Something not altogether strange happened last month. I became one of the metric butt-ton (as opposed to imperial) of fans of Joss Whedon’s Firefly. I developed the seeded hatred, the loathesome woe that this great series was not meant to go on. Its very rare to find good programming on television, and when you do, it is so often that you see it slip just out of your grasp. With Firefly and Serenity, you had literally everything you needed to make a show work. Brilliant direction, superb writing, top-notch acting and a dedicated fanbase. Unfortunately, from what I gathered, the timeslot that the show worked on didn’t do it much justice, and Fox wasn’t willing to let it find its feet. It also suffered from being too far ahead of its time.
I could go on and on about what a travesty it is that the show was put up to pasture, and that they didn’ t put out more movies, and that even after all this time when services like Netflix exists, we still don’t have a new season of Firefly. What I’d rather do is talk about an observation I made when I was enjoying the series (before I dealt with any of the stages of grief).
I obviously don’t know Joss Whedon – much to my dismay. However, I’ d like to think I’m familiar with the kind of way he thinks. When you look at Firefly from the outside – that is to say, without much exposure to it – it looks like it could just be another spacey show, something akin to Star Trek, or Star Wars, or Battlestar.
Once you see it from the inside, you start to notice, it’s a big kid’s imaginary playground (and Joss Whedon has some experience in that field). Seriously, have a look at it. You’ve got you’re Han Solo – type character playing Space Cowboys and Indians, and that’s just to start. After that, you’ve got multiple episodes that deal with all of the things that I’m sure Mr. Whedon found interesting, including Corporate and Medical espionage, Black Widow… Companionship, and Feudal Duels, among plenty of other things.
I bring this up because the way that he worked his way toward Firefly is very much the same way that I worked my way toward Tellest. When I was coming up with the world of Tellest, it was during my teenage years. I was still in High School, and Greek Mythology was one of my classes. But I still had interest in plenty of other things that were typical for my age. Superheroes and Steampunk and Medieval Fantasy. You see the way that all these different genre conventions come together in one place in my series. Between the gods, the clockwork horses and airships, and the swordfighting precogs, I really do have a whole open sandbox that I set up for myself, and for the people who like to play in my world. And the best part is that we’ve only just scratched the surface. There is so much diversity and undiscovered country in the world of Tellest, the playground is only going to get bigger.
Hopefully THIS show doesn’t get cancelled on me.
Michael DeAngelo
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