a good ling time (Lenin had a decent quote to that effect, but I'm nowhere near my stash of books). Yet, depending on a slave economy is fatal in the long-term, as demonstrated by Rome - sooner or later, there will be too many slaves to effectively cow.
Now, the crew...The preacher is as "plain and simple" as a certain Cardassian tailor, the "Companion" has reasons she ain't telling for being on a creaky smuggling boat rather than a life of luxury as a "kept woman." Top that off with the fugitive doctor and that wild card baby sister of his. Now, if those folks can slip through the cracks, you gotta wonder what else has.
Malcolm may not be "chosen" like his elder sister Buffy, but that shouldn't mean his gang should be treated as lesser than the Scoobies. Joss created some powerful characters, heroes despite themselves, so why not go full-out with them? Heroes on the Frontier, outlaws to the Feds, but they never see themselves as anything other than the average smuggler. I happen to like the idea of ordinary blokes who find themselves stepping up to the place because no one else will. (This was one of the reasons I was such a big fan of the Lone Gunmen.) They already make the Feds good and nervous. If Mal saw an opportunity to really nail the Feds, and he thought there was a shot of getting away with it, he just might not turn it down.
Now, I'm not Joss, but I know how I'd do it. Spend the first season focusing on just how ordinary these guys are, but start the rumors flying. Have these folks going planet to planet, doing their job, crossing the Feds, but keep them in the dark about the aftereffects of those, paying no mind to the rumors. Sometime around February sweeps in Season 2, let them in on a little secret - some of those Browncoats and some of those planets never gave up - and they're actually making headways. Smugglers and privateers are needed more than ever, and Mal doesn't mind the work.
Then, have it catch up to them (ala "Jaynestown"). The Alliance laughs off the threat, but the people whisper the legend among themselves. There's a mysterious ship that's made itself known on the borders...and the crew is shocked to realize those rumors are about them! The Feds or some Alliance sympathizers bust them, and they make some kind of narrow escape. Yet, by the Season 2 ender, they realize that they can't be "just" ordinary smugglers. They are scared as hell by this prospect, but the ship needs fuel, crew needs to eat...and the Feds are going to nail them regardless.
Like it or not, they just got drafted into service as a boat of outlaw-heroes, and the universe just got a lot more chaotic. They've got nothing to lose by going for broke.
"And I blame this world for making a good man evil. It's this world that can drive a good man bad. And it's this world that turns a killer into a h
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