Firefly again

[snick_backup]

I'm doing a Firefly rewatch with housemate Chessie, who's only seen the movie long ago and forgotten most of that. Last night we watched the premiere, "Serenity." I've been very curious to see the show from my new fannish perspective, but so far the rewatch has mainly just confirmed my previous impressions, namely:

* Jayne. Oh, how I love Jayne. *points to icon* Out of an hour and a half of Whedonian-level dialogue, my favorite is Jayne threatening the fed. "Pain is scary." "Didn't they ever teach you how to withstand an interrogation?" "I was gonna get me an ear, too." "This is disappointing as hell."

* Zoe is still Made of Awesome.

* Wash and the dinosaurs! Probably my second favorite bit.

* The opening credits still rock. I love the lyrics, the style, the accompanying clips - pretty much just fabulous.

* This is my fourth or fifth viewing of this ep, and I still get fuzzy at times about what, exactly, our heroes are trying to accomplish. It serves as a nice intro to the characters and to the elements of the world, but as a plot it's awfully tangled.

* I hate the fan-service naked Inara scenes even more than I used to. It's almost visceral at this point. I'm opposed to and squicked by everything she is professionally and entirely underwhelmed by who she is personally (although this rewatch I'm finally starting to catch glimmerings of the supposedly complicated past that's alluded to in the movie and in eps like "Heart of Gold" and "Out of Gas"). Mal/Inara makes me roll my eyes. Basically, the best thing I can say about Inara is that she wears very pretty clothes.

* Oh, Book. I would like you so much better if there was any evidence at all that the writers had ever, like, been personally acquainted with a person practicing a traditionally-flavored religion of the sort that you supposedly come from. Argh.

* Here's the big reason I don't like Kaylee: because I'm so patently supposed to love her. In the premiere, especially, she's the perfect little sweetheart that everyone adores, and I don't recall it getting much better later in the series. In a lot of ways she reminds me of Fred, whom I started to dislike as soon as she saned up, and for the same reasons.

OTOH, a few things have changed. I find myself less interested in Mal than I used to be. I love Wash more (although I doubt it's possibly to adore Wash/Zoe any more than I already did). I can definitely see where one could find the Inara/Kaylee subtext if one wished to look for it. And I'm not quite feeling the River-love yet, although that's largely because she hasn't gotten to do anything yet.

I developed strong likes and dislikes for characters much earlier on with Firefly than with BtVS. I suppose it's partly because Firefly's first twelve eps feel so very much more developed and mature than the same initial span on BtVS. The characters are already much more themselves here. But even so, in the seven-season run of BtVS there's no supposedly sympathetic character I dislike as much as I dislike Book or Inara or Kaylee, except maybe Kennedy, who hardly counts. I have no idea what to make of this.

Comments

[clawofcat.livejournal.com]

I watched Firefly for the first time in May/June shortly after the end of Dollhouse, so I think my impressions of the characters were pretty different than they would have been had I seen the show fresh off the blocks. I had Caleb, Jasmine, Hamilton, Alpha and Cameron (from Sarah Connor Chronicles) on the mind when I first "met" Mal, Zoe, Jayne, Wash and River. Which, I guess, is a weird way to back into a show.

I had a similar impression of really loving the characters, but not being too impressed with the actual plot/story telling.

So with you on the Zoe/Wash and Jayne love. Jayne's got to be my favorite. Also hated Kaylee. I thought they took a page out of her book with Fred, too, except Kaylee was so much more annoying because there's something oddly childish and infantile about her characterization. I also get sick and tired of Joss throwing his female characters under the bus through either injury or death to illicit fan sympathy. Shootng Kaylee so early on in the series didn't make me like her anymore, Joss!

[next_to_normal]

So, I'm curious - do you like the show overall? I'm not much of a Firefly fan (and by "not much" I mean "not at all"), and your comments sound almost exactly like my thoughts, lol, but that would make a rewatch pretty masochistic. :)

I love Jayne to pieces, and Wash and Zoe are awesome, both singularly and as a couple, but the rest of them I would totally, totally airlock. I share you dislike of Book and Inara, for pretty much the same reasons. Kaylee didn't bother me as much as Fred did, but yeah, forced cuteness abounds, and Mal... I mostly want to slap him, and not in a good way.

