Free Firefly novel "My Own Kind of Freedom"

[Cthulhu]

@ Steve: wrt NuBSG, I guess that's why I'm agin it. For moral quandries, I have Law & Order. I wanna see planes is space and shiny robots making things go BOOM!

I'm a simple monster, and I'm not all ways so keen on tense courtroom drama on a space freighter.

@ Whoever connected Firefly & Blakes 7: Great analogy, though now you've made me want to watch the DVD's now.
Neflix doesn't offer them instantaneously.....Zhal.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Here's another take on the Firefly crew: They are a future-day retelling of the Robin Hood legend, to wit:

Mal = Robin
Inara = Marion
Zoe = Will Scarlett
Jayne = Little John
Book = Friar Tuck
Wash = Alan-A-Dale
Kaylee = Much, the loyal simpleton (Richard Carpenter version... or, if you prefer, one of Robin's anonymous "Merry Men")

River Tam, in a way, plays much the same role as Carpenter's Herne the Hunter, the mystic guiding force behind Robin or simply as Mal's conscience. Her precog and intuitive abilities have aided the crew in making the right decisions.

Simon could be seen as the embodiment of the "poor and downtrodden," good people struggling to survive, that Mal/Robin is bound to help.

And space, or maybe Serenity itself, is Sherwood Forest, a place where Mal and his crew can live their lives free of Alliance interference.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

Voyager was the first Trek to get past the technobabble and do real stories about the crew. I loved a number of the characters. My favorite missed opportunity was when Lt. Paris wasn't sent off during the Year of Hell to be brought back a couple seasons later as a pirate Admiral, with a squadron of ships. (I am such a geek.)

Voyager was also the first show to fully let the characters grow into 3 dimensional persons. The crew of ST:TNG never seemed to exist when they were off screen. The DS9 crew magaged to achieve this towards the end, though.

I suppose I see the reasoning.

But I'm demanding. I want to see compelling characters who grow and change throughout the series. But I want to see that happen in the context of good stories.

Using your terms, earlier versions of track had the latter but lacked the former. From where I sat, Voyager entirely lacked the latter. I'll pass.
______
Dennis

[JSWolf]

Another show I love to watch is Dr. Who. I have the most recent season on DVD borrowed from the library. Quite good ans some episodes are very different.

I've seen all the other episodes thanks to PBS.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Using your terms, earlier versions of track had the latter but lacked the former. From where I sat, Voyager entirely lacked the latter. I'll pass.

No good Voyager stories? Oh, contraire! Voyager stories, in my opinion, were some of the best Trek writing since the original series. "Memorial" remains my absolute favorite, but there were others.

True, like all other Trek series, the end of each episode pressed the "reset" button and moved on, but that's episodic TV for you. Very few shows manage to avoid that crutch.

[JSWolf]

The did like the Voyager String Theory trilogy. I thought that was quite good.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

No good Voyager stories? Oh, contraire! Voyager stories, in my opinion, were some of the best Trek writing since the original series. "Memorial" remains my absolute favorite, but there were others.

True, like all other Trek series, the end of each episode pressed the "reset" button and moved on, but that's episodic TV for you. Very few shows manage to avoid that crutch.

That Reset button has become a deal breaker for me.

But I'll admit a sort of progressive Trek myopia. I was watching from TOS, and I think the franchise really needs to lie fallow for a while. Part of the problem is that Paramount has never really understood what made Trek popular, so each new version has tended to be a retread of stuff already done. Paramount is afraid to innovate for fear of hurting the franchise. Rick Berman commented at one point about how hard he had to fight to turn DS9 darker in the Cardassian war arc. Paramount was afraid of alienating the audience.

Well, they've already alienated me by refusal to innovate and take chances.

I'm glad Voyager worked for you. I have different requirements.
______
Dennis

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Your points are well-taken. I agreed myself, before the end of Voyager's run, that Trek needed a break from television... or at least a major shift in perspective. My novel Berserker, in fact, was originally designed around my take on the direction Trek should have gone, to get away from the military angle and go civilian for awhile... see how the "other side" lives. I always thought Firefly was also a good take on the "other side" of the Trek universe, where people don't get the perks of Starfleet life.

But as you pointed out, Paramount never could see past the dollar signs earned by the franchise, and if they thought they could have continued the franchise with a Starfleet ship crewed by Muppets, they would have done so happily.

Even now, Paramount refuses to give up on Trek, and while they are pushing a revisionist movie forward, they are taking the original series and adding updated special effects and ship scenes, Lucas-style, to give the show a facelift (and you'd better believe that, once they're done, the face-lifted series will be available on HD-DVD and Blu-Ray at every supermarket).

Given the wealth of experience Paramount has built up creating Trek, sometimes I imagine all of that redirected into a totally new SF franchise... such possibilities...

