Firefly (was: Re: this is a first...)

>--- Ground Zero Games <jon@gzg.com> wrote:
>>  Having just got the Firefly DVD set and watched some of the extras,
>>  Zoe (Gina Torres) springs obviously to mind in this context....  ;-)
>
>I never heard of Firefly when it was on, only seen ads for the DVD.
>
>Is it any good?
>
>I am suspicious of any sci-fi from the man who brought us "Buffy the
>Vampire Slayer" :)
>
>J

Well, personally I think Firefly is excellent. It depends how you 
like your SF to be; this is a character-driven series where the 
personalities and the dialogue are FAR more important than the 
whizz-bang effects. There are no rubber-forehead prosthetics - in 
fact there are NO aliens (sentient or otherwise) at all. There are 
also virtually no space battles (Serenity gets shot AT a couple of 
times, but she doesn't even have any weapons to shoot back with....).

The background is lots of sparsely-settled human frontier colonies, 
all grubby and mostly low-tech. The crew are a mix of realistically 
flawed characters, each with their own agenda which may or may not 
match any of the others. The "Western in Space" (actually, more 
"post-ACW-reconstructionism in space") elements are perhaps a little 
heavy at times, but I think they work. I'd certainly rate it as the 
best-written TV SF I've yet seen.

If Star Trek is your vision of how TV SF should be, Firefly will be a 
culture shock... but I'd recommend giving it a try!

Jon (GZG)