The Anger of Compassion

"The First Truly Hard SF Show on TV"

Ian Hamet on one very appreciated aspect of Firefly:

Another very nice aspect is the science fiction. The science isn’t emphasized, but this might in fact be the first truly hard SF show on TV. No FTL, no humanoid aliens, no races so advanced as to be indistinguishable from gods, none of that. And the parts that might be fudged are very pleasantly not overexamined — what kind of solar system does this take place in, and how the heck could so many planets and moons be made Earth-like? It’s possible, but the writers never go out of their way to open the question. It’s just there, and since the characters accept it, so does the audience. (Another possible area of fudging — how do ships escape gravity wells so easily? I simply take it as advances in propulsion, but it’s a stretch. Would have liked to see at least the Alliance worlds have Beanstalks as their ports, but I’m a geek.)

Indeed. No wormholes or time travel either. Not all the food is reliably tasty and, as in Brazil and (to some degree) Anthem, although it's the future and the high-tech touches are there, it's not all high-tech, not all of the high-tech stuff works, and little of it works wonders. When Serenity is damaged, she stays damaged until repairs are made. Finally, as Alexandra points out, there's another very nice science-y touch: the out-of-atmosphere ("atmo," in Firefly talk) explosions are silent. And even the Reavers, we're reminded (especially in the Serenity film), are human, not alien.

And my own observation: in having no aliens, Firefly avoids one truly goofy Star Trek howler, that of characters who are supposed to be alien-human offspring. Give me a break. We can barely get cats and dogs to live together, and Star Trek would have us believe creatures from different planets mating and reproducing? Thanks, but I'll take Firefly.

Posted by Craig Ceely at October 4, 2005 11:35 AM