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Your points are well-taken. I agreed myself, before the end of Voyager's run, that Trek needed a break from television... or at least a major shift in perspective. My novel Berserker, in fact, was originally designed around my take on the direction Trek should have gone, to get away from the military angle and go civilian for awhile... see how the "other side" lives. I always thought Firefly was also a good take on the "other side" of the Trek universe, where people don't get the perks of Starfleet life.

That's a neat idea. There are a lot of stories that could be told in that universe. I had cautious hopes for Enterprise, as I saw a lot of potential for a prequel series that took place in the early days, and covered the formation and growth of the Federation. Fortunately, I didn't have very much hope, since it was Paramount, so I was neither surprised nor really disappointed with what they actually produced.

But as you pointed out, Paramount never could see past the dollar signs earned by the franchise, and if they thought they could have continued the franchise with a Starfleet ship crewed by Muppets, they would have done so happily.

I would have enjoyed a Muppet Show skewering Trek no end.

Even now, Paramount refuses to give up on Trek, and while they are pushing a revisionist movie forward, they are taking the original series and adding updated special effects and ship scenes, Lucas-style, to give the show a facelift (and you'd better believe that, once they're done, the face-lifted series will be available on HD-DVD and Blu-Ray at every supermarket).

Given the wealth of experience Paramount has built up creating Trek, sometimes I imagine all of that redirected into a totally new SF franchise... such possibilities...

That won't be fulfilled.

I think it's a problem endemic to the current entertainment industry.

Consider Walt Disney. Walt was a genius. He just wanted to tell stories, and did so brilliantly, becoming fantastically successful as a side effect. Walt died. The bean counters took over. What has DisneyCo produced since Walt died that has any likelihood of being on the same shelf with his classics?

Peter F. Drucker made the point in various writings that revenue comes from outside the enterprise. You get revenue and make profits by providing goods and services people are willing to pay for at a price that will let you make money. He also pointed out that profit was a means to an end, and not an end in itself. The end result is to survive -- to be able to open your doors and do more business with your customers tomorrow. To survive you must make a profit, but it's the means of survival and not the goal.

The corollary to this is that making money is a by product of providing superior goods and services. If you treat making as much money as possible as your goal, you tend to lose sight of the factors that make you successful in the first place.

Entertainment is based on creativity. Kill the creativity in the service of profit, and well, there's that goose with the golden eggs again. Creativity isn't a sure thing. Sometimes you try to create something and you fail. Try too hard to avoid failure by stifling innovation and sticking to the proven formula, and you die a slow death through stagnation.

I think that's about what has been happening to Trek.
______
Dennis

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Yes, Paramount has fallen into the same hole Disney did once Walt was gone: Keeping the place running for the stockholders. Of course, I think it was doubly tragic with Disney, because they had a true entertainment visionary as its guiding force. I think Paramount hasn't had that kind of visionary approach to the business since movies went color... they were in the hole before Disney fell in.

Paramount's answer to keep Trek going turned out to be plenty of cheesecake, battle after battle, rehashing old material and reviving familiar (popular) characters, and hitting that reset button every hour on the hour. That hasn't worked with any SF show on TV, so Paramount was fooling itself when it assumed that it would work for the mighty Trek. Just putting their efforts into good storytelling would have done the trick... but Paramount doesn't seem to understand SF at all, so they could never see how the story was at all important.

Firefly remains a perfect example of the state of American TV today: It was commissioned, sight unseen, because Joss Whedon had just come off of the successful Buffy series. But being so original, Firefly was canned by those same executives for being too far outside the formula box. You can count the number of shows outside of standard formula that successfully run on TV on one hand... you'd need hundreds of hands to count those non-standard shows that were never given the chance to run. And this, despite the quality of writing, the depth of the characters, or the overall quality of the production.

Instead, we get Terminator turned into a TV show, and a remade Bionic Woman and Night Rider. Old ideas, all (so far) badly written, but if it fits a successful formula... who cares?

All of this is why I've recently taken to buying DVDs of the material I like (TV and movies), and ignoring most broadcast TV for the most part.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Yes, Paramount has fallen into the same hole Disney did once Walt was gone: Keeping the place running for the stockholders.

Any publicly held company does that. Where they all lose their way is understanding what does the best for the stockholders. They get focused on short term results at the expense of long-term survival.

Of course, I think it was doubly tragic with Disney, because they had a true entertainment visionary as its guiding force. I think Paramount hasn't had that kind of visionary approach to the business since movies went color... they were in the hole before Disney fell in.

I think I agree.

And it must be a source of real frustration for a lot of folks within Disney. They got extraordinarily creative people there -- if senior management will allow them to be. There have been as assortment of folks over the years who left Disney to hang out their own shingle because they were being stifled.

