Shiny. Let's be bad guys.

The title of the last post may have thrown some folks. Gorram? If you dong ma what gorram means, you know what I'm talking about. If you don't understand, well, doesn't gorram seem a might familiar? Like you can get it (goddam, but more guttural) without knowing exactly what it means? It's like a Firefly litmus test.

Oh wait, you're asking what's Firefly? Is Trackball about to dip into some weird ass sci-fi thing?



You bet. Firefly ran for 2 episodes on Fox before announced it was canceled in 2002. I remember seeing the commercials - cowboys in space, spaceships and horses, people saying reckon and swearing in Chinese in deep space and thinking it was just weird looking. Wasn't surprised to see Fox cancel it either - since when did Fox do sci-fi?

Then I became a Whedonist (big fan of Joss Whedon) thanks to the TV series Angel and American Dilettante. After, without a Whedon fix, I was looking around for something else. American Dilettante points me to Firefly after I shoot down the high school soap opera that is Buffy. Whedon wanted a series that was like all that Han Solo stuff on the Millenium Falcon that was so awesome in Star Wars - I'm down with that. Okay, so I Netflixed Firefly shortly after Serenity, the major motion picture sequel to the cancelled, failed TV series, came out last year. At about $1.75/DVD (Netflix is great), if it sucked, I send it back and that's that.

What can I say? It was beyond shiny. The dialogue, story-telling and characterization are first rate. Whedon himself thought he had perfected the ensemble-type show that he had to build up to over several seasons on Buffy and Angel. The actors on the show knew it was something special. There are few things that, after I watch them, I could pop them back in and watch again. Firefly is one of them (Batman Begins is another). I got a copy of the series DVD set and am enjoying the whole thing all over again.

There is now a wide and deep base of fans for this little show about a little ship; they're called Browncoats. Like the Trekkies of old, they would like to bring back Firefly, if only a network would pick it up, even almost 5 years after the series aired its 10th episode. Looks doubtful, but not because of the crew - Whedon and the cast would come back at the drop of a fuzzy hand-knitted hat.

So I'll end this pitch for Firefly with some choice quotes that make the show and movie worth knowing:

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

Your mouth is talking, might wanna see to that.

Do you know what the chain of command is here? It's the chain I go get and beat you with to show you who's in command.

Well, my days of taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle.

This is the captain. We have a...little problem with our engine sequence, so we may experience some slight turbulence and then...explode.

I aim to misbehave.