![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The enduring awesomeness of Firefly.
Mar. 26th, 2009 08:18 pmI pulled out my Firefly boxset a few weeks ago to watch some of my favorite episodes, and left it lying in the living room next to the TV. Last week, I noticed one of the discs was missing. I asked about it, and my mom casually said, "Oh yeah, your dad saw them laying there and decided to take one to watch at work." (My father frequently works evening and night shifts where his main responsibility is to Stay Awake, so he often takes dvds with him for this purpose.) I raised an eyebrow at this, since my father is notably Not Interested in the science fiction-y geek stuff that my brother and I are so keen on. But I didn't want to embarrass my dad by asking about it, so I just let it drop. A couple days later, my dad and I were making lunch when, out of the blue, he said: "Oh, I've been watching episodes of that Firefly show at work. I'm not sure I get it."
"What do you mean?" I asked, playing it cool.
"Well, the episodes are spread out weird on the discs I was trying to watch them in order and it seems like--"
"Wait a minute," I cut in. "When you say 'in order,' do you mean broadcast order?"
"Yeah," he answered.
So I proceeded to explain to him how Fox screwed up the production of the show and how the discs are organized in original production order, not broadcast order. My dad took it all in and agreed to try it the other way.
A few days later, my dad remarked, "So I watched the original 2 hour pilot, and you're right, that makes things a lot clearer." He then proceeded to astonish me by saying that he'd done some research on the show and on Joss Whedon, and was quite impressed that someone like Whedon would write a character like Shepherd Book and do it so respectfully. That lead to a whole discussion of Book's character, and what his background actually was, and my dad found it amusing that no clarification on the point had ever been given.
Over the next several days, my dad kept giving me these little viewing updates, telling me which episodes he'd seen and what he liked and didn't like (in "Heart of Gold," for example, he thought it was ridiculous that a horse could keep up with a state-of-the-art hovercraft), and also what new factoids he'd discovered on the internet. ("Did you know Joss Whedon had planned on Firefly running for seven years?" Actually...I didn't.)
He finished watching all the episodes earlier this week, and wants to see the movie now. (!!) That would be truly awesome...except that my copy of Serenity is missing. I have the box, but the disc is nowhere to be found. I have never lost a movie before, and I have turned the house upsidedown looking for it, with no luck. In the meantime, my dad decided he was going to listen to some of the episode commentary tracks (apparently he's as much a trivia buff as I am about some things). And I, desperate to keep feeding this surprising new bit of geekery, have gone to Amazon dot com and purchased another copy of Serenity, my first online movie purchase in over a year and a half. I hate spending money redundantly, so I'm getting the collector's edition this time.
All the years I've spent trying to convince people that Doctor Who is cool (and largely failing) and I end up making my dad into a Browncoat just by not putting my DVDs away. *eye roll*
"What do you mean?" I asked, playing it cool.
"Well, the episodes are spread out weird on the discs I was trying to watch them in order and it seems like--"
"Wait a minute," I cut in. "When you say 'in order,' do you mean broadcast order?"
"Yeah," he answered.
So I proceeded to explain to him how Fox screwed up the production of the show and how the discs are organized in original production order, not broadcast order. My dad took it all in and agreed to try it the other way.
A few days later, my dad remarked, "So I watched the original 2 hour pilot, and you're right, that makes things a lot clearer." He then proceeded to astonish me by saying that he'd done some research on the show and on Joss Whedon, and was quite impressed that someone like Whedon would write a character like Shepherd Book and do it so respectfully. That lead to a whole discussion of Book's character, and what his background actually was, and my dad found it amusing that no clarification on the point had ever been given.
Over the next several days, my dad kept giving me these little viewing updates, telling me which episodes he'd seen and what he liked and didn't like (in "Heart of Gold," for example, he thought it was ridiculous that a horse could keep up with a state-of-the-art hovercraft), and also what new factoids he'd discovered on the internet. ("Did you know Joss Whedon had planned on Firefly running for seven years?" Actually...I didn't.)
He finished watching all the episodes earlier this week, and wants to see the movie now. (!!) That would be truly awesome...except that my copy of Serenity is missing. I have the box, but the disc is nowhere to be found. I have never lost a movie before, and I have turned the house upsidedown looking for it, with no luck. In the meantime, my dad decided he was going to listen to some of the episode commentary tracks (apparently he's as much a trivia buff as I am about some things). And I, desperate to keep feeding this surprising new bit of geekery, have gone to Amazon dot com and purchased another copy of Serenity, my first online movie purchase in over a year and a half. I hate spending money redundantly, so I'm getting the collector's edition this time.
All the years I've spent trying to convince people that Doctor Who is cool (and largely failing) and I end up making my dad into a Browncoat just by not putting my DVDs away. *eye roll*
