A few years ago I had a coworker that shared similar interests in fantasy and sci-fi. After working together for awhile he found out that I had never seen, or even heard of the Firefly series that had a short run on Fox in 2002. Coming highly recommended from him, I thought I'd probably like the series and it was worth checking out. Yet, over time I forgot about it and never ended up seeing an episode. About a year ago during a random conversation with a friend Firefly once again came up in a conversation and I was once again told of how it was probably the best canceled series ever. Just like before, I forgot about it for awhile until this week when I ran across the series while scouting for good shows from Hulu on my Playstation 3. After hearing so much hype from rabid fans I figured what the hell and started at the beginning. I'm now halfway through the series and I have to ask, what the hell is all the hype about?

I consider myself fairly easy to please when it comes to original sci-fi television shows, but honestly, I'm not feeling the love with Firefly. Simply put, it's average at best and I find myself bored with it over and over again. It's not a bad series by any means, but it's far from the great masterpiece that everyone keeps making it out to be. I've decided that the best way to classify Firefly is as one of the better B television series. With this in mind, I feel less compelled to judge the story and characters on such high standards.

Let's take the basic elements for example. The acting is decent, but very often the characters seem flat and dull. Over and over again I find myself wishing for some real talent rather than what we're given. The characters just don't seem to take themselves seriously half the time, or when they're supposedly incredibly involved in the moment we have half-assed jokes or dry punchlines that suddenly show up. I understand that there is a bit of humor that is purposely added in here and there, but sometimes it seems so forced. The ships engineer is supposedly this genius mechanic, yet reminds me more of my sister at age 12 with her constant dumb blond act and innocent nature. The preacher is a carbon copy annoying religious figure that takes every opportunity to quote scripture and annoy the others. The captain tries to pull off the tough-guy act, while also being funny, while also being kind, while also being in charge. Maybe I'm looking into the personalities too much, but I found them fairly stereotypical and just plain uninteresting.

Also, there's really nothing to keep me hooked from episode to episode. Each little story arc is interesting, but the big picture is just blah. We have a freelancer running around doing odd jobs and getting into trouble... ok cool, but each story is so face value. Which leads me to probably my biggest issue with Firefly: it's so fucking quaint! The wild west frontier theme was cool for a bit, but when they started robbing trains, transporting stolen cattle, and having pistol fights, I really lost interest. Yes, I understand they're living in a new frontier system with little resources, but the whole atmosphere is really ridiculous at times. This is supposed to be the 26th century, yet we still ride horses, talk with a twang, have ball dances, believe in 18th century superstitions (witches, yes, witches), and wear shit-kickers and ten gallon hats. WTF. No... sorry, it's just way too unbelievable. In fact, I feel like Firefly is more of a Western show with a hint of sci-fi than the other way around. Every planet looks like the same backwater western town with the same wildlife, clothes, local sheriff, and seedy bars. The whole in your face western theme really killed it for me.

Anyways, enough ranting. It's a decent series, but I was really turned off by some of the previously mentioned problems. Firefly is underdeveloped, and while it had potential, I think the hardcore fans are really over hyping it. I'm going to finish the series anyways before checking out Serenity, the movie, but at this point I'm just forcing myself to watch and not really enjoying it. Hopefully the movie will be a bit better, but I'm not getting my hopes up. Where's the sci-fi, the futuristic technology, the space fights? The world we live in now is more modern! Ehhh.. oh well. Can't like them all I guess. If Firefly is your bread and butter, good luck to you.