You Can't Take The Sky From Me

The title is a fact: but then they can, and have, taken a pretty good TV show from our screens...

I started watching Firefly last Saturday, in a double bill. Unlike most space adventures, this dramatic, sometimes comedic (but always brilliant) features no mutant monsters or living jungles - all of the planets are distinctly barren and the threats are all very distinctly human.

So the story is this: Six years before the show is set, Independents were beaten in a battle against the evil, dominating Alliance and were forced to flee in fear for their lives. So we have our crew, forced into a life of crime, and avoiding the Alliance at all costs. In the first episode they pick up a Shepherd (that's a vicar to you and me) and a young doctor. There's revelations aplenty in this first episode, but I'll not give anything away apart from the fact that everything gets just that little bit more dangerous for the crew of Serenity.

Most sci-fi programmes have elements of westerns lying underneath the surface, but this is taking that premise to the extreme. Most of the inhabitants of the various planets are living in little wood shacks, wear Victorian-style clothes and use primitive technology to get by. As the little prologue before each episode explains: "A ship will get you work, a gun will help you keep it". Such is the volatile nature of this universe. But that's what makes this exciting. You're never quite sure what's going to happen next, and the mystery deepens the more episodes you watch.

Unfortunately the silly people who made the show have pulled the plug after one season! Hopefully there won't be a massive twist or cliffhanger at the end of this saga or I'll be very cross indeed! I'd suggest that you hunt the show down and give it a go since it's not cheesy or unbelievable like Star Trek or Stargate - it's much better, and I'm hooked!