Firefly Episode #1: "Serenity"

Six years after the hopeless battle of Serenity, former Independent Mal Reynolds (Nathan Fillion) commands a small Firefly class ship, Serenity.  With a crew of misfits, he ekes out a minimal existence by taking on small time, occasionally illegal jobs. 

After a space salvage operation for a gangster named Badger (Mark Sheppard) goes south. Mal realizes he needs to pick-up passengers to pay for more fuel.  A young doctor, Simon Tam (Sean Maher), a man of God with a mysterious past, Shepherd Book (Mark Glass), and a strange named Dobson board the craft at the Persephone docks, before Mal tries to make a deal on distant Whitehall with a former client who once took shots at him.

On final approach to Whitehall, Serenity encounters a Reaver ship but manages to evade the monstrosity for a time.  Soon, a mole on the ship threatens the crew’s safety, and Simon is force to reveal a secret.  His sister, River (Summer Glau) has been brought aboard Serenity in secret. She’s a fugitive from the Alliance, and one that the government very much wishes to see returned.

Now Mal must deal with fugitives from the law, a tricky, untrustworthy client, and the return of the deranged Reavers.

“Serenity,” the inaugural episode of Joss Whedon’s Firefly (2002) -- now 20 years old -- begins to diagram a compelling, series-long tension between the passionate, colorful nature of man, and the largely uncaring nature of the ‘verse. 

Stylistically, the episode visually balances the intimacy and urgency of human, mortal life with the remote, fearsome, and de-humanizing aspects of survival in space. Although its visual flourishes were appropriated wholesale by the re-imagination of Battlestar Galactica (2004 – 2008) Firefly here spearheads a very distinctive visual style.  It is one which abundantly reflects the adventure’s core theme: man’s struggle to remain free in a “system” of life that no longer recognizes the individual as valuable.

Accordingly, “Serenity” premieres with unsteady, hand-held footage of the Battle of Serenity, a campaign set six years before the primary action of the series. The unsteady hand-held camera-work provokes an instant sense of immediacy and closeness to the action. This scene represents not only a reasonable facsimile of modern documentary war footage, but a boots-on-the-ground perspective of mankind’s last stab at freedom before the huge Alliance sweeps in and enforces cosmic “unity.” 

To put it another way, this preamble in Serenity Valley is all fire and heat in terms of its inspirational dialogue from Captain Mal about “holding the line,” in terms of the herky-jerky camera-work, and also in terms of the battlefield itself, where plumes of fire sporadically and violently dot the war-torn landscape.

Almost immediately after this preamble, the episode cuts six years to the future, however, and all that fire and heat is gone, replaced determinedly by ice and cold.  The camerawork now lands us in the vacuum of space. No explosions detonate, no inspirational speeches are uttered and we see suited figures moving about in slow silence during a deep space salvage operation.  

Importantly, there is no sound in space, and Firefly is one of the few programs to observe that scientific fact. But in terms of dramatic impact, to transition from the hot, loud, messy war for independence to the frozen, remoteness of quiet space after the conflict is thematically vital.  For in this unpleasant present, the voice of independence -- of mankind’s very nature -- has been defeated and squelched by Alliance rule.  In fact, individuality and liberty -- as represented by the free-ranging Serenity -- is hard to pinpoint or locate in this realm.  The camera seeks it out in extreme long-shot, and must finds its focus in the process. The ship is not immediately or easily visible.

From hot...

...to cold.

Throughout the series then, Serenity, and her colorful crew are visual signifiers of the Battle of Serenity’s noble ideals or aesthetics. The ship and crew represent humanity: sensual, and passionate.  The setting outside the ship -- in the solar system at large -- is representative of the opposite set of values and therefore dehumanizing and remote.

