Graduate Student's Paper on Firefly's Cancellation by Mactavius

FIREFLY EPISODE DISCUSSIONS

Graduate Student's Paper on Firefly's Cancellation

POSTED BY: MACTAVIUS
UPDATED: Thursday, May 4, 2006 12:50
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Monday, May 1, 2006 3:34 PM

I just completed a 15 page paper on Firefly for my Television Criticism class at UGA. If you want a copy of the cleaner original version (complete with all the footnotes this version left out) or 16 minute video clip I presented in class to support my argument, email me at mactavius@hotmail.com.

enjoy.

Geoff Carr
JRMC 8060
Final Project

Ideological Motives for Cancellation?: A Social Values Analysis of ‘Firefly’

Introduction
“The media are controlled by power. The imperative is to strip them of it, whether by taking the media over, or reversing them by outbidding the spectacle with subversive content.”
-Jean Baudrillard, 1981
Almost one year after the most cataclysmic attack against America the institution, 20th Century Fox debuted Firefly, an overt political allegory from the creative mind of Joss Whedon. Whedon was an emerging talent in Hollywood circles due to his revitalization of the campy and critically ignored film Buffy the Vampire Slayer into a popular television series that has been proclaimed as “a hard-edged, humorous assault on the shortcomings of liberal reform and the inherent flaws of American civil society” (Owen 2004). Whedon enjoyed further success with the equally lauded and financially successful Angel. Still, Firefly was to be his crowing achievement, and Whedon attests that it was “the source of probably more joy and pain than anything I’ve done. It was, to me, a new kind of storytelling” (Whedon 2002). He assembled a flawless ensemble cast and began to make the series of his dreams.
Nevertheless, Firefly never took off. It never managed to achieve a Nielson rating greater than 4.0, the score it earned for its debut episode The Train Job. The show’s numbers continued to languish over the next few months; it consistently placed among the least watched programs on the Fox network. On December 20, 2002, exactly three months after its premier, Fox aired both parts of the episode Serenity and ended Firefly’s brief network tenure. This, however, was not the end for the series, as it amassed a substantial cult Internet following that was instrumental in motivating Universal Studios to release Serenity, a motion picture adaptation of the series that featured every member of the (very enthusiastic) cast reprising their television roles .
This author holds no illusions that Firefly’s cancellation cannot be solely interpreted as a complete financial failure, for a capitalistic society almost always deems the dollar as definitive, and a “commitment to profit has, perhaps more than anything else, limited the range and quality of messages produced by the media” (Grossberg et al 1998). Though it would be unwarranted speculation to blame Fox outright for the show’s failure, there are several external factors contributing to the show’s demise, which included lack of advertising and air time during a traditionally unfavorable weekend timeslot. Most notably, it can be argued a lack of network support probably ended Firefly’s chance for success before the series even aired. 20th Century Fox was initially eager of the show’s prospects, greenlighting Whedon’s premise immediately in an effort to capitalize on his proven track record of providing financially successful youth-oriented programming. This attitude reversed when Fox executives were presented with the completed Serenity, a two-hour pilot episode for the series . Fox executives exhibited a great reluctance in airing Serenity, and instructed Whedon to essentially write a new pilot episode over the course of a single weekend, a story that would eventually become The Train Job . What inspired this reluctance? Speculation segues to postmodernism, the wonderful bastion that eviscerates all concepts of meaning, a battleground where “the text becomes a place where