I also dislike River and Simon, whom you didn't really mention (but as I recall, they're not in the pilot much), so overall not a group of people I really wanted to spend time with.

[snickfic]

Despite the complaints, yes, I do actually like the show quite a bit. :) Partly it's for the characters I do love - primarily Jayne, Zoe, and River, with Wash, Simon, and Mal as the second tier. But largely it's to do with the fact that I adore exotic and pseudo-exotic worldbuilding. Firefly has a very specific futuristic Western-Chinese fusion flavor to its setting that I just love. So it's got a few characters I really like, a setting I enjoy, and the fabulous Whedon dialogue, and apparently that's enough.

I like River very much, but then Whedon and I seem to share a thing for near-prescient psychotics. Simon took me much longer to warm up to.

[snickfic]

Oh, yes, seeing the actors as other things would be radically different. Firefly was the first Whedon thing I saw - I watched the entire series the winter after the movie came out - so I saw the actors fresh. Which is just as well, I think, since their characters were all much more developed on Firefly than on those other shows (with the possible exception of SCC, which I haven't seen).

Yes to the the infantility of Kaylee. I like it even less when they start bringing her uncomplicated sexual enthusiasm into it.

[next_to_normal]

Huh. His world-building was another one of the things that completely turned me off. The Chinese aspects seemed rather fetishy, not like a serious consideration of what a fusion culture would be like. (The Western/space combo was weird enough on its own, but it didn't give me that icky feeling the way the Chinese parts did.)

In general, I think Joss' world-building skills leave something to be desired. He did the same thing with Buffy/Angelverse and Dollhouse, IMO - throws out a bunch of things with great potential, but which only sort of make sense. As long as you don't think too hard about the holes, and can focus on the character development (which is usually top-notch, but in this case, not to my liking) and of course the Whedon dialogue, then you're good.

[snickfic]

Well, *as* worldbuilding it makes no sense, agreed. But if I like the flavor of a world well enough, then sense isn't always necessary. *g* And while intellectually I can understand the fetishistic complaint about the Chinese elements, it doesn't bother me personally.

Also, it's possible the logic fail of the worldbuilding would bother me a lot more if the canon was larger. Buffy has a number of huge gaping holes where the plot tore the flimsy worldbuilding to shreds, but since there's so little of Firefly I don't think the weak points were tested nearly so much.

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

I agree with you on lots of things here, but especially the bit about the funniest part of the episode being Jayne and the fed. That's a pretty perfect scene.

I hate the fan-service naked Inara scenes even more than I used to. It's almost visceral at this point. I'm opposed to and squicked by everything she is professionally I totally agree. Though I still like her, if only because I find her interactions with Mal fascinating. They've got such completely opposite worldviews, and those worldviews are constantly clashing, and I find that fascinating. I would have liked to have seen that developed more.

I would like you so much better if there was any evidence at all that the writers had ever, like, been personally acquainted with a person practicing a traditionally-flavored religion of the sort that you supposedly come from. YES. Just...YES.

because I'm so patently supposed to love her. Yes. Just like Fred. And like Willow on occasion, too. Fred was awesome when she was still insane. And when she was Illyria. There are moments when I really like Kaylee (I love her flashback scene in "Out of Gas," for instance), but it's too much. HEY! Kaylee would be perfectly described using that Spanish word that means "so cute it's too cute"! Did you ever settle on an English translation?

I'm interested in you actively disliking Book. I'm with you in that I think all the religious stuff is totally ridiculous, but I'm mostly just...meh about him as a character. I can't work up the energy to really dislike him. Is it just because religion is so central to his character and the writers clearly don't understand it? Or is there something more?

[snickfic]

Fred was awesome when she was still insane. And when she was Illyria.

Yup. Exactly. I like Illyria ever so much better than Fred.

Kaylee would be perfectly described using that Spanish word that means "so cute it's too cute"! Did you ever settle on an English translation?

Well, for the context I needed I finally decided 'cutesy' would be best, since it has that informal flavor I think my student was looking for. But here I think the less common definition of 'precious' might work better.

Is it just because religion is so central to his character and the writers clearly don't understand it?

Pretty much. It isn't even so much Book specifically as it is Book as representative of every single time I've seen TV and movies portray a bland, watered-down faux-Christianity that no one in their right mind would devote their life to. Sigh. Looking at Book, I suspect it's just as well Joss ignored basically all the Christian symbolism built into the vampire concept - except for the crosses, which in the context of the Buffyverse never did make any sense.

