Firefly season

This is definitely the season for Firefly the short lived Fox series that has seen a ground swell of buzz this year, leading up to Serenity due in theaters next month. As a small token of evidence, I offer this from H&R: A discussion mostly about how much people like Firefly with links to some discussions about the general politics of the series.

I'll call out two posts. First Daniel Drezner makes it one of his Books of the Month for August (and includes some interesting tidbits about the way they've marketed the film while building anticipation). I also got quite a kick out of this Firefly Photo Essay. There's a lot more if you are interested in clicking through it all.

I got my start because of some small favor I performed for Meng early this year for which he sent me the Firefly DVD as a gift. It took forever to get around to watching it, but I really enjoyed it when I did. Then I got busy and it was only after getting back from Jersey that I finally watched the rest of the episodes. Now I'm working my way through it again.

So what is it all about?

It's a romantic (and somewhat twisted) view of 18^th, 19^th and 20^th century culture reborn somewhere in space some 500+ years from now. It's been called a space western, a melodrama and a morality play. All of those elements are there. This review mentions that "It could be the only science-fiction show ever with a Chinese/bluegrass soundtrack" which may just sum up how unique it is.

There are quite a number of core characters, yet the series seems to revolve around a former sergeant from a failed civil war who has moved to the outer regions (the west?) and leads a band of (mostly) non-conformist nomads on a series of money raising adventures based mostly on crime (pretty easy to do, as even minor salvage operations are consider criminal acts). This leader is aloof and calculating, yet enigmatically human.

If you haven't seen it and like smart stories, I'd highly recommended it.