ENGL 6650/7650:
Special Topics in Popular Culture
Cult Television
Spring 2011
Room: PH 308
Day/Time: Tuesday, 600-900 pm
Cult Television
3/15/10 | Week 8
Cult TV Series of the Week: Firefly
Required Reading: Telotte, ECTVR
111
Recommended Reading:
Firefly/Serenity Special Issue of
Slayage 7.1 [25], Winter 2008
(RCD).
Special Topics/Readings:
Television and the Cult Audience: A
Primer—Robson (209)
Cult Television
Joss Whedon on the Set of Firefly
Cult Television
2002
Cult Television
From David Lavery, Joss (forthcoming from I. B. Tauris, 2011).
Firefly
It’s the classic thing to have a preacher on board your stagecoach. I don’t mean
Stagecoach. I mean original idea of my own.
—Joss Whedon (Serenity 11)
In a recently published collection of essays on Firefly and Serenity, Rhonda V. Wilcox
and Tanya R. Cochran begin an examination of Joss Whedon’s first failed television
show and the movie it improbably generated with a look at a moment from “Our Mrs.
Reynolds” (1.6)—an episode written by Joss Whedon. In the process of an attempted
seduction of Wash, “the trickster” Saffron regales the pilot with a myth, supposedly her
own, of “Earth that was”:
[W]hen she was born, she had no sky, and she was open, inviting and the stars
would rush into her, through the skin of her, making the oceans boil with
sensation, and when she could endure no more ecstasy, she puffed up her
cheeks and blew out the sky, to womb her and keep them at bay, 'til she had rest
some, and that we had to leave 'cause she was strong enough to suck them in
once more.
“By the time she has finished making a world with words,” Wilcox and Cochran note,
“Wash, that most Whedon-like of characters, can only respond, feelingly, ‘Whoah.
Good myth’” (15).
Cult Television
A wonderful moment dramatically, the scene, as the critics brilliantly explain, has even
greater import for understanding Whedon as a creator:
Whedon has been making worlds for many years now, and in Firefly he takes us
to the sky. In his space Western series (coproduced by Tim Minear), characters
use the contraction ‘’verse’ for their universe. The pun should make us think of
poetry, song; it should remind us that Whedon creates a world with words—as do
we all, in a sense. The stories we tell ourselves about our lives, the ways we
mentally shape our experiences—these stories construct our worlds for us, at
least in part. Whedon wonderfully uses images and music, too, but here the
foundation is words—the dialogue and the story. Perhaps this is what makes him
pre-eminently successful in the long-term medium of television. . . . Whedon’s
Firefly still spins through the sky of our minds. (15)
Firefly would introduce us to a new Whedonverse, one far from present day “Earth
that was” in space and in time. It is set 500 years in the future after the human race
has relocated to a nearby solar system after abandoning a too-crowded home planet
in order to perpetuate civilization on newly terraformed inhabital worlds. It exists now
in the “sky of our minds” because it existed only briefly on our television sets. “The
Train Job,” Firefly’s unintended pilot, aired on September 20, 2002; on December 2nd ,
less than three months later, it would be cancelled; on December 20th, “Serenity,” the
series’ intended pilot, became the last Firefly episode actually broadcast.
Cult Television
From David Lavery, Joss
(forthcoming from I. B. Tauris, 2011).
Network interference with Buffy and Angel up to the time Firefly went into production
had been minimal (discounting for the moment the WB’s failure to continue Buffy after
Season Five). The WB, it is true, had asked for a more attractive Willow, postponed
the airing of “Earshot” and “Graduation Day, Part II,” did not want Tara and Willow to
kiss, and demanded less seriality on Angel, but FOX micromanaged Firefly. It rejected
the planned pilot, demanding something more action-oriented (Whedon and Tim
Minear came up with one, “The Train Job,” over a weekend). It asked that Zoe and
Wash not be married—not sexy enough they were convinced (Whedon refused and
FOX demurred); it demanded that Mal be more of an action hero (without network
interference, Whedon acknowledges, Mal would not have kicked Niska’s musclebound henchman into the engine in “The Train Job” [Firefly: The Official Companion I
6]); it warned him to scale way back on the Western elements (the genre being no
longer popular on big or small screens)—in a series whose opening credits would
introduce the name of each actor and its creator with an homage to the classic
Western series’ Bonanza’s (NBC, 1959-1973) “branding” graphics and end with an
iconic image of the Serenity buzzing over a herd of horses! The budget for Firefly was
even smaller than Buffy’s or Angel’s (Firefly: The Official Companion I 8). The
handwriting was on the wall from the outset: "It wasn’t like they were saying ’just
tweak this’ and ’just tweak that.’ It was over before it began" (Underground Online).
