Firefly Ep. 1 Review Reflections: TV Science Fiction

Thinking more about the first episode entitled "Train Job".

Some people are comparing Firefly to Farscape. I can see some parallels but there is an important difference: Farscape was stranger and edgier.

Go back to the beginning of Farscape: Crichton got shot thru a worm hole and immediately had an accidental collision which killed Kreiss's brother and as a result of that Kreiss went on a hunt with the Peacekeepers under his control to capture and kill Crichton. Crichton immediately got up by an assortment of escaped convict aliens. After that all sorts of weirdness followed.

Farscape is (or, sadly, shall I say was) way stranger than Firefly promises to be. Whedon seems determined to place a Frontier Western in space. So far the tech in this future civilization is not at all promising. Perhaps that will change in future episodes. But there are other important differences with Farscape: In Firefly only human cultures are involved. The humans have a central administrative empire that the lead characters in the series don't exactly like. But the Alliance of Firefly is nothing like the pure brutal ruthlessness of the Farscape Peacekeepers or the menace of the even more powerful Scarens.

Yes, there are some parallels. After all, the crew on Farscape were all wanted escapees who took over a prison transport and there are people on the Firefly who are wanted by the Alliance. However even here Farscape went further. Crichton ended up being wanted by a couple of different races for the wormhole technology stored in his brain while the doctor's sister River on Firefly is wanted for her mild psychic abilities:

A borderline psychic, River can read most minds and tends to speak not only what is on her own mind, but others' as well. The Alliance is eager to “recover” their genius.

The sense I get from Firefly is that it will have less weird tech, less bizarre plots, and less strange characters than was Farscape standard fare. Firefly really is a Western placed 500 years into a not-so-advanced future. The characters are intentionally more mundane. There won't be a priestess with the ability to do something equivalent to a Vulcan mind meld (recall when Crichton helped Zhaan, the Delvian priestess regain her sanity by mind merging) or a character like Stark with his seemingly supernatural abilities.

Crichton was way more dramatic than Mal. Crichton went thru rapid fire spewing of pop culture references combined with pleas, demands and threats as appropriate. Of course, Crichton could do that because he was really from our time. He just happened to end up among a bunch of aliens.

Another sort of parallel: Kaylee "The Mechanic" in Firefly is a nice mild sort of engineering officer. Contrast her with the cutting, acerbic and rather more dramatic Seamus Zelazny (ref: late great science fiction writer Roger Zelazny) Harper on Andromeda Ascendant. Or compare her to anyone on the Farscape crew when they were repairing something. The Farscape people had lots of attitude yelling at each other while they fixed Moya. Kaylee is a milder character. The pilot on Firefly is an equally mild and unobtrusive character.

Farscape was on the Sci Fi Channel in America. Firefly is on more mainstream Fox channel.

Farscape was weird. Firefly is Western.

Farscape was harder core sci fi. Firefly has some tech but not as much and, again, not as strange.

Why?

Here's my thinking: most mainstream TV watchers don't want weird science fiction. Star Wars was far more successful than Blade Runner. Firefly represents the product of a Producer (Joss Whedon) who is proven to be well attuned to the wider public's tastes. He's giving them the kind of science fiction show they are more likely to accept.

Does this mean that really hard core science fiction can never appeal to a larger audience? Not necessarily. The key is to make a show that on the surface is a human drama while simutaneously offering something for those more discerning hard core science fiction fans. It is possible to satisfy these seemingly incompatible sets of tastes and expectations. But it requires very careful construction so that the show works on many levels in ways that do not require all the levels to be understood by every viewer in order for each fewer to achieve a sense of understanding of the show. If its done properly it allows some viewers to ignore some of the nuances of human relationships while other viewers ignore many of the rules of the scientific and technological setting in which the events unfold.

Making a science fiction show that simultaneously appeals to such different audiences is much harder to do and such shows have been rare. Most of the time hard core science fiction fans will have to content themselves with great shows that have limited runs and low budgets or mainstream shows that do not appeal as much to their tastes.

Hard core science fiction lovers are too few in number. So the best they can hope for are shows that can simultaneously appeal to them and to a mass audience. Can this be done? Yes. Here are some incomplete and preliminary thoughts on how to do it:

There has to be the full range of human personalities and conflicts. A high tech future does not have to be barren of the full range of human emotions and human intrigue. Relationships can be realistic and some types of relationships can be similar to relationships in our own era.

Do not let the tech crowd out the human interactions. You can put lots of tech into stories and into the structure of societies and still focus on the people. The tech should not be obtrusive. Every conflict should not be solved by a simple high tech equivalent of deus ex machina. Characters should have to puzzle out each other's motivations rather than just decide to kill each other with force lances.

Tech should be unobtrusively embedded into life. Embedded wall displays or holographic imagines make more sense than display panels that look like mission control command centers. Tech should be tucked away in cabinets or capable of popping up on a table when needed.

Tech should be fashionable. The tech should look like ergonomic and stylish products designed for consumers than products designed for the military or for engineers. For example, rather than wearing militaristic looking night time techie looking head gear people should wear sun glasses that just happen to have micro-miniature computers embedded and the ability to show them some fact they need to know. The camera view of the protagonist wearing such a super pair of sunglasses shouldn't show all sorts of live flowing charts and tables all around the edges. Stuff should just pop up briefly to tell the guy what he needs to know. An ordinary person should watch such a scene and think "hey, I'll buy and wear such a pair of super sunglasses when they are available some day".

Writers should ask scientists and engineers how to be more realistic. I'll watch some science fiction show and see some implausible device that is used to accomplish some objective. Often while watching I can imagine some other device or technical method that would be just as exciting to the scientifically illiterate audience but which would also be within the realm of what will some day be physically possible. The problem is that most writers just don't have the educational background that would allow them to think of these more plausible ideas. People who study physics or engineering in college tend not to try to become Hollywood writers and of those who do too many lack a feel for the human dimension of writing. What is needed are technical consultants who can provide more plausible tech ideas.

Consumer Tech Creates Cultural Niches. Skateboards, rollerskates, frisbees and assorted other seemingly simple products have created new hobbies, group identities and pastimes. A realistic future should contain new ways to pass the time and entertain oneself. There should be group identities evident among people who pursue activities built around these common products.

Inventions are often applied in ways unforeseen by their developers. Or as William Gibson famously put it "The streets find their own uses for technology". This means that future tech should be seen being used more by common people in their daily lives. Those common people should act in ways that make it clear that they don't even think that much about the tech they are using. Its what they grew up with and they take it for granted while they mostly dwell on themselves and each other. Too many TV shows are full of warriors, government agents, and a few heroes and villains using gadgets to pursue their conflicting goals. This does not resonate as well with everyday experience.

Viewers should not need to understand scientific principles to understand the plots. Someone with scientific or technological savvy should feel satisfied by the underlying science. But events should unfold in a way that doesn't rely on that understanding in order for the human drama to be comprehensible.

Posted by Randall Parker at September 22, 2002 03:12 PM