"All that mankind has done, thought, gained or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books."
-Thomas Carlyle

by Paul Lytle

It started when I was just playing the song. It's a great song to play with just an acoustic guitar and some vocals. The chord progression really shouldn't work. It bounces around several different keys, shoving chords together oddly in a manner that, musically, should sound terrible. The rhythm is irregular, with long pauses where they should not go. And then it's short. The extended version that I play is under two minutes, and that adds an introduction and a longer instrumental part to the original.

But it's good. It feels right; it feels blue. You can't help but feel a dual sensation — one of wonder, and the other of sorrow. It is the perfect theme song.

So I was playing it, and a friend wanted to know what it was. I wasn't sure if he liked it or not, but he hadn't heard it, so he asked. I told him what it was: the theme song for the show Firefly, canceled after a half year. The song itself is called "The Ballad of Serenity."

I have the DVD set of the show — all fourteen episodes, and so I played for him the opening credits so that he could hear the real version. He wanted to know what kind of show it was.

"It's a science fiction western," I replied.

He looked at me like I was an idiot. "How do you make a western in space?" he asked.

It's a tough question to answer, because every answer falls short. The show follows the crew and passengers of a firefly-class ship called Serenity. They are traders/thieves on the edge of the galactic empire — the "Alliance". They are on the frontier. They rob trains; they transport cattle. They speak southern and sometimes wear hats.

It sounds absolutely corny.

So instead, I made him watch a few minutes. "Okay," he said after half a scene. "You convinced me. Leave it on."

Take my love, take my land,
Take me where I cannot stand.
I don't care, I'm still free,
You can't take the sky from me.

You should not be fully convinced by the last lines. It is a song about loss, and about pain. I'm not going to summarize the plot, but this is what Firefly is about. It's about good people (well, good people and Jayne) who are in a place where they can't make any money but by being bad.

One of the most purely good characters on the show is the "companion" (read "hooker" — every western needs one) named Inara. One of the most confused characters is a "shepherd" (read "preacher") called Shepherd Book. And then there are a lot of people just trying to survive on the future frontier.

Each of the nine main characters is distinct, but they are each looking for something that may or may not be there. The captain, Mal, is ultimately looking for God. Shepherd Book is looking for meaning. Inara is looking for love. Jayne, one of the crew, is looking for a fast buck. That's fine — that's true about people too. They make up a group of people who basically trying to make the wilderness more civilized, though none of them know it.

Take me out to the black
Tell 'em I ain't comin' back.
Burn the land and boil the sea,
You can't take the sky from me.

It's been a bad few years for science fiction. The newer Star Wars films have made a good deal of money, but they are ultimately without substance. They are sometimes fun, sometimes exciting, but they don't get under your skin like some of the great shows have done. Their characters hardly have a second dimension, much less a third. Star Trek has been steadily declining toward its recent end without even a remote effort to infuse the shows with character or continuity. Its producers almost seemed proud of its brainless and scantily-clad female leads, as though what sci-fi fans have always really wanted was the pictures on the covers of the books rather than the worlds inside.

And then Firefly doesn't even get a chance. Its amazing first episode, one of the most interesting two hours of science fiction I have ever seen, was deemed too dull by the network, and creator Joss Whedon was forced to write a new one.

So the second episode became the first, with hurried introductions of the nine characters and a very fun train robbery. I remember writing to a friend at the time, saying that I loved it, but did we miss the first episode? Of course, we had, but it hadn't been our fault. Once the series was cancelled, they finally aired the real first one, and everything fell into place. You have to wonder how things would have gone if they had just aired the episode they had bought.

When Jayne gets a package from his mother, he reads the letter and then smells the box. When the pilot, Wash, isn't flying, he plays with dinosaurs on his consoles. Kaylee, the bubbly mechanic, has decorated the door to her quarters with colorful drawings and such, even though no one will see them except her and eight people who would not appreciate them. Mal demands perfect manners at his dinner table, even though they are ages away from civilization.

These are details that make us laugh if we notice them at all, but they make the crew human, and the ship home. You can't find these details in other sci-fi works today. And you can't find the depths of these people:

When they are being questioned by the Alliance, the second-in-command of Serenity, Zoe, refuses to answer questions about her relationship with Wash, her husband. The scene cuts immediately to Wash, who is describing, in great detail, Zoe's legs. It is funny, but it also describes the two better than any other dialogue could. We know them after that, and we like them.

When an agent of the Alliance infiltrates the ship, he knocks out Shepherd and takes some of the other crew members hostage while Mal is out on a mission. The agent has his gun on several people, yelling at them, and he doesn't see Mal return. Without blinking an eye, Mal shoots the man and walks by him. It was shocking, simply because it was so contrary to the conventions of television, which would normally have a drawn out fight, and the bad guy would only be killed in self-defense (since we don't "want to become like them"). The scene was, in fact, funny because we didn't see it coming. But in it we see Mal's loyalties, and we approve.

When Shepherd Book first comes to the ship, he bribes Kaylee for passage. It takes the whole episode to let us know what is in that little box he hands over, but we eventually find out — strawberries. The way Kaylee's eyes flutter when she eats one gives us not only an insight into the problems the outer planets are having, but gives us a glimpse of the pure joy that someone can feel by the simplest of pleasures.

When the companion, Inara, knows that Mal is spending the night with another woman, she wails in a way I hope I never hear from another woman. There is no sense of hypocrisy here, even though there should be. They are not dating, and then she is a prostitute, so it is hard to sympathize if she is going to be critical of his sex life. But then we understand that she is not blaming him for anything, but crying for herself.

They have been called anti-heros, but they are not. Anti-heros are unlikeable and twisted. Simply because these people are thieves and prostitutes does not make them evil any more than stealing made Robin Hood an evil character. We are not dealing with some Postmodern vision of the universe here, but classic heros in extraordinary circumstances. Mal is more like a ronin than he is a thief — he is a warrior who failed at his most sacred duty, and now must repent and set things right.

Have no place I can be
Since I found Serenity.
But you can't take the sky from me.

When we see Mal battling in Serenity Valley against the Alliance, we see him kiss the crucifix he wears around his neck. And then they lose. Years later, aboard his ship, named after that same valley, he will not speak to the shepherd about God.

That final verse of the song takes on new meaning once you know that. After the Battle of Serenity Valley, Mal is set apart from the world. It is his quest, a quest he is following without knowing what he is doing, to regain his humanity. And around him are the very people who would lead him there, if he would let them:

A woman who loves him.

An engineer who worships him.

A preacher who would guide him.

Friends of many sorts who would die for him.

And worlds of opportunity to do good.

I miss the show. I miss the sense of wonder I got from it — a sense of wonder I have not felt in television or film in a long time. When I read, I find that fantasy can give me that wonder better than science fiction. With music, Wagner is the master of wonder. But on the screen, seeing that star field is like nothing else.

But to be wondrous, it must be populated with people. It must have a mood. It must be real. I haven't seen much of that lately. The one show that had it was cancelled.

The story keeps going, though. Like another failed television series, Star Trek, Firefly is spawning a film, which is called Serenity. It will open this summer and, hopefully, bring the wonder back.

Until then, if you're interested, come by the house. I still have the DVD set, and it still brings me great joy. And if nothing else, I can pull out the ol' acoustic and we can sing a while of sorrow, wonder, and hope.

Wheedon, Joss. "The Ballad of Serenity." Performed by Sonny Rhodes. Firefly. Fox. September 20, 2002.

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