One of the things I like about my job is that I get to meet interesting people. In fact, there are people I talk to (well, type to) almost every day that I have never met in person.

One of those people is Mike Huot. Mike is the oldest commercial customer of OpenNMS, and he works for a hospital up in Minnesota.

When he found out I was having surgery, he sent me some DVDs to help pass the weekend, and it included the entire series of “Firefly”.

Firefly was written and produced by Joss Whedon, who brings us “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Angel”. Now, I don’t watch either of those shows, but people whose opinions I respect tell me I should – mainly for the dialog. I’m not sold, but since Firefly showed up on my door and I had nothing better to do, Andrea and I ended up watching all 14 episodes over the weekend (in between my naps).

The first impression is that Firefly is weird. It’d pretty much a space story with cowboys. There are spaceships, including Serenity, a Firefly class cargo ship, and there are six-shooters and at times, horses.

This isn’t really new to me, as most “space” stories are actually westerns. Think about Star Wars – it fits into the western mold pretty well. The movie Outland with Sean Connery is even a more blatant example of a western story told in outer space – mainly since westerns are death at the box office (“Heaven’s Gate” anyone?). But Firefly has much more of a western element than most (including robbing a train).

This is an ensemble piece that revolves around nine characters:

Malcom “Mal” Reynolds – the captain of Serenity
Zoe Warren – his first mate and war buddy
Wash Warren – the pilot and Zoe’s husband (and my favorite character)
Inara Serra – a “registered companion” or upper-class prostitute
Kaylee Frye – the mechanic
Jayne Cobb – the slow but strong mercenary
Simon Tam – ship’s doctor
River Tam – Simon’s sister with psychic powers
Shepherd Book – a preacher, played by Ron Glass of “Barney Miller” fame.

The story is pretty straightforward. Mal and Zoe were on the losing side of a war against the “Alliance” (think Empire, etc.). Zoe’s relationship with the rather pacifist Wash is always a little strange, as is Mal’s relationship with Inara (“companions” are respected in this galaxy and she lends a sort of respectability to Mal’s ship). Jayne Cobb is funny, without meaning to be, a mercenary who sleeps with an arsenal and named his rifle Vera.

Kaylee Frye is a stereotypical Whedon charcater who reminds me of Willow from the Buffy series – kind of a woman/child. She can fix engines like nobody’s business, but seems rather naive in other areas (although there is one scene in which we are shown she isn’t as naive as she seems).

Shepherd Book lends an adult presence to the ship, and I think Ron Glass really pulls this role off. There are hints that he isn’t what he seems, but the series was cancelled before we could find out more.

The Tam’s round out the ensemble. They are both super-intelligent and come from a wealthy family. River was so smart she attracted the attention of a special Alliance school, which apparently was using her (and perhaps others) in experiments – probably with a military intention in mind. Simon risks everything to rescue her, and that’s how he ends up on Serenity.

Serenity is basically a ship used for smuggling, and most of the episodes revolve around the task of moving cargo from one place to another. Along the way hijinks ensue.

It is actually a lot of fun.

At first I was excited, mainly because the ship and the captain reminded me a lot of one of my favorite science-fiction stories of all time, Stephen R. Donaldson’s “Gap” series.

I loved that series of books, although I have to warn people that the first book, “The Real Story”, is extremely hard to get through. It is downright unpleasant, but luckily it is short and the other four books rock.

There is character, Nick Succorso, who is the captain of his own Firefly-like ship and reminds me a lot of Mal in the first few episodes of the series. Mal softens over time (whereas Nick does not) but I liked being immersed in a similar world for awhile.

Plus the dialog is pretty good. In discussing River’s psychic powers:

Wash: It’s almost like science-fiction.
Zoe: Says the main who lives on a spaceship.

All-in-all, it was a decent way to spend a weekend – everything else considered.

I was surprised to find that women seem to like the series as much as, or more so, than men (according to the commentary). I am inclined to agree, since Andrea seemed to really enjoy it. In general, rare for science fiction.

It looks like they are making a Firefly movie for release next spring. I hope it is successful enough to offer Joss a chance to finish his story.