“Firefly”
Tonight at 8 on Fox
STARS are no longer the stars of new shows and premiers. Now exec producers/creators are the stars. They are the reason suits buy a show, and the reason, they hope, that viewers will tune into a new series.
Think of Dick Wolf (all 750 versions “Law & Order,”) think David E. Kelley, (“The Practice,” “Ally McBeal,” “Boston Public,” et al).
And tonight it’s Joss Whedon’s turn at bat, with “Firefly,” a very funny, very hip, very terrific sci-fi show.
Whedon was the guy behind “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Angel.” Right off, I admit I wasn’t a fan of either, which is – at least where “Buffy” is concerned – almost as un-American as joining al Qaeda. “Angel” on the other hand, I flat out hated.
“Firefly,” however, gets it right, at least as far as me and mine are concerned. It’s about a crew of future space crooks aboard the space ship, “Serenity,” who are just trying to make a buck after the civil war in the universe.
The leader of the band of rogues is Capt. Malcolm Reynolds, (Nathan Fillion), a defeated soldier who was against the unification of the planets, and ending up on the losing end of the war. The crew consists of his second in command, Zoe(Gina Torres), pilot Wash (Alan Tudyk); the ship’s engineer Kaylee (Jewel Staite), Jayne, a mercenary (Adam Baldwin), and a young doctor, Simon, (Sean Maher) who’s hooked up with the renegades just to protect his younger sister (Summer Glau) whom he’s hiding aboard “Serenity.”
Docked alongside in a shuttle is Inara, (Morena Baccaarin), a space prostitute.
My very favorite character, however, is “The Shepherd” (Ron Glass), a preacher/missionary. He’s my favorite character because, well, because it’s Ron Glass. You don’t remember Ron Glass? Well, take a guess, and I’ll tell you later.
In the premier episode, Reynolds is hired by a really, really bad guy to steal boxes of something or other, which is nearly impossible since the boxes are aboard a speeding train.
They manage to pull off the robbery, but then find out it’s a shipment of life-saving medicine. The catch here is that they’ve stolen the medicine from the Alliance – the government that runs the world – the government Reynolds and crew fought against.
Do they return the medicine and save the lives of people under the control of the bad guys, or do they make a mint and save their own lives by delivering the goods to the even badder guy who is all powerful?
How you ring laughs out of this, I don’t know, but they do, and I did (laugh I mean). Some of the stunts are just great, and really fun and funny. And really, how many shows feature a prostitute from outer space?
Oh, by the way, in case you are going nuts, Ron Glass was Det. Harris on “Barney Miller.” The cute one, with the spiffy wardrobe.