Forgot how good this was!

[dreamshark]

 A random conversation at the New Years Zoom party about Firefly props inspired me to start rewatching the series. Man, I'd forgotten what a brilliant show this was!  The immersive world building, the character interactions, the acting, the pacing, even the evocative twangy theme music - all world class. And yes, the inventive props and costume design are wonderful, adding so much to the world-building without saying a word.

The casual use of untranslated Chinese works on multiple levels, making the point about the blended culture of this future civilization but also engaging the viewer's imagination to try to figure out what the characters are probably saying. At least for non-Chinese speaking viewers. I'm not sure how it strikes people who understand Chinese. 

I originally discovered the series in progress on broadcast TV so had no idea that Fox had showed the episodes out of order. What a bizarre decision that was! The pilot (which I just watched) does such a wonderful job of introducing the world and the characters. Why on earth would they skip the pilot episode and just dump the viewer into the middle of such a complex undertaking? 

 

Comments

[quadong]

I know! It's great! I've watched N-1 episodes of it sorta recently with Becca, where N is the number of episodes (17? or is that the Prisoner?). She lost interest at that point, and I hadn't told her that it stops suddenly. So I guess for her, it's just an ok show that probably had a full run. Maybe sometime later she'll rewatch it, like it better, and then be crushed like we all were. What a thing to hope for! :-P

[carbonel]

Firefly had 14 episodes, plus the movie. I liked a number of the episodes, but I found the worldbuilding problematical and a lot of the background seriously creepy, so I don't have quite the same positive feelings about it.

The Prisoner had 17 episodes.