Cult Television
From David Lavery, Joss
(forthcoming from I. B. Tauris, 2011).
As a vote of non-confidence, FOX would schedule Firefly on Friday night, American
television’s graveyard. The odds against survival were great. As Keith DeCandido
reminds, “FOX’s standards for success are considerably higher than they are for the
WB or UPN—which are, in turn, higher than they are for cable or syndication. Shows
like Stargate SG-1 [1997-2007] and The Dead Zone [2002- ]—not to mention
Deadwood [2004-2006] and The Shield [2002-2008]—can afford to attract a smaller
viewership because a show needs considerably fewer viewers to be successful on
Showtime, Sci-Fi, USA, HBO or FX. These shows can thus afford to appeal to a more
limited audience because that’ll be enough to sustain them” (56-57).
Nine years before, however, The X-Files had begun its nine year run (1993-2002) on
the same network on the same night. For at least two years, one of the great cult
science fiction shows of all time would fare poorly in the rating game, but FOX allowed
it time to secure a fan base, and it would go on to become a huge hit, a cultural
phenomenon, and a cash cow for FOX. Firefly, on the other hand, arrived at a time of
“desperate networks,” as Bill Carter would call them in a book that chronicled the
turbulent first few years of 21st century American television, when the sort of longrange thinking and patience that made Chris Carter’s show possible simply no longer
existed.
Cult Television
From David Lavery, Joss
(forthcoming from I. B. Tauris, 2011).
Firefly’s from-the-outset precariousness did have an upside of sorts, as Whedon
would later recall: he and his collaborators—including Tim Minear, stolen from Angel,
and Ben Edlund (“a sensibility that’s so left of center” [Firefly: The Official Companion I
9])—“were on our toes every second, because we figured the one thing we had to fall
back on was quality. That’s all we had. And quite frankly, the first episodes wouldn’t
have been as strong, as frantic about trying to save it. . . .” To be sure, Whedon adds,
such a situation is not and was not “the way I’d like to live my creative life” (Firefly: The
Official Companion II 10).
Firefly’s origin myth involves an often-delayed London vacation in xxx with his wife
Kai. Whedon’s plane book was Michael Shaara’s The Killer Angels (1974), a fictional
account of the pivotal American Civil War Battle of Gettysburg, but he read it against
the grain and found a different kind of inspiration—“That's the show I want to make!”
the man with two shows already on the air would think (Nussbaum, “Must See”)—
hatching an idea that would in a sense combine the influences of both Jeanine
Basinger and Richard Slotkin. Basinger, after all, was an authority on war films, having
authored The World War II Combat Film: Anatomy of a Genre (1986), so Whedon
must have been familiar with the potential of such a book as Killer Angels, though
what really fascinated him about Shaara’s work was “the minutiae of the soldiers'
lives.” Whedon had hatched a second, more Slotkinesque goal as well: “I wanted to
play with that classic notion of the frontier: not the people who made history, but the
people history stepped on—the people for whom every act is the creation of
civilization” (Nussbaum, “Must-See”). . . .
Cult Television
From David Lavery, Joss
(forthcoming from I. B. Tauris, 2011).
Visiting the set just before his new series aired, Whedon— described as “bouncing on
the tips of his sneakers”—would confess to Felicity Nussbaum that “Every once in a
while, I'll just look up and say, 'My spaceship!’” Serenity was not the only aspect of
Firefly Whedon was ready to brag about: “And did I mention there's a whore?”
(Nussbaum, “Must-See”). (That Inara would be more like a geisha than a Western
prostitute was the idea of Whedon’s wife Kai [Serenity 11].)
Cult Television
From David Lavery, Joss
(forthcoming from I. B. Tauris, 2011).
The Crew and Passengers of the Serenity
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Captain Mal Reynolds
(Nathan Fillion)
Captain of Serenity and
former Browncoat soldier.
May be in love with Inara.
Mal on Castle
Cult Television
Zoe Washburne (Gina
Torres) Second-incommand of Serenity;
former Browncoat (under
Mal Reynolds’ command);
married to Wash.
Cult Television
Hoban “Wash”
Washburne (Alan
Tudyk)
Introduced by B. J.
Keeton
Cult Television
Kaylee Frye (Jewell
Staite) The ship's
adorable ace mechanic (in
love with Simon).
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Jayne Cobb (Adam
Baldwin) An
untrustworthy, not very
bright mercenary working
onboard Serenity.
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Inara Serra (Morena
Baccarin)
Introduced by Stephanie
Graves
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Dr. Simon Tam (Sean
Maher)
Introduced by Lisa Jass
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River Tam (Summer
Glau) Simon’s sister. The
Alliance’s experiments,
intended to turn River into a
super soldier, have left her
psychologically unstable
and telepathic.