 In a further attempt to promote a sense of close-ness with the characters and their ideals, the premiere episode does away with a typical TV sense of decorum. For example, we actually get to see a toilet in Mal’s quarters.  It might be the first toilet in more than fifty years of TV space adventuring.  Later, the camera lingers on Inara washing up with a cloth and a basin of water, partially disrobed, and again, the approach is passionate, or sensuous.  How often, in outer space drama, do we witness characters bathing or using the bathroom?  During this montage of Inara washing, the footage both briefly pauses -- or freezes -- and jump cuts to other angles as if time itself has skipped a track.  The point of such non-conventional techniques is to visually mimic human imperfection or emotional intimacy.  A moment can’t actually be extended, in other words, but it can feel like it is extended when we fully experience it, and part of film’s magic as an art form is that it boasts the capacity to express that idea through the manipulation of time and image.  Here, it’s like we’re watching a stolen moment of vulnerability.

Things you don't usually see in space adventure TV: a toilet

...and a bath (in a stolen, extended moment...).

At one point in the opening episode, Serenity encounters the Reavers: a group of humans who have reacted badly, nay psychotically, to the dangers and remoteness of space. The message is plain and fits in neatly with the series’ philosophy. The Reavers have surrendered their humanity in this inhuman realm, and embraced the bleakness, emptiness, and danger. They are murderers and rapists, pushing out further every year, responding to the Alliance’s regime of order not with passionate humanity, but with nihilistic chaos. There is a difference, after all, between a committed “opposition” dedicated to its belief system, and a kamikaze suicide run. The Serenity represents the former, the Reavers the latter.

In terms of outer space’s remoteness and lack of intimacy or individuality, Mal notes that its signifier, the Alliance, is known not for helping people, but rather explicitly “getting in a man’s way.” 

So the philosophy here is anti-State to be certain. But more than that, it is pro-individuality in bent. Consider that the series concerns a group of very different characters working together, despite those differences, to survive.  Each one of the characters views the universe differently but seems to agree on only one point: the Alliance infringes too much on mankind’s right to dictate his own path.  The crew of Serenity may be “lost in the woods,” as per the episode’s dialogue, but “the woods” is nonetheless where it wants to be.  Outside the woods, the Alliance has usurped liberty and freedom. The Alliance doesn’t recognize its citizens as individuals with rights and protections, but only as “precious commodities” who should be subjected to the government’s whims. The Alliance, we learn, has “played with” River’s brain, to unknown ends, a fact which precipitated Simon’s rescue.

“Serenity” sets up many of Firefly’s thematic precepts, but also introduces the dramatis personae, both in terms of the ship’s crew-members, and its new passengers, Simon, River, and Shepherd Book.  Like the others, each of these non-crew characters possesses their own (sometimes secret) reasons for wishing to remain in the “woods.”  Much of the joy in watching the series comes from learning more about these characters, and their mysterious pasts.

Most notably, Mal is presented strongly in “Serenity” as a “man of honor among thieves,” to use Badger’s (Mark Sheppard’s) words.  But delightfully he’s also a man full of contradictions.  For example, Mal deplores the Alliance for getting in a man’s way, but can just as easily face down a crew-member and tell them that his ship is a dictatorship, not a democracy.  “We don’t vote on my ship,” he declares.  Isn’t the very thing he hates about the Alliance the idea that it doesn’t hear or acknowledge his voice?  He recreates that dynamic on a small scale on his ship, but is often blind to that fact.

We also learn that Mal is both a.) anti-religion in general, based on his interplay with Book, and b.) not capable of viewing Inara’s role as respected “companion” as something that empowers her. A bit of a traditionalist, Mal is uncomfortable with the idea that a woman can be strong, good and also highly sexual.

In terms of technology and tactics, “Serenity” introduces a lot of series lingo and information.  We learn about Serenity’s typical escape ploy: a “crybaby” satellite that can be deployed to emit a distress signal and misdirect Alliance cruisers.  We are also beginning to get a feel for the ship’s capabilities including “hard burns” “full burns,” and a “crazy Ivan.”

In short, “Serenity” is a splendidly thought-out, cerebral introduction to the characters and world of Firefly. More significantly, the premiere episode introduces the visual conceits of this outer space adventure, and its thematic perspective,

Next week: “The Train Job.”