All Rise...

Judge Dan Mancini is a big damn hero.

Editor's Note

Our review of Firefly: The Complete Series, published December 9th, 2003, is also available.

The Charge

"Out here, people struggled to get by with the most basic technologies; a ship would bring you work, a gun would help you keep it. A captain's goal was simple: find a crew, find a job, keep flying."—Shepherd Book

Opening Statement

Firefly, writer-producer-director Joss Whedon's (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) futuristic pseudo-postbellum television epic, debuted on Fox in the Fall of 2002. Eleven episodes and less than three months later, it was unceremoniously cancelled by the network—much to the chagrin of its small clutch of devoted fans. Due in large part to a complete series DVD release containing all 14 of the show's episodes (three of which were never aired—"Trash," "The Message," "Heart of Gold") that clutch of fans grew into a genuine cult following. Three years after the demise of the show, an action-packed feature film, Serenity, wrapped up most of the show's loose ends, giving fans closure even if it wasn't quite as satisfying as being able to tune in to the show each and every week.

Now Firefly: The Complete Series arrives on Blu-ray with upgraded audio and video, and a couple HD-exclusive supplements.

Facts of the Case

Firefly takes place in 2517. Human beings have migrated to a new solar system. A civil war between the Alliance and Independent "brown coats" has recently come to an end with the Alliance controlling the solar system. Like many of the defeated Independents, Malcolm Reynolds (Nathan Fillion, Waitress) has drifted to the frontier outskirts of the system. He makes ends meet by taking on jobs—legal and illegal—in his Firefly class starship, Serenity. His crew consists of second-in-command Zoe (Gina Torres, The Matrix Reloaded), a former soldier who fought alongside Mal in the war; Zoe's husband Wash (Alan Tudyk, 3:10 to Yuma), Serenity's pilot; ship's mechanic Kaylee (Jewel Staite, Stargate: Atlantis); mercenary badass Jayne Cobb (Adam Baldwin, Chuck); and Inara Serra (Morena Baccarin, Heartland), a companion (something like a courtesan or a geisha) who rents one of Serenity's shuttles in order to ply her trade. As the series kicks off, Mal and his crew take on three passengers: holy man Shepherd Book (Ron Glass, Barney Miller), Simon Tam (Sean Maher, Living 'til the End), and his sister River (Summer Glau, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles).

Firefly: The Complete Series contains all 14 episodes of the series, presented in the order in which they were produced (and meant to be broadcast):

Disc One:

• "Serenity" (Parts 1 and 2)
While trying to find a fence for some stolen goods, the crew of the Serenity takes on some passengers—Shepherd Book, Dr. Simon Tam, and Tam's mysterious cargo: his sister River. The siblings are on the run from the Alliance, who have tampered with the girl's brain and want to take her back into custody.

• "The Train Job"
Mal and his crew take on a train heist for dangerous crime lord Adelei Niska (Michael Fairman, Mulholland Dr.). When Mal discovers that their loot is medicine desperately needed by some remote miners, he decides to back out of the deal even though the consequences of not finishing a job for Niska are dire.

• "Bushwhacked"
Serenity comes across a drifting scow that was ravaged by Reavers. When Alliance Commander Harken (Doug Savant, Desperate Housewives) comes upon Serenity looting the ship, he suspects that Mal and his crew murdered the scow's crew. Simon and River are forced to hide as their new friends are interrogated by the Alliance.

• "Shindig"
Kaylee and Mal go to a swanky dance in order to arrange the details of a smuggling job. When Mal's introduction to Inara's client, Atherton Wing, leads to fisticuffs, Mal finds himself obliged to carry out a duel with swords. The problem is, he knows nothing about fencing.

Disc Two:

• "Safe"
When a cattle deal goes south, Book is shot and River and Simon are kidnapped by settlers in need of a doctor. Mal must decide whether to save the preacher or rescue the siblings. Meanwhile, the Tams find themselves in trouble when the settlers decide to burn River as a witch.

• "Our Mrs. Reynolds"
After saving a group of settlers from bandits, Mal finds himself the recipient of an unwanted reward: a wife, Saffron (Christina Hendricks, Mad Men). The crew of Serenity thinks Mal's predicament is hilarious, but Saffron turns out to be more than any of them bargained for.

• "Jaynestown"
Jayne is surprised to discover that he's a living legend on a planet where he'd previously wrought havoc. But the "Hero of Canton's" scarred and grizzled former partner, Stitch, arrives to burst the townsfolk's bubble, revealing the truth about Jayne's supposed heroism. Meanwhile, River tries to "fix" Shepherd Book's Bible.

• "Out of Gas"
Serenity drifts in space, out of fuel, its crew dying from oxygen deprivation. Mal struggles to fix the ship while we flash back to scenes of the fire that caused the catastrophe, the day Mal acquired Serenity, and how various crew members ended up on the ship.

• "Ariel"
The crew of Serenity helps Simon break into Ariel City's hospital so he can use the state-of-the-art equipment there to try to figure out what the Alliance did to River. Jayne is tempted by the hefty reward offered for information leading to the capture of the Tams.

Disc Three:

• "War Stories"
Jealous over Zoe and Mal's tales of adventure during the war, Wash insists on going on a mission with Mal. Unfortunately, they end up in the hands of the vengeful crime lord Adelei Niska. During the crew's attempt to rescue Mal and Wash, River shows extraordinary abilities with a pistol.

• "Trash"
Saffron is back. This time, she presents Mal with a plan to rip-off a Lassiter, a priceless antique laser gun, from a swell. Kaylee and Wash formulate an intricate plan to steal the weapon. Unfortunately, Saffron's devious ways leave Mal abandoned naked on a desert planet.

