A Tribute to Firefly

Once in a while, something just prompts you to get all wordy. So, I figured I'd just wax a bit...eloquent. Stumbled upon a Wired blog post exhorting the readers to post their reasons for loving Firefly, a science fiction show canceled far before its time. For those not in the know, it's a lovely space western, filled with good guys, bad guys, in-between, and always deep looks and who we are as humans. Check it out if you haven't.

Anyhow, below is my own answer to the question, and I figured that I'd drop it on all you readers. I promise, it's not incredibly off-topic. I'll only do this once in a while...

~~~

I was introduced to Firefly a few years back: saw the series, saw the movie, loved every second of it. Time passed. I hadn't seen it since. Sure, I looked back on all of the great quotes that were there, all the characters, and I remembered it was a good show. I watched Dr. Horrible, went on to watch several other series. I still thought Firefly was one of my favorites, but there were plenty others overtaking it. It had been a great, lasting fandom and obsession, but surely there were other obsessions?

Come a few months back, all that changed, real simple-like. A bunch of my friends and myself decided we would get together, and introduce the uninitiated to Firefly, the masterpiece of sci-fi. After all, I still thought it was a gorram awesome show. So we got ourselves together, and we watched the pilot episode, Serenity.

Tian fuhn di fu.

I almost cried near the end. I'd forgotten just how good this show was. The characters, the stories, the world...but you know, watching the series through again, I realized just what it was that made Firefly live for me. There's thousands of shows out there, tens of thousands of characters, all with their own stories, reasons to be hated and loved. There's a whole bunch of little worlds out there, each waiting to be experienced. Why the 'Verse?

Firefly has a soul. A college teacher told me that a truly great story shows us to ourselves. That's Firefly.

The human spirit is what you can truly find there...a spirit that's lonely, wandering, trying to find answers and satisfaction...and peace. It's a spirit that's not okay with the problems of today, that rises up and tries to make things right...it's a spirit that walks along, weary and laden with the defeats of the past. It's a spirit trying to lead others on, to protect, to guide, to give answers...a spirit that tries to brighten reality with a smile and a laugh, or even toy dinosaurs. It's a spirit that wants to be loved...or, sometimes, a spirit that's given up on love.

Joss said that Firefly was all about "nine people looking out into space, and seeing nine different things." It was about all of us looking out into a sea of infinity, peopled by so much existence, and finding ourselves in the meantime. That's why we could laugh with the crew of Serenity, weep at their tragedies, worry for them, hope for them, want to see them happy. We could love them, because they were human. In a way, they were us.

It was love, kept Firefly afloat. And she's still flyin'.

Take me out, into the black,
tell 'em I ain't coming back;
burn the land, boil the sea--
you can't take the sky from me.