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Derrial “Shepherd”
Book (Ron Glass)
Introduced by Luke
Patton
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Firefly Villains
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2005
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In the “In Focus” interview
Whedon discusses the Writers
Guild of America’s decision
(despite an early poster, still in
his possession, showing
Whedon to be the writer) to give
sole screenplay credit for Speed
to Graham Yost. Whedon recalls
Yost once saying to him “You
would have done the same
thing”—i.e., taken sole credit if it
was offered. Then and now,
Whedon’s disagrees, citing 1)
his willingness (at John
Lasseter’s request) to allow the
animators writing credits on Toy
Story; 2) “entire episodes of
Buffy that I have written every
word of that my name is not on.”
--David Lavery, Joss
The lackey with the catalyzer sets
it on the cargo bay floor.
MAL (to Captain) Take your
people and go.
CAPTAIN You would have done
the same.
MAL We can already see I
haven't. (then) Now get the hell
off my ship.
--“Out of Gas”
Cult Television
Tim Minear (1963- )
Lois and Clark: The New
Adventures of Superman
"Brutal Youth" (writer)
"'Twas the Night Before Mxymas"
(writer)
"Meet John Doe" (writer)
"I've Got You Under My Skin" (writer)
The X-Files
"Kitsunegari" (co-writer)
"Mind's Eye" (writer)
Strange World
"Lullaby" (writer)
"Spirit Falls" (co-writer)
Tim Minear (1963- )
Angel
"Sense & Sensitivity" (writer)
"Hero" (co-writer)
"Somnambulist" (writer)
"The Prodigal" (writer)
"Sanctuary" (co-writer)
"Are You Now or Have You Ever Been" (writer)
"Darla" (writer/director)
"The Trial" (co-writer)
"Reunion" (co-writer)
"Reprise" (writer)
"Epiphany" (writer)
"Through The Looking Glass" (writer/director)
"That Old Gang of Mine" (writer)
"Billy" (co-writer)
"Lullaby" (writer/director)
"Couplet" (co-writer/director)
"A New World" (director)
"Benediction" (writer/director)
"Home" (writer/director)
Tim Minear (1963- )
Firefly
"The Train Job" (co-writer)
"Bushwhacked" (writer/director)
"Out of Gas" (writer)
"The Message" (co-writer/director)
Wonderfalls
"Karma Chameleon" (writer)
"Barrel Bear" (unaired) (co-writer)
The Inside
"New Girl In Town" (teleplay &
story/director)
"Thief of Hearts" (co-writer)
"Little Girl Lost" (unaired in US, UK
Airdate 03/17/2006) (co-writer)
"Skin and Bone" (unaired) (story)
Tim Minear (1963- )
Drive
"Unaired Pilot" (co-writer)
"The Starting Line" (co-writer)
"Partners" (co-writer)
Dollhouse
"True Believer" (writer)
"Omega" (writer/director)
"Belle Chose" (writer)
"Getting Closer" (writer/director)
Terriers
"Sins of the Past" (writer)
Firefly Writer
Firefly Writer
Ben Edlund (1968- )
The Tick (creator)
The Tick vs. Filth
That Mustache Feeling
Grandpa Wore Tights
The Tick vs. the Breadmaster
The Tick vs. the Idea Men
Titan A.E.
Firefly
Trash
Jaynestown
Firefly Writer
Ben Edlund (1968- )
Angel
Time Bomb
Smile Time
Life of the Party
Just Rewards
Sacrifice
Point Pleasant
Waking the Dead
Who's Your Daddy?
 The Inside
The Perfect Couple
Firefly Writer
Ben Edlund (1968- )
Supernatural
Simon Said
Nightshifter
Hollywood Babylon
Bad Day at Black Rock
Malleus Maleficarum
Ghostfacers
Monster Movie
Wishful Thinking
On the Head of a Pin
The End
Abandon All Hope
The Devil You Know
Two and a Half Men
The Third Man
Clap Your Hands If You Believe
The French Mistake
Firefly Writer
Jane Espenson (1964- )
Warehouse 13
Torchwood
Caprica
Dollhouse
Battlestar Galactica
Eureka
Andy Barker, P.I.
The Inside
Tru Calling
Gilmore Girls
The O.C.
Firefly
– Shindig (2002)
Angel
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Ellen
Nowhere Man
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Dinosaurs
Firefly Writer
Jane Espenson (1964- )
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Anne
Dead Man's Party
Faith, Hope & Trick
Beauty and the Beasts
Homecoming
Band Candy
Gingerbread
Earshot
Pangs
Doomed
A New Man
Superstar
Triangle
Checkpoint
I Was Made to Love You
Intervention
After Life
Flooded
Life Serial
Doublemeat Palace
First Date
Storyteller
End of Days
Firefly Writer