multiple interpretive experiences occur” (Denzin 1997). This paper supposes, supported by a thorough content analysis of the complete series, that Firefly confronted and challenged the prevalent ideological assumptions and motivations of the current administration, and such counter-hegemonic properties influenced the reasoning behind the program’s cancellation. The show’s premise was counterintuitive for Fox (or any major network) since “acceptable entertainment has to flatter and exploit the cultural and political assumptions of the land of its origin” (McLuhan 1964). It is not ironic that Fox, the network associated with the most politically conservative and loyal cable news (propaganda?) channel, would exhibit inhibitions about airing this program.
Our own Paul Hillier accurately concluded “if a TV shows seeks to be cultural commentary in addition to entertainment, few other genres seem better suited to the goal than science fiction, or a program set in the future” (2006). Serenity is set five hundred years in the future in an era in which humanity has explored the four corners of the universe, terra-forming planets and moons to sustain all human life “Earth-that-was” no longer has the resources to support. Everyday existence melds cultural aspects of Earth’s last remaining superpowers, the United States and China, to such an extent that all citizens, both high and low class, show equal competence communicating in both languages. A civil war erupts between the Alliance, a totalitarian regime based on the Central Planets, and the Independents (hereto referred to as the “Browncoats”) of the outlying planets. The war ends with the Alliance’s victory against the Browncoats in Serenity Valley, a battle fought by the show’s protagonist, Captain Malcolm Reynolds (Nathan Fillon), and his loyal compatriot Zoe (Gina Torres). With war a thing of the past, they become interstellar smugglers, and hire an eclectic crew to reside aboard Mal’s spacecraft, Serenity. Complications arise when the crew discovers two passengers, Dr. Simon Tam (Sean Maher) and his sister River (Summer Glau), are fugitives fleeing Alliance forces. Simon reveals that he has rescued River from a government-funded academy that had secretly conducted harmful experiments on her brain. These experiments have reduced her mind to a convoluted psychosis of intuitive schizophrenia, and her personality is severely unbalanced as a result. Mal offers to harbor the fugitives aboard his ship, even though the pair means obvious trouble with the Alliance.
The Alliance is repeatedly perpetuated as an enemy figure in Serenity, a theme the series continuously exploits. What relevancy does this hold to reality and the current Bush administration? “Cultural criticism generally focuses more directly on the discourses themselves and how it is that they give meaning to lived experience” (Vande Berg 2004). As such, this analysis will detail the specific representations of every speaking government official evident throughout the series, followed by a character study of River Tam, an omnipotent force in the Firefly universe that can attribute all her most obvious detrimental qualities to government interference. Based on these representations, I hope to draw several real-world connections to the series, in particular the role of government (through war, terrorism and other means) in fostering the formation of future enemies against their aggressor. In this age of apathetic compliance, this analysis is grounded in the belief that all governments that fail to follow the just will of the people (i.e. the Alliance in Firefly) must be challenged and resisted by concerned citizenry.
Interpretations of Representations: Government Officials in Firefly
“Television organizes information narratively, ordering the complex interaction of sound and image through time by means of a combination of oral and pop culture forms, extending the simple forms of anecdote, joke, proverb, riddle, legend and the like to new functions of classification and evaluation.”
-Gregory Ulmer, 1989

