Joss, Call Me Back

Firefly is a fun show. There’s no denying that. “Wagon Train to the Stars” is a winning concept, as the dozens of Star Trek spin-offs and clones can attest. So long as there are televisions, there will be fat nerds to sit in front of them. I hear The Expanse is doing well. But it isn’t the mystery some people seem to think it is that Firefly got cancelled after just one season: characters routinely act contrary to what the audience is told about them; the set design, while charming, is pretty janky; and Joss Whedon’s dialogue fucking blows, to say nothing of his other proclivities. The list goes on. A cool concept only gets you so far.

The Serenity

 

The problem is they didn’t do anything with the concept. The crew of the Serenity are essentially ex-Confederate guerillas…in SPACE. Firefly could’ve been The Outlaw Buck Rogers, but wound up being closer to Little House on the Planet than anything else. It’s the anti-Trek. The core conceit of the show is an indictment of Roddenberry’s brand of horny humanism. It’s a Reconstruction Era western with ray guns. The men who landed on the moon in 1969 were no more enlightened than the men who landed at Guanahani in 1492. What makes you think the men of 2517 will be any better?

Clint Eastwood as... The Outlaw Josey Wales

 

I’m not going to pretend like I know everything there is to know about Firefly (or how to direct actors, or where to put the camera), but I think I could’ve done a better job. From what I understand, the show picks up at the tail end of a conflict between the Alliance/Union and the Browncoats/Confederacy. This conflict spanned several dozen planets and ended with a decisive Alliance victory in the Serenity Valley on some stellar backwater. Now, the surviving Browncoats are either trying to re-enter civil society or keep Fighting the Good Fight as criminals and outlaws on the fringes. Our big damn heroes fall into the latter group.

Quantrill's Raiders reunion

 

Had I been in charge, I would’ve limited the war to two or three inhabited planets. This tightens the focus, and makes the Alliance seem less expansionist--Browncoat secession isn’t a viable option. The Alliance as written is not very sympathetic, and their Hugo Boss/Mobile Infantry uniforms only make matters worse. I would’ve put the costume guy to the wall. Anyhow, in my rewrite, bands of Browncoats set off in search of a new home away from the Alliance at the end of the War Between Planets. This opens the door for Trek-style one off episodes about the nature of empire, colonialism, et cetera. Every revisionist western trope applies. But, more importantly, it also sets up more conflicts between the Alliance and the Browncoats.

Alliance soldiers in full Mobile Infantry kit

Firefly’s setting allows you to draw on westerns, maritime literature, and sci-fi in equal measure. I’d add 90s American militia aesthetics to the mix. You’re lying to yourself if you think Adam Baldwin would look out of place at a Posse Comitatus meeting. So, let’s say you’ve got a Browncoat settlement somewhere and the Alliance shows up and torches it because they’re stockpiling weapons there. "We tried to leave, but the Alliance wouldn't let us." Space Waco, basically. The fragile peace established at the end of the War is tested, and it seems as though the fighting is about to kick off again. Season finale shit. The point is, neither the Alliance nor the Browncoats should ever be completely in the right or 100% ideologically pure. The feel bad show of the summer.

"Stay tuned for the stunning season finale of Firefly!"

Joss, call me back.