Man I love this show.

This show is great. You can watch the entire series (unfortunately there is only one season) on Hulu.

Love this show too. This is a great scene.

Great. You went and made me want to watch the series again.

-puts on hat and coat to go to rental store...

It's actually only half a season really...even if you watch the movie with it, it's still not a whole season.

Which sucks.

But the upside is you can watch the whole thing in a day.

Thanks for taking up my Sunday...I had stuff to do too...

I love that the spirit of this scene brought back in Serenity (the film) when Mal shot the operative.

Upvote for a seriously sexy TV series on the sift.

Man, I need to go rent Serenity again!

I loved this show. Watch it on Hulu (pilot and series). 480P, full-screen.


Here's a good list of other shows you can watch online.

Why must the heroes of today be such villains? Whatever happened to the old kind of heroes, who were actually promoting ideals and not cold-blooded murder?
Neither this nor the Sparta scene referenced sparked the kind of admiration in me that it apparently did in the majority. It just felt disgustingly nonchalant of human life.

>> ^Kreegath:
Why must the heroes of today be such villains? Whatever happened to the old kind of heroes, who were actually promoting ideals and not cold-blooded murder?
Neither this nor the Sparta scene referenced sparked the kind of admiration in me that it apparently did in the majority. It just felt disgustingly nonchalant of human life.


Old kind of heros?
Like Hercules? Achillies?

I think society would be contemptibly evil if all we watched was Christmas specials.

Kreegath, they're not meant to be heroes. They're meant to be leaders in times of great upheaval who are trying to survive and thrive in a crazy world, and sources of comedy and entertainment. They're inventive anti-heroes.

If you want that kind of Paladinny-golden-shield-of-ultimate-virgin-goodness stuff, there's all sorts of saturday morning cartoons out there where eleven-year-olds who have their moral compass crazyglued permanently in place run around endangering the world with their violent super powers and/or pets. But those children are not reflective of real people.

Further, you're making your judgement on this series without actually watching it. The character Mal does have a heart of gold, and the guy he booted in this scene really DID deserve to die. Watch the rest of the show to find out why.

It's so sad the cancelled this show

The series is set in the year 2517, after humans have arrived at a new star system, and follows the adventures of the renegade crew of Serenity, a "Firefly-class" spaceship. The ensemble cast portrays the nine characters who live on Serenity. Whedon pitched the show as "nine people looking into the blackness of space and seeing nine different things".

The show explores the lives of people who fought on the losing side of a civil war and now make a living on the outskirts of the society, as well as the pioneer culture that exists on the fringes of their star system. In addition, it is a future where the only two surviving superpowers, the United States and China, fused to form the central federal government, called the Alliance, resulting in the fusion of the two cultures as well. According to Whedon's vision, "nothing will change in the future: technology will advance, but we will still have the same political, moral, and ethical problems as today.

Mal - Latin, for bad.

I found this while searching for the reason firefly was canceled.

---------------------------------------------
Memorandum

To: Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy Television Incorporated
From: Shillton Skankowski, FOX Television Entertainment Network Group
Date: February 19th, 2002

Dear Joss,

After that power brunch we had yesterday I just thought I'd send you a memo and let you know that I've talked with the other executives here at FOX and we've decided to give your little space western idea another chance. However, and I'm sure you'll understand why, we ask for a few simple adjustments to your marvelous show idea before we can continue.

1. We need to have things blow up more often. Something should blow up at least once in between every commercial break. Two or three things blowing up in between each commercial break would be even better.
2. The women on the show should kiss the men on the show more often, and each other just a little less (as in, not at all).
3. The name "Firefly" doesn't seem to properly convey the idea of a space western. We recommend you rename the show "Space Western" so that the viewers don't confuse your show with a PBS documentary about fluorescent beetles.
4. The focus groups who reported to my assistant after viewing one of your episodes said they didn't really understand who the bad guys were. We recommend you have all the good guys on the show wear white hats and all the bad guys wear black hats, so the viewers are better able to keep track at a glance just who they're supposed to be rooting for.
5. We recommend you add a new character to the show. A cute little girl. Focus groups respond best to dark haired girls who are about nine or ten years old. We know this is a science fiction program so we recommend you make her a robot who speaks in a monotone manner and takes anything other characters say very literally, to comical effect.
6. The women on the show are wearing too many clothes.
7. You put the show in outer space but I don't recall there ever being any actual aliens showing up. So we recommend you get some of your makeup guys from the Buffy tv show and have them doctor up some extras to make them look like Little Green Men or something. Also make sure they're wearing black hats.
8. Drop that Ron Glass guy. He's a bore.
9. Focus groups reported that the rooms inside the spaceship looked too much like a poorly furnished studio apartment. We recommend you repaint all the sets to make them look more like those cool sets on that old Star Trek show. Make sure there's a lot of bright flashing lights and "beep beep" noises in the background.
10. The women on the show need to be prettier. Go wherever you got that cute Gellar chick and hire some more who look like that.
11. Get in touch with the Jim Henson Company and add some aliens that are actually muppets. Kids like muppets. You can't go wrong with muppets. Or maybe get that guy who does ALF. He's been doing some phone commercials recently, but I'm sure he's available. Make ALF a guest star every few episodes and maybe we can get the 1-800-COLLECT guys to put a commercial on your show.
12. Make the 'future' of the Earth a little brighter. People wanna believe we're gonna do better. Right now the show's outlook is just a little depressing.

