Firefly: An Opinion About its Demise

Firefly was a television series which was the child of Joss Whedon, he of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It was a Space-Western, heavy on both space and western.

Firefly was cancelled in the middle of its first season. Following its cancellation it got such a cult following, once it came out on DVD, that it spawned a movie called Serenity which did very well for a spin-off of a television show cancelled half way through the first season.

I’d like to venture my opinion as to why the show was cancelled.

Within the universe of Firefly humans have abandoned a dying Earth and colonised a new solar system. They live on a large number of planets and moons. Before the series there had been a war between two ideologies, one called the Independents and one called the Alliance. Although not much depth is really given about the causes and roots of the conflict, the choices of names gives a good indication about core ideologies of both sides. One wanted independence, the other not so much.

The Alliance won the war (Mal at one point says they won because of superior numbers, although the brief flashbacks of what the war was like also suggests superior technology) and has consolidated its control of humanity. However, we’re shown a number of times that the Alliance aren’t actually that great. They are horribly bureaucratic and controlling at the same time as being quite incompetent and indifferent.

Now, on to why I think the show was cancelled: Daring to imply that conclusive victory doesn’t make you right; Daring to imply that legality and morality aren’t the same; and, Daring to show prostitution as not only acceptable but, with the right legal framework, safe and beneficial.

The Alliance are shown to be wrong about a number of things, for example they allow slavery. Mal, our hero and main protagonist even says in one episode that he was on the losing side but he’s still not convinced that it was the wrong side. He’s our hero and so we believe him. Winning the war doesn’t necessarily make you right. It makes you better at war, which is killing people. We don’t generally consider murderers to be right, except in the case of one country against another, since the murder of enemy soldiers is okay and civilians aren’t our actual targets, really. We were right, despite our decision to fire bomb Dresden (as just one example in many), because we won the second world war.

So long as there is still a fight there are allowed to be opinions other than the ‘official’ one. As soon as conclusive victory is decided then the winners were the ones who were right. Joss says no to that.

Fox, the network responsible for the death of Firefly, are very hawkish. By this I mean they are pro war and seemingly believe that it’s America’s duty to go to war to bring democracy to places which were doing fine until America started to mess with them. To have a show on its own network which implied that winning wasn’t what made your position right is anathema to the Fox network’s dominant values and beliefs. It had to go. Stage one of getting rid of it was not showing the pilot, with all of its character exploration, first. Stage two was moving the show around the listings so it was never in the same place and couldn’t build a following. Stage three was to then complain about its ratings and cut it in the middle of the first season.

Firefly not only dares to follow the losers and make them look like they might have been right, but it also dares to imply that breaking the law isn’t necessarily bad, that legality is not morality. Mal and his crew get away with a lot of crimes, yet they are a moral bunch (maybe with the exception of Jayne). They return stolen goods which poor and sick people need, for example. Mal makes it clear that, although killing isn’t necessarily wrong in his eyes, that there are rules of conduct he abides by (”You don’t know me, son, so let me explain this to you once: If I ever kill you, you’ll be awake; you’ll be facing me; and you’ll be armed.”).

Not only are we following a bunch of thieves and murderers, but they have a prostitute on board! And her activities are legal! The winning side not only condones slavery, but it’s okay with legislating for the safety and continuation of the prostitutes business. It’s enough to make Fox pull the plug. Which they did.

I can hear the question now though. If Fox were so against this then why the BDM (Big Damn Movie, Serenity)? Well, Fox is motivated also by greed. If you watch the BDM you’ll probably see that most of these themes are missing from it, or very much down-played. It becomes more a ‘little guy vs corruption and conspiracy’ than ‘winning doesn’t make you right and legality isn’t morality’.

Firefly died because it questions a few of the dominant beliefs of a very right wing station which sadly happened to also be the ones putting it on the air. Not a good combination.