Posted on by Doyce

What’s the opposite of Serenity?

For those of you that are curious, here’s the order that the Firefly episodes that have been filmed so far were meant to be aired in:
0) The legendary unaired pilot, “Serenity”.
1) The Train Job
2) Bushwhacked
3) Shindig
4) Safe
5) Our Mrs. Reynolds
6) Jayne’s Town
7) Out of Gas
8) Ariel
9) War Stories
10) Heart of Gold
Here’s the order they have aired:
1) The Train Job
2) Bushwhacked
5) Our Mrs. Reynolds
6) Jayne’s Town
7) Out of Gas
3) Shindig
“Safe” is next week, which means that for better or worse we’ve seen seven of the first 8 shows.
Shindig was fun. My only real annoyance is that I’ve read the script for the unaired pilot (I’ll email it to anyone who wants to check it out) and knowing that, I know how much more I would have liked Shindig if I’d seen the pilot episode: the pilot takes place on the same planet with several of the same characters involved. The ties between this episode and the pilot are pretty strong, and it’s a real shame we don’t get to share that.
Anyway. Back to the wordmill.

5 Replies to “What’s the opposite of Serenity?”

  1. I enjoyed it, but I’m finding, so far, the stories unequal to the characters. The times we see the characters interacting (e.g., the card game, the shopping trip, Wash and Zoe in bed) are interesting. The plots the episodes are built around that are not so much.

  2. Whedon has said that the whole point of the series is to be a character study, something along the lines of “500 years from now, I think people will be… just like they are today, but with cooler toys. We’re going to put a group of people in these situations and learn about them by seeing how they act and react.”
    So I guess I makes sense that, if that’s his goal, Firefly is so strong in the character-driven scenes — it’s the premise, far moreso than something like Buffy or B5 (where there is character development, but the plot arcs are surely the focus).
    Then there’s Farscape, where we have both: the character stuff and the big story arcs. I love Firefly, but I’m really going to miss Farscape.

  3. Agreed.
    Firefly, I feel like I could just watch a “day in the life of” episode — no need for combat, or space pirates, or explosions, or major cliff-hanging cut-to-commercial scenes. Just the crew of the Serenity doing their thing, eating meals, making deals, doing exercises, keeping the ship running, etc.
    The scenes that have been like that have been the best of the show.

  4. I guess I was looking for a Farscape replacement, and it’s not it.
    However, I think that doing it as a character study will get it killed by Fox quicker than Space Above and Beyond.
    It’s a good show, but if there is too much character and not enough plot, it’s going to geek it.
    Someday it’ll be a Chain Reaction on Sci-Fi, if Sci-Fi’s parent company makes it.

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