First of all, “Firefly” was the first Whedon show I watched. Or to be more precise, it was the first Whedon show I like to think I came to know. I’ d watched ten episodes of “Angel”, too, when I first watched “Firefly”, but I didn’t feel like I’d really gotten into that one yet. After all, I was only done with some ten percent of that show when I watched “Firefly” in its entirety.
So, it is fun to see “Firefly” in light of Whedon’s other shows. For example, I’m almost amazed at how similar Mal is to Angel — they’re both grumpy old men, sarcastic, protective of their “families” and somehow honourable; the only major difference between their personalities is that Mal doesn’t brood much. Similarly, Jayne seems to resemble Spike at times — a kind of “low” intelligence, brute force and a love of battle seems to be common to them. Kaylee is a bit like Willow — with some major exceptions. And Wash reminds me something awful of Xander.
At the same time, its interesting to see that Whedon, rather than building a “family” for his hero from scratch — as he did on both “Angel” and “Buffy” — instead chose to begin the show with the surrogate-family nearly intact, save from a few late arrivals. It is also nice to observe how adorable these characters are, and how fast one gets attatched to them. My sister, for example, seemed to bond with the Serenity crew in just two episodes or so.
Which was something of a relief, really, as I felt the pilot episode had its faults. The dialogue wasn’t always top-notch, and the actors didn’t quite seem comfortable in their roles. However, both these things were greatly improved between the pilot and “The Trainjob”, it seemed, so things worked out a-okay.
As does the rest of the series. In spite of some indifferent episode plots and an amazingly clichéed character (at least this far), it looks like the Holy Trinity of Whedon might be restored; the character interaction of “Firefly” beats practically every other show I can think of — except from “Buffy” and “Angel”, naturally — and I’m starting to realise that in my world, character interaction is King.
Looking forward to the rest of the show.
Posts
The character interaction on “Firefly” is so above anything else it’s insane. Including “Angel” and “Buffy the vampire slayer”, at least if you take the extreme low number of episodes just marginally into account.
As for your likenings… yes, there are similarities. Not quite 100% of your Angel-Mal-parallell. Unlike Angel, Mal is quite obvious and protective of his surrogate family from the get go. Once you’re on his ship, you’re Safe. Angel? Not so much. He took time warming up to the Scooby-gang, to the degree that he ever did. Doyle practically had to force himself on him in the beginning. Cordelia was someone he more or less helplessly suffered the presence on until he started liking her and she grew to be a part of his life. Wesley, he never did have the warmest imaginable relationship with Wesley, though companionship obviously grew in time (until Wes, poor chap, ruined it after a chat with a talking hamburger) it was clearly a union of interests and purpose and mutual profit in their goals more than something else that led them together.
But yes, Angel is protective of his “family”, but more in the sense of being the “alpha male” of the pack than in Mal’s, to me, much more paternal, deep-rooted way. You could say the same for Buffy, if you liken Mal to Angel, as she, too, is very, very protective of her group - take a peek at the episode where the Watcher’s Council sends a group to “evaluate” her friends, for instanse.
Their personalities, however, I find rather different. If anything, I’d say Mal reminds me more of Buffy than of Angel. Mal’s an idealist, but a disillusioned one. Angel is not, ‘cept maybe by the end of the fifth season, and even then, you could make a case for his still being his own brand of hopeful idealist. Angel started out as disillusioned and grew from there, the other two went the route slightly more thread.
They’re both somewhat grumpy and broody, though, that’s right. And they both distrust new people rather instinctively, though Mal more than Angel. And Angels’s much more of a big picture guy. You think Mal would’ve let Illyria take Fred, like Angel did? I’m not so sure.
The Jayne-Spike-parallell, though, is very good. Though I’d say he also holds a lot of similar elements from Anya and maybe most of all Cordelia, even more than Spike. As for Kaylee-Willow, yes, there’s the insanely-cute-baby-sister-element tying them strongly together, but I’d still say their personalities are vastly different, and the parallell only slightly stronger than, say, that of Book-Giles - characters with functions in the group slightly similar to each other, but rather different in personality and methods.
Wash does indeed remind one of Xander, and that a lot. But also? Simon. Simon reminds me of Xander. I know the likening isn’t that obvious, but… think about it. I think you’ll agree.
Enjoy your re-watch! It’s a stellar show, no pun intended!
20. July 2007 @ 04:52 ( Permalink )
“Wash does indeed remind one of Xander, and that a lot. But also? Simon. Simon reminds me of Xander. I know the likening isn’t that obvious, but… think about it. I think you’ll agree.”
Svava pointed this out to me earlier tonight, and yeah. Xander and Simon.
As for the Angel/Mal thing, I agree: Mal is more like Buffy if he’s like anyone of them at all. I suspect it was my sister’s glee at finally having found something with which to quell her “Angel”-abstinences with that pulled me a bit too deep into the Mal/Angel thing. (The fun part — or the flip side, if you will — about this is of course that in about a week’s time, when she gets back from Trondheim and we finish “Firefly”, is that she will then have some “Firefly”-abstinences to cope with, on top of the “Buffy” and “Angel” ones. Flip side indeed; the flip side of being a Whedonite.
)
“As for Kaylee-Willow, yes, there’s the insanely-cute-baby-sister-element tying them strongly together, but I’d still say their personalities are vastly different”
Yes. There is, for example, that small scene in “Out of Gas”, where she first meets Mal. Not very Willow-y at all, at least if you overlook the “spread beneath my Willow tree” of OMWF.
21. July 2007 @ 01:45 ( Permalink )
“Svava pointed this out to me earlier tonight, and yeah. Xander and Simon.”
Interesting. Can you elaborate on what she said?
26. July 2007 @ 02:27 ( Permalink )
Well, no, I’m afraid. She said it while we were watching, just in passing, like, and I think we were both too fixated on the episode to expand much on it.
Although, if I am to try and elaborate som on my own, I’d say it has something to do with the fact that while Simon is quite competent at what he is doing — he has doctoring, Xander has carpentry, eventually — he often seems out of place in this (to him) new world, and perhaps as a consequence of this, he also seems a bit socially awkward. Additionally, while they’re both somewhat timid when it comes to violence and suchlike, they do what must be done, when it must be done.
Of course, this is pretty generalising, reducing the complexity of both characters, and it’s probably imprecise (if not outright wrong) in a lot of cases, too.
But it’s what I get when I try to compare the two, with the aim of finding similarities between them.
27. July 2007 @ 02:49 ( Permalink )
All true. What I thought of mostly, though, when I made the comment, was the whole self-sacrificial streak I feel both characters have running through them, but your musings are better and more nuanced than what I thought, so let’s go with that. ^^
27. July 2007 @ 04:04 ( Permalink )
^^
Anyway, earlier I compared Kaylee to Willow, and while this comparison is valid in a lot of ways, it struck me as we watched the last couple of episodes that the one Buffyverse character Kaylee resembles more, is, of course, Fred.
Obviously, there are a lot of differences here, too — most have to do with Kaylee not having been stranded and kept as slave in a demon dimension, while this in the case of Fred definitely is the most defining experience of her life.
Then again, Fred has a lot in common with Willow, too, so…
29. July 2007 @ 16:37 ( Permalink )