Paramount's answer to keep Trek going turned out to be plenty of cheesecake, battle after battle, rehashing old material and reviving familiar (popular) characters, and hitting that reset button every hour on the hour. That hasn't worked with any SF show on TV, so Paramount was fooling itself when it assumed that it would work for the mighty Trek. Just putting their efforts into good storytelling would have done the trick... but Paramount doesn't seem to understand SF at all, so they could never see how the story was at all important.

Show me a TV studio that does understand Story, in other than fits and starts and almost by accident rather than design,

Firefly remains a perfect example of the state of American TV today: It was commissioned, sight unseen, because Joss Whedon had just come off of the successful Buffy series. But being so original, Firefly was canned by those same executives for being too far outside the formula box. You can count the number of shows outside of standard formula that successfully run on TV on one hand... you'd need hundreds of hands to count those non-standard shows that were never given the chance to run. And this, despite the quality of writing, the depth of the characters, or the overall quality of the production.

And Joss Whedon illustrates another issue. I passed on Buffy for the first season, as the premise was a "You must be joking!" matter. But people whose taste I respected raved about it, so I gave it a try and got hooked. If you were capable of buying the premise, the characters were dead on, and the story was compelling. Then came Angel, which was a mixed blessing. The problem was that Joss Whedon was a genius, but others weren't. There was one of him, and he had two hands and 24 hours in a day. So any random week, you might see a great Buffy, or a great Angel, but not both, and sometimes neither. The more his attention was split, the less there was for any particular show, and the quality suffered. Being both show runner and lead writer for a show is a more than full time job. Now try doing it for two shows....

Buffy was the first show since Babylon 5 went off the air that I actively tried to watch every episode, and was upset if Real Life got in the way. Toward the latter part of Ange's run, I didn't care if I saw any particular episode.

And Joss is an example of a writer with a sure hand for character but less ability to fully plan his world. Fantasy tends to be based on magic. Magic has rules, and underlying principles governing its operation. Good fantasy writers keep that in mind, make those rules, and play by them. They construct their world as carefully as any hard SF writer postulating new scientific development, the technologies those will make possible, and the implications of having and using such technologies.

If there were any rules governing magic in the Buffyverse, they weren't apparent in the produced shows. It appeared he never really thought out his cosmology. He just pulled rabbits from his authorial hat. I knew some folks working on stuff like Buffy role-playing games where rules like that would be required who were tearing their hair in frustration trying to keep things consistent. They couldn't, because Joss didn't.

Instead, we get Terminator turned into a TV show, and a remade Bionic Woman and Night Rider. Old ideas, all (so far) badly written, but if it fits a successful formula... who cares?

All of this is why I've recently taken to buying DVDs of the material I like (TV and movies), and ignoring most broadcast TV for the most part.

I essentially don't watch broadcast TV. We have cable, and my SO watches a great deal, but it's not the usual network fare. With the exception of some genre stuff like Dr,. Who and Torchwood, the set is normally tuned to Animal Planet or the Food Network.

I'm usually glued to a screen, too, but it's this one.
______
Dennis

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

It's always been a shame SF and fantasy get so little respect from "legitimate" literature and from the public: The amount of quality talent that has steered clear of them, just to avoid "sullying their reputation doing that kid's stuff," is staggering. Others have changed their names to ghost-write it... and those who produce make no attempt to understand, they simply take a quick snap-shot of others' work and reproduce what they see ad nauseam.

I've never understood how there hasn't been a single SF motion picture or TV show that has really transcended the genre audience, to the extent that people who don't normally watch SF would watch on a regular basis and agree, "Yeah, that's damn good television." Perhaps shows like Lost come closest, because they don't obviously present themselves as science fiction... but usually, shows like that tend to end up being labeled action/adventure, another non-respected genre.

For sure, the SF shows most respected outside of the genre are probably those that did not have space ships, ray guns and aliens about. But if you review the SF mentioned in this thread, you don't have too many of those shows.

[carandol]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

All of this is why I've recently taken to buying DVDs of the material I like (TV and movies), and ignoring most broadcast TV for the most part.

I haven't owned a TV for years. I let others watch all the rubbish and then buy DVDs of the things they recommend. I'm sure I've saved the death of a lot of brain cells that way

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by carandol

I haven't owned a TV for years. I let others watch all the rubbish and then buy DVDs of the things they recommend. I'm sure I've saved the death of a lot of brain cells that way

What do you watch the DVD's on?

Dale

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

What do you watch the DVD's on?

Dale

I watch my DVDs on a 32" LCD monitor that's hooked up to an old desktop that I'm using for a media PC. I call it a monitor and not a tv because it's connected over VGA.

P.S. I was amazed to discover that the CG on the Firefly DVDs is recorded at a resolution much higher than standard tv. A lot is lost if you watch the show on an ordinary tv. Seriously.