Of course you'll understand that we will not be offering any more money for these changes. In fact in order to broadcast your fine television show on our network, we ask for a simple retainer of $250,000.00 per episode, to defray the costs regarding a lack of interest among advertisers.

We look forward to working with you again.

Sincerely,
S. Skankowski

---------------------------------------------
Memorandum

From: Joss Whedon
To: Shillton Skankowski
Date: February 20th, 2002

Dear Skanky,

Get Bent.

As always,
Joss

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>> ^Kreegath:
Why must the heroes of today be such villains? Whatever happened to the old kind of heroes, who were actually promoting ideals and not cold-blooded murder?
Neither this nor the Sparta scene referenced sparked the kind of admiration in me that it apparently did in the majority. It just felt disgustingly nonchalant of human life.


Did you seriously just call Leonidas a "hero of today"? That was almost 2500 years ago and, yes, he really did have Xerxes' messengers thrown into the well.

ARRRRRRGH!
Upvote for being the sheer awesomeness that is firefly!

(Plus I loved that bit when i saw it for the first time.)

Best. Show. Ever.

Great show and this was one of my favorite scenes.

Literally the best sci-fi show ever, this story needs to be explored way more. Better than SG-1 (and i love SG-1), it deserves to run longer than that. Seriously a legendary show.

>> ^Raaagh:
>> ^Kreegath:
Why must the heroes of today be such villains? Whatever happened to the old kind of heroes, who were actually promoting ideals and not cold-blooded murder?
Neither this nor the Sparta scene referenced sparked the kind of admiration in me that it apparently did in the majority. It just felt disgustingly nonchalant of human life.

Old kind of heros?
Like Hercules? Achillies?
I think society would be contemptibly evil if all we watched was Christmas specials.


Captain Picard is a nearly impeccable hero.

Every time I see this show it fills me with such anger that it was canceled before the end of even one season, while truly awful shows get renewed year after year.

Bah, upvote for one of the best series I've ever seen.

>> ^Kreegath:
Why must the heroes of today be such villains? Whatever happened to the old kind of heroes, who were actually promoting ideals and not cold-blooded murder?

I reckon the creator of the series was aiming for a realistic, human, and honest portrayal of his characters. No one's a saint, and not everyone wants to create a sanitized, rainbow-filled world for the benefit of blissfully ignorant children (or adults) and those who prefer to live in a padded bubble.

I find it refreshing, myself. I have to agree with the person who pointed out that you're judging a character by one act... there's much more to Mal than these 66 seconds.

>> ^jwray:
Captain Picard is a nearly impeccable hero.

True, but he was a Frenchie liberal.

Mal's an American, through and through.

I do wish our iconic heros were more like Picard, and less like Mal. Might have saved us from the last eight years.

I also wish the networks would fuck off and let Joss Whedon do whatever the fuck he wants. I hear they're already giving him crap about Dollhouse, and they have yet to even air a single episode.

Firefly was better than most of the crap on TV that gets renewed year after year. I mean it was no TNG or Charlie Rose, but it was at least worth watching.
Network execs are in a death-spiral of dumbing things down.
Early-adopters of new technology are, on average, smarter than the rest of the population. Internet is replacing broadcast for a lot of people.

I don't feel any need to embrace a "human nature" in which people are violent jerks. Captain Picard is not an unrealistic character. People need something to aspire to. The greatest purpose of fiction is to envision something better than this cesspool so that we might make it so.

^I'm just re-watching TNG.. Good stuff. I think Picard is by far the better captain, and his method of leadership is good, but sometimes I think his priorities are a little wonky. Starfleet > all, for instance. I'm not all that keen on the Prime Directive either.

One of my favorite episodes is Jayne's Town. Where the crew finds out that Jayne, arguably the 'evilest' character on the ship, is a real Hero of a crappy town. Got a statue, a song, they even had a riot on his account.

>> ^Kreegath:
Why must the heroes of today be such villains? Whatever happened to the old kind of heroes, who were actually promoting ideals and not cold-blooded murder?
Neither this nor the Sparta scene referenced sparked the kind of admiration in me that it apparently did in the majority. It just felt disgustingly nonchalant of human life.


You mean heroes like on the show Heroes?

>> ^Xax:I have to agree with the person who pointed out that you're judging a character by one act... there's much more to Mal than these 66 seconds.

He wasn't exactly a boy scout in the rest of the series. Anyway, he's just the lead character of a TV show, not presented as a hero.

Entanglement with civilizations too primitive to fend for them selves leads to imperialism. That's what the prime directive is guarding against.

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>> ^Shepppard:

Promote


Woot, good stuff

One of the coolest scifi scenes ever!

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Show - cheap and to much western and too little sci-fi.



Movie - perfect blend of western and sci-fi, but still somewhat underwhelming.

How much would it cost to crowd finance an internet-broadcast season of firefly?

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You can't compare Picard and Mal. Picard had a prestigious position in a federation that had a fairly rigid moral code. Picard wasn't barely getting by. He represented the best of humanity during the best of times. Mal, on the other hand, was living under a totalitarian regime and was barely keeping food on the table. His life was a struggle. It would make more sense to compare him to Han Solo, Robin Hood, or other "thieves with hearts of gold".