Wisdom from Firefly: losing and being right

I was sure I had blogged about this in the dim and distant past of this blog, but I couldn't find it anywhere when I was compiling posts for my page of cultural posts. So here we go...

Firefly was a short-lived TV show that has garnered almost legendary status among fans of TV science fiction series. It was cancelled midway through its first season, however the fan community has kept it going and there have been comics and board games and similar related media over the last 15 years or so. (Including action figures...)

Yes, I own this...

The set-up of Firefly is very much 'Wild West in space'. Humans fleeing a dying planet Earth have colonised several planets in a cluster of solar systems that makes interplanetary travel possible. Several of the planets are arranged in an Alliance, which favours the interests of the more populous and prosperous planets. However, some of the less well-off planets reject the control-grabs of the Alliance and ultimately this leads to a "War of Unification" between the Alliance and the Independent Planets, which the Alliance wins, setting up an authoritarian government and trying to impose laws on the newly "unified" planets.

Some of the main characters in Firefly fought for the Independent Planets. The soldiers wore long brown overcoats and were known as 'Browncoats' as a result. Malcolm Reynolds, known as Mal, is the captain of Serenity, a Firefly-class spaceship. He was a Browncoat and still wears his military coat on a day-to-day basis in his post-war career of transporting goods between planets (sometimes illegally).

At one point Mal is questioned about some shady dealings by a hostile Alliance Officer who asks him how it feels to have been on the wrong side in the war. Mal looks him squarely and says:

"May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one."

I've thought about that phrase a lot over the last few years. It particularly resonates when I think about the EU referendum and the subsequent chaos that has followed. I am still convinced that leaving the EU was an utterly terrible idea, for so many reasons, and I am convinced that a great many people were manipulated into voting to leave the EU by individuals who stood to gain from Brexit and were determined to do anything to get that result. 

I find the idea of accepting loss while still holding onto principles and beliefs is very encouraging. It's a good way of responding to setbacks. Losing doesn't mean we were wrong. 

We are already witnessing how Brexit is turning into precisely the damaging outcome that was routinely dismissed as fear-mongering during the campaign, and we are less than six months out of the EU. There is a lot more to come. I have a feeling I will be thinking of Mal Reynolds' reply quite a bit over the next few years.  

Burn fast; burn bright

Having had a wisdom tooth out last Wednesday I spent the best part of two days sleeping or watching TV, specifically DVD box sets of Firefly and Seinfeld, and comedy reruns on Fiver.

Having watched the 'roundtable' extra on the last season of Seinfeld, it struck home to me the bravery of the show's creators to walk away while it was still the number 1 American comedy show. Nine seasons = 180 episodes, and to still retain some credibility is difficult. The final days of Friends and Frasier as they limped on to their respective twee finales shows the wisdom in the Seinfeld tack.

In a strange way, a show with a much shorter run also shows the truth inherent in the saying that the stars that blaze brightest burn out fastest. Firefly was axed after just 14 episodes, by network executives who didn't really get the show.

In the sci-fi fanboy / geek community this is still regarded as one of the most criminal acts of TV exec-land (although whoever greenlighted a second season of 'Joey' probably deserves to be spanwhengled too). And yet, I'd say it's given us a gem.

True there are all the 'could have beens', the unanswered questions, many of which were only loosely tied up by the feature film Serenity. But equally, we were spared the painful lurching of genius being lost in the mundanity of season after season. Sci-fi afficionados will remember the way Farscape deteriorated until it was put out of its misery, or how boring The X-Files became with its ponderous story arc, or the sheer dullness of many of the Star Trek spin off series.

Firefly still seems fresh and fun and playful, a few years on from it's ever so brief run in the sun. Maybe it burns the brighter because its life was so short.

Earthshock...ing

I'd heard a lot about classic Doctor Who stories, and Earthshock always comes up as one. So I borrowed this DVD expecting to be mildly entertained.

I was... but not in a good way.

Frankly, this was dross. Okay, it was TV science fiction filmed in 1982. What was I expecting?

Weeeellllll.... a bit more than this. It dated from the days when a Who story had to be at least four episodes long. Which is fine if you have enough material to fill just under two hours. If you don't, then you get a lot of filler.

I think the script meetings must have gone like this:
"Quick, we have another 19 minutes to fill in this episode."
"Right. Er, let's have them walking down some more tunnels..."
"Okay, but why would they do that?"
"Er... because they heard someone else walking down the tunnels?"
"Good idea. Then we can film the baddies walking down the tunnels too!"

At one point one of the characters says 'It feels like we've been walking for hours.' I know, love. It felt like I'd been watching you walking for hours, with no discernible progress.

Then there was the Doctor getting captured and being held prisoner on the bridge, where he could walk around at his leisure and poke things on the control panel. I know saying that a science fiction show was unrealistic sounds stupid, but this was people acting in a way contrary to how people would act. No matter how ludicrous the situation (and Doctor Who has had some ridiculous situations in the past), the thing that was most unbelievable about this show was the way people were portrayed.

And Cybermen are meant to be scary, emotionless, resolute killers. They aren't meant to stand around chatting like night watchmen talking about the football. Villains who aren't in any way villainous are a waste of space.

Apparently a sedentary lifestyle can lead to you developing a venous thrombosis. Watching this would make you wish for one, just so you'd have something exciting happen.

The thing is, I know next time someone offers to lend me some 'classic' Who, I will probably find it hard to turn it down. There must be somewhere I can get help.