Firefly meta and shoes

[icepixie]

Whoa, three episodes in a row with dancing in them. Yay Firefly! And one of them had Viennese Waltz! With poofy dresses! (Kaylee was so cute in that episode, in a "I'm twelve for a day!" sort of way. I get such a kick out of seeing Jewel Staite in this role after her turn as the Heidi-Ho.) Props to Summer Glau for being able to pirouette in combat boots in "Safe."

I think I'm definitely able to call myself a Firefly fan now, but probably still not to the level of some of you folks. I think it's because while the quality of pretty much all the aspects is similar to my two favorite series, Farscape and BSG, the...hmmm...the whole underlying principle, I guess I'll call it, is completely opposite. When I say this, I mean that FS and BSG continually kept/keep me guessing about what's going to happen, and when they're really going full blast, each act contains several new surprises I would never have forseen. Firefly, on the other hand, is on some level very predictable, but it tells stories in such a way that to not come to those expected conclusions would feel wrong. To take an example fresh in my mind, let's use "Jaynestown." I knew what was going to happen around every corner in the story--Inara would teach the magistrate's that sex doesn't make a man; Jayne would show his true colors to the town; Mal would tell Jayne that they hadn't made him a hero because they deserved it, but because they needed a hero and he was in the right place at the right time; the magistrate's son would disable the landlock on Serenity and tell his father that he'd done it because now he was a man--but that was okay, because there wasn't really another way that the story could have gone, at least not while being in keeping with the overall structure and style of the show. And this isn't a bad thing at all. The familiarity is part of what makes it so appealing (along with great characterization, wonderful acting, and really funny dialogue).

To use an analogy I'm sure John Sheppard would appreciate, FS and BSG are those giant freaking roller coasters that turn you upside down and hurtle you downhill at speeds high enough to escape Earth's gravity, while Firefly is more of a Ferris Wheel--slow and not so scary, but it gives you time to appreciate the view from above. [1] But in the end, the roller coaster is what's going to get the number one spot in my personal hierarchy of TV...which I'm sure you all care about so much, so I'm going to stop babbling right now. Consider my meta quotient for the month fulfilled. *g*


[1] This isn't to say that all three of the shows I've mentioned, especially Farscape, don't have elements of both of these styles of storytelling in them, because they do. Just that they have more of one type or the other.

(P.S. I hope none of that sounded condescending to really dedicated Firefly fans. I don't mean it to! Different strokes for different folks and all that...more power to FF fans!)


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In a completely different vein, I got new shoes today! I'm still unable to find any boots to replace my beloved, discontinued model that got slightly bogalicious on Dartmoor, and while this is distressing, it isn't critical until January. I do have some leather shoes that will keep me out of small snowfalls and some uber-furry snow boots that I could wear if things got really bad, so I have another five months or so to find some.

ANYWAY, I got some tennis shoes for the first time in about three years. They're light blue and white, and they have sparklies! Wheee!

(Yes, I'm way too excited about the sparklies. Shut up. They're shiny!)

Look at the pretty!

And K-Mart was having a mega-uber-fantastic clearance on shoes, so I picked up some brown suede shoes for $3. They'll probably fall apart in a couple months, but for three bucks, how can you say no?

Comments

[elflore.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. Interesting points you make on Firefly. I can see what you mean, at least about an ep like Jaynestown.

That said...

Don't count the coaster out yet. I'd say the eps get more twisty as you go (if you think about it, FS was just as predictable in the early first season). And more importantly...you haven't seen the film. *snickers evilly*

[asinpterodactyl.livejournal.com]

I second that.

Except the bit about the film, which I haven't seen yet. One more month!

[icepixie]

Don't count the coaster out yet. I'd say the eps get more twisty as you go

"Ariel" was pretty twisty for a while, yep. *g*

(if you think about it, FS was just as predictable in the early first season)

It was indeed, up until...well, just see my reply to Nick above for a further discussion on that. :)

And more importantly...you haven't seen the film. *snickers evilly*

Oh, my...

[elflore.livejournal.com]

Ariel rocks, one of my absolute favorites. It's a great heist story, and I love those. (Liars Guns & Money, Ocean's Eleven, etc.) SIMON of all people gets to be the criminal mastermind. And then there's the whole Jayne story...paying off the setup from the pilot. "What happens when the money's good enough, Jayne?" Plus I just love Mal. That he's smart enough to know when someone's playing him. (Joss shows never fall for dumb plot syndrome, where the characters have to become as stupid as a lazy plot necessitates, and I love that.) The bad-@$$ way he handles the situation, braining Jayne with a wrench and throwing him in the airlock. And the oxymoronic yet perfectly sensible line, "Next time you stab me in the back, you have the guts to do it to my face!"

And yeah, the film? *More maniacal laughter*