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

Cutesy works, sure. I remember seeing "precious" used in that way the first couple of times, and I was so confused because I'd never seen it before and the dictionaries I had didn't have that definition of them. It's still weird to hear that word with that connotation, even if I think you're right that it fits with this particular context!

I completely, completely agree with you about depictions of Christianity in media. There are only two representations: either extremely hypocritical and hateful or that, as you say, bland and watered-down type. That's all. I really hate that. And Joss uses both, in Caleb and in Book. And they're the only two characters I remember displaying any "religious" tendencies at all. Willow gets a few jokes about being Jewish. Riley gets one line about going to church. We see Inara lighting incense to pray to Bhudda a few times. Other than that: nada.

Also, this might be tangential, but I don't know if I'll ever really get over the way he treats the idea of the soul. I'm absolutely fine with the soul in the show having nothing to do with any religious tradition's view of it--if I ever thought he had a clue what it actually was in his universe. It drives me crazy.

[snickfic]

Actually, of my very few options I think Riley's my favorite Jossian representation of a religious character - certainly of a Christian character. Not only does he get a line, but he actually goes to church in "Who Are You?" What's more, Joss doesn't make a big deal of this or try to make any particular point with it - which I'm pretty sure is just as well, considering Joss' history. It's just an unremarked aspect of who Riley is.

To my mind, this is much more convincing and interesting than Willow's occasional "Hanukkah!" exclamations. It also hints that there's a lot more to Riley than we're ever shown, which I also like. Despite his insecurities and his basic incompatibility with Buffy, I like Riley and appreciate anything that rounds out his character a little more.

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

I agree that Riley's is the best depiction for all the reasons you mentioned. I guess it's a sort of tokenism there that mildly irks me. It's like Joss said, "Oh, look. Someone from Middle America. He can be a Christian!" Which on one level is fine, because there no doubt are more (Protestant--I think Catholicism is growing there along with the Latino population) Christians in flyover country than in California. Still...he's from Iowa, he's the only one. It just sort of makes me roll my eyes.

But yeah, I wouldn't get upset about Riley, as his is far and away the best and fairest depiction.

[snickfic]

I guess it's a sort of tokenism there that mildly irks me.

I'd have to watch the ep again to say for sure, but I rather had the impression that if they hadn't needed to get Riley to the church somehow, we'd never have found out at all. I rather thought that Riley's church-going was a plot-related contingency, rather than something that put actual thought into. Which is perhaps why it somewhat less silly than, say, Book.

In complete unrelatedness, how goes the Seraph beta-ing? I'm very interested to read your critique when you have it. (And please, don't be afraid to tell me if things aren't working! That's what betas are for. *g*)

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

Ah, betaing. I'm so sorry it's taken me so long, but now that I've finally gotten back to my computer and more-than-a-few-minute computer access, I've been working on it. I was trying to get it all back to you at once, which was why I still haven't sent it (but now that I think about it, I don't know why I wanted to do that). I'll probably send you the first two chapters in the morning. One thing I love that you're doing is that you give us this little melty Spike-and-his-baby moments...but there aren't so many that they ever pile up and amount to saccharine-ness, you know? Also, your Spike-and-Buffy interactions. So, briefly, love it.

[snickfic]

Yay! I know what you mean about computer access - when I had to go without for three weeks last month, it felt like my whole life was on hold.

And feel free to send whatever you like, whenever it's done. I'm still waiting on detailed betaing from one of the other betas as well. :)

Yay, melty moments. I figured out that those were one of my favorite things about this portion of the fic, so I kind of made a point of writing them.

So, yeah. Whenever. :)

[blackoberst.livejournal.com]

Sotia and myself are going to start watching Firefly as soon as we're done with S4 of Bones. So far, I'm intrigued by what it's going to be like. (As for Bones, I really like it, despite the enormous ammount of UST between the two main characters.)

[snickfic]

Feel free to drop back in with your observations after you've seen a few eps. :)

As for Bones, I saw the first season but am now woefully behind. I was really enjoying what I saw, though, and there were a number of fun characters. Plus, turns out I like Boreanaz much better when he's not being Angel.