• "The Message"
On a space station, Mal and Zoe pick up the body of one of their former fellow soldiers. He requested that they return him to his folks. Matters are complicated when it turns out that an Alliance soldier is in hot pursuit of the corpse.

• "Heart of Gold"
Nandi (Melinda Clarke, Xena: Warrior Princess), a former companion and friend of Inara's who runs a brothel on a remote world, calls on the crew of Serenity for help because of threats from Rance Burgess (Fredric Lehne, Men in Black), a powerbroker who believes one of the whores is carrying his child.

• "Objects in Space"
Serenity is infiltrated by Jubal Early (Richard Brooks, Law & Order), a philosophically inquisitive bounty hunter looking for River.

The Evidence

Confession: I'm not a Joss Whedon fan. I gave Buffy the Vampire Slayer about a dozen chances (my wife was a fan during the show's first couple seasons), but couldn't get past the precocious over-writing. From what I saw of it, Angel seemed to suffer from the same soap operatic excesses as Buffy, but contained maybe half the wit and fun. I didn't even bother watching Firefly during its brief run on Fox. It didn't look like my cup of tea. Boy, was I wrong.

Firefly is part sci-fi actioner, part Western, and part Blade Runner-style multi-cultural dystopian fantasy. It's a space voyage show about all-too-human human beings (there's not a muppet, monster, or alien with a funny-looking forehead in sight). Absent the governance of a prime directive, its central cast of rogues, brigands, and fugitives struggles constantly to find the balance between self-preservation and loyalty to one another. None of the crew of Serenity exhibits the sort of predictable nobility that render plot developments foregone conclusions—there's always the sense that anything might happen, that the principal characters aren't above screwing each other over if necessary. And the world of Firefly proves the perfect vessel for Whedon's dense, quickly-delivered, and hyper-stylized dialogue. Where his writing often felt showy and forced in the modern teen world of Buffy, it's perfectly natural in the future world of Firefly. The blend of techno jargon, Old West idiom, and Mandarin slang merge with poetic beauty…and loads of humor.

Truth be told, though, I'm not sure that I'd have liked Firefly if it had survived for multiple seasons. During the show's brief run, Whedon carefully sowed seeds for the sort of soap opera shenanigans that generally result in writers painting themselves into narrative corners and audience members (me, at least) becoming fatigued with increasingly absurd and unsatisfying turns of plot. Among the eight crew members and passengers on Serenity, there are two (yes, two) tentative potential romances that toy with the same will they/won't they dynamic that usually torpedoes successful shows with an array of increasingly annoying explanations as to how two beautiful people who are attracted to one another can manage to not get together (remember Moonlighting?). Also, with the character of River Tam, Whedon seemed to set himself up (consciously or unconsciously) to slide into his favorite mode of storytelling: feminist parables centered on ass-kicking teen girls. If that's your thing, cool. It's not mine.

As it stands, Firefly is a finely-honed 14-episode collection of great writing, compelling characters, and rousing action. Coupled with Serenity—a 2005 feature film that wraps up many of the series' loose ends—Whedon's sci-fi/Western becomes a self-contained marvel of cult television, a rich and complex epic well told from beginning to end.

I never saw Firefly when it was broadcast in full frame on Fox, but it's not unreasonable to guess that the widescreen complete series DVD release offered a significant improvement in audio and video quality. Broadcasts of the show on Universal HD provided a noticeable sound and image upgrade over the DVDs. Now this Blu-ray release offers an improvement over the Universal HD presentation. Colors are more accurate and fully saturated. Black levels are deep and rich, while whites sparkle. Detail is decent (better than DVD) but not as eye-popping as more modern shows shot on HD video, nor as dynamic as 35mm feature films shot on much larger budgets. Some fans worried about how the show's special effects, which were produced in SD, would translate to a high definition format. If you apply a critical eye, there is a noticeable difference between the upscaled effects and the rest of the show. The difference is minor enough, though, that if you're watching to be entertained you won't even notice.

The upgrade to DTS lossless master audio is also impressive (and a huge improvement over the DVD's Dolby Stereo offering). The episodes' mixes are well-crafted and as natural as the show's concept allows. Action sequences have plenty of bombast for a television production, though they don't match typical science fiction theatrical epics.

Considering Firefly was a network failure with a cult following, the original DVD release of the series got it surprisingly right when it came to extras: audio commentaries on seven episodes ("Serenity" parts 1 and 2; "The Train Job," "Shindig," "Out of Gas," "War Stories," "The Message," "Objects in Space"); a nearly half-hour long making-of documentary called Here's How It Was: The Making of Firefly; a featurette about Serenity, and another with Joss Whedon touring the Serenity set; deleted scenes; a gag reel; Whedon singing the show's main theme; and Alan Tudyk's audtion tape. Plus, an easter egg that features Adam Baldwin singing "The Hero of Canton."

All of those supplements are included on the Blu-ray, along with an HD presentation of a Firefly reunion lunch with Whedon, Fillion, Tudyk, and Glass. It runs 24 minutes and is a loose and funny reminiscence of the men's experiences working on the show. The quartet also offers a brand new audio commentary for the "Our Mrs. Reynolds" episode.

Closing Statement

Given the upgrade in video and especially audio, fans of the show will find the Blu-ray release of Firefly: The Complete Series worth the cost of a double-dip. Those new to the show are encouraged to discover it in high definition. Pair it with the upcoming Blu-ray release of Serenity and you'll have a fine sci-fi epic that offers a unique world, easy-to-love characters, smart plots, great action, and loads of potential for repeat viewings.

The Verdict

Time for some thrilling heroics.

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