Representatives of the Alliance in Firefly are predominately characterized as violent, untrustworthy, pompous, unsympathetic, callous, unreasonable, uncompassionate, self-absorbed and brutal. In Serenity, Lawrence Dobson (Carlos Jacott) plays an undercover Alliance agent that infiltrates Serenity after tracking the Tam siblings there. When he exposes his identity, he voices his desire to hold the entire crew culpable of smuggling fugitives, even though they were unaware (at this point) of Tam’s transgressions. After a heated confrontation, Dobson accidentally shoots and wounds the ship’s mechanic, Kaylee Frye (Jewel Staite). In the confusion, Dobson is apprehended and placed in custody. He eventually manages to escape, but not before assaulting Shepherd Book (Ron Glass), an ordained minister concerned with Dobson’s treatment. Dobson captures River and threatens a recovering Kaylee before Simon can manage to free his sister. Her freedom is short lived; Simon gets distracted and Dobson grabs River and holds her hostage by gunpoint. As he threatens to end her life, Mal casually ends his life with a quick shot to his head. None of the crew is distraught that he has murdered an officer of the law; even the pious Book attests “I’ve watched the Captain shoot the man I swore to protect, and I’m not even sure if I think he was wrong” (Whedon 2002).
The Train Job, the series default pilot episode, also managed to criticize the Alliance, albeit in a much briefer fashion. The crew of Serenity is hired to steal Alliance medical supplies from a train. During the heist, Mal and Zoe discover an unforeseen regiment of Alliance troops aboard the same train. This revelation does not deter their intentions, for as Mal puts it, “now we do it [the heist] under the noses of 20 trained Alliance feds, and that makes them look all manner of stupid. Hell, this job I’d pull for free” (Whedon 2002). Complications naturally arise during the heist, and Mal and Zoe are trapped in police custody while the train is detained to conduct an investigation. News of the heist is beamed to an Alliance ship, where a ranking Alliance officer (Eric Lange) orders the train to resume its travels. When reminded by an Ensign (Lina Patel) that there is regiment available to assist with the inquiry, the officer comments, “these are federal marshals, not local narcotic hounds. They’ve got better things to do, and so do we” (Whedon 2002). This comment mirrors Mal’s sentiment that the Alliance “unite all the planets under one rule so that everybody can be interfered with or ignored equally” (Whedon 2002).
The next episode, Bushwhacked, finds the crew exploring a derelict ship ravaged by Reavers . The crew discovers only one survivor, and he is brought on-board for medical attention. They also take the ship’s large stockpile of food supplements, a substantial cargo capable of feeding twenty families for a year. This repossession proves problematic, as a patrolling Alliance ship arrives at the scene and accuses the crew of an illegal salvage. Everyone is detained (save Simon and River, who don spacesuits and remain hidden outside the ship to avoid imprisonment) and interrogated by regulation stickler Commander Harken (Doug Savant). Despite evidence of Reaver involvement, Harken charges Mal of murder and theft. His plans to arrest Mal and impound Serenity are interrupted when the derelict’s sole survivor unleashes a killing spree, a spree inspired by forced exposure to the savage brutality of Reavers. Mal offers his assistance on numerous occasions to thwart the killer, and Harken obliges half-heartedly. He is unable to see Mal as anything other than a Browncoat criminal. Mal is kept ineffectual, bound by handcuffs, and forced to lead unarmed as they search for the psychopathic killer. Even with these disadvantages, Mal manages to both save Harken’s life and neutralize the threat. This act buys the freedom of his crew and ship, though the Alliance keeps the precious cargo of food supplements.
Two final unflattering representations of unjust government officials can be found in the episode Ariel. Jayne (Adam Baldwin), Serenity’s hired thug and intellectual meathead, dislikes the Tam’s and the risk they perpetuate upon the crew. This hatred increases when River slashes open his chest with a knife for (apparently) no reason. Interpreted as a sign of her degrading mental prowess, Simon concocts a heist that targets an Alliance hospital. He teaches the crew how to infiltrate the hospital, find its’ medicine vaults and instructs them which drugs are most profitable to take . In exchange for this information, the crew sneaks the siblings into the hospital so Simon may utilize the hospital’s equipment. In the midst of the caper, Jayne contacts Agent McGuiness (Blake Robbins) and offers to trade the Tams for the large ransom offered for their capture. McGuiness and his agents apprehend the Tams and Jayne as well, who is not rewarded, but instead arrested for harboring known fugitives, leaving McGuiness to gloat about the large bounty he is about to collect. Two menacing unidentified Alliance agents (Dennis Cockrum, Jeff Rickets) with “hands of blue” arrive to collect the Tams . McGuiness never receives the money; he and his men are executed for simply speaking with the prisoners. Whedon demonstrates that even government officials are not safe from the destructive tendencies of their own kind . The effects of governmental interference concentrated on an individual are explored in the saga of River Tam.
Governments Create Their Own Worst Enemies: The Life of River Tam
“Today, fiction claims to make the real present, to speak in the name of facts and thus to cause the semblance it produces to be taken as referential reality.”
-Jean Baudrillard, 1981

