Serenity--more than just a sponge.
I saw Serenity on Tuesday. (Oh, uh, _spoiler alert_, I guess).

Before I start kvetching, I'll say I enjoyed it, as did the guy I saw it with (who has never seen the show). Very glad I chose it over Domino and Doom. That said ...

The dialogue was often cover-your-ears bad, and many plot points were too predictable, which was especially disappointing since I had always found Buffy surprising. And Joss, stop setting your "campfire scenes" around actual campfires. When they did that in Blazing Saddles, it was meant to be a joke.

However, the story was decent, and hung together well, and the action was excellent, for the most part. The Operative was perfectly executed as a great pulp character, which is saying a lot since we've seen the type before. I wouldn't mind a spin-off series of some sort with him as the star. And the fact is, I really like the cast. Baldwin is becoming one of the actors I am most pleased to see. I hope he gets tonnes of work. And the women! One of Mr. Whedon's key strengths in all his works is casting a whole range of really appealing female actors--who don't necessarily fit the standard popsy model--and then giving them roles that make them even more appealing.

I have seen a few episodes of the TV series, and liked them well enough, but I have not yet made time to see the rest. Having seen the movie, I will probably seek them out soon.

I believe it was either Derrick Smalls or Nigel Tufnel who said "It's a fine line between stupid and clever", and after viewing Serenity, I realise that the concept rests on the stupid side of the line. In my books, that's not necessarily a bad thing. The concept of Buffy was blatantly stupid, but the execution produced some of the most clever moments of television this era. The Alias concept is stupid, but the show pretends not to notice, which worked pretty well for a while. Firefly/Serenity doesn't seem to realise it is stupid, has never come close to clever, that I've seen, and so ends up entertaining but unremarkable.

Notes:

-Serenity/Firefly obviously sprang in part from some of Mr. Whedon's Alien 4 notebooks.

-I have a personal problem with the allegorical aspect of the backstory. I've read some gloat about Joss's exhaltation of the US mythological model over French-style statism (eye of the beholder, okay?) or praise for the triumph of sloppy individualism over a quasi-fascist pacified utopia (never heard that one before), but I have trouble getting past a historical allegory where the heroes are from the side that fought to defend slavery. I also get creeped by the savage, amoral, cannabalistic Reavers. Yeah, they're kinda cool, but its hard to ignore that in this Wild West allegory, they cleary represent those treacherous Injuns.

-WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL ME THAT RAFI AND YAN WERE IN IT? They were the twins with the accents. Those guys went to my high school! I never spoke to either of them, they were a year or two behind us, but they were twins, and they were named Rafi and Yan, so they were kinda recognizable. But how did they end up with British accents in a made-in-Hollywood sci-fi movie? I don't think they were even in the drama club at school. My amazement is compounded by the fact that I usually keep careful track of people I barely know who achieve low levels of fame. How did they slide beneath my radar? Crankygrrl, you should have been on this from day one.