The character of River Tam is a chronicle of an individual’s struggle against governmental dominance and control. The shattered girl is marred by a distinct oddness that sets her apart from the rest of the crew, yet her past was characterized as anything but abnormal. Raised by affluent parents in a world oblivious of want, she was a daughter with all the makings of a future Michelangelo. Her memory was acute, her intellect expansive, and her movements graceful, agile and aesthetic. Even her brother, a top surgeon on the Central Planets, admits her brilliance far outshone his own. When she is accepted into a government-sponsored academy at the age of 14, her entire life changes. She becomes an unwilling participant in a program conducting cranial scientific experiments. Her brain is repeatedly sliced open and stripped of the amygdale, a set of neurons that plays a key role in processing emotions. She alerts Simon of her abusive treatment by way of coded letters, and he successfully rescues her, condemning them both to a life as Alliance fugitives. River’s fragile connection with reality propels the Firefly narrative forward, which is driven by the Tam’s attempts to determine the purpose and ramifications of these experiments. As the series progresses, it becomes more apparent the government had specific reasons for tampering with River’s brain beyond the sadistic joy of inflicting pain. River exhibits an unparalleled proficiency with firearms in War Stories, and the crew begins to suspect she harbors psychic capabilities in Objects in Space. River’s evolution from child prodigy to an unstable living weapon was a direct result of government interference; an invasion of basic individual freedom that results in a plethora of innocent deaths by the hands of government officials as they attempt to reclaim the powerful weapon of their own creation..
The Relevancy of Firefly to Our Current Political Infrastructure
“It was capital which was the first to feed throughout its history on the destruction of every referential, of every human goal, which shattered every ideal distinction between true and false, good and evil, in order to establish a radical law or equivalence and exchange, the iron law of its power.”
- Jean Baudrillard, 1988
The cultural values exhibited in the Firefly universe cast a very critical eye towards the procedures of an unchecked government, as evident by 1) the values associated with the crew of Serenity (in particular, their leader Mal) 2) the actions they undertake against the Alliance, and 3) their continued success of eluding the military might of a totalitarian regime. Ideological critics view media texts as “products of dominant social institutions and reflections of the ideas and the interests of the powerful few”, and Firefly challenges the major assumptions underlying this manner of critique: it does not “promote or sustain forms of oppression and domination”, nor does it undermine values of social equality, human freedom, individuality or democracy (Vande Berg 2004). The social values of the dominant culture in Firefly demonstrate an ideological threat to the current American political infrastructure, whose policies mirror their oft-defeated fictional counterparts, the Alliance . Firefly suggestion that an evil government is easily defeated is more comforting than the “unbiased coverage” of the major news networks. This raises the question: Can it ever really be considered profitable to portray deviance victorious? Nothing but silence has been heard from the voice of dissent.; the end is nigh, can you please spare some change now?
The current political paradigm is the development of a safer world through the eradication of terrorism. The events of September 11, 2001 are the understood cause of this militaristic vision of securing world peace; the effect has been this nation’s first premeditated war of aggression against Iraq to eradicate the forces of terror. Political debate has chosen to ignore what caused 9/11, which/if oppressive American foreign policy might have provided motivation for the attacks, and how our use of terror to eradicate terror poses a philosophical conundrum. This author finds it impossible to conceive the attackers did not possess what they believed to be a/many significant reason(s) to propel such attacks against our sovereign nation . The mass media has scantly reported a plausible explanation as to why the attacks occurred, besides President Bush’s laughable rationale that the attacks resulted from global jealousy of our nation’s freedom. Then again, perhaps he is right. There is an ugly side to freedom that is rarely entertained by either government or the mass media. Freedom has allowed corporate CEO’s to dump toxins in the water we drink and the air we breathe. Freedom has allowed us to ignore the real perpetuators of the 9/11 attacks and instead wage war on the innocent people of Iraq to harvest its’ rich oil supply. Freedom allows our government to lie to its people when it best serves its own interests. We are free to be a nation of blatant consumers; the capacity to produce the goods inherent to our survival/desires has fallen upon the rest of the world (particularly impoverished third world nations) or large corporations. The mass media frequently underplays the fact that there are American foreign policies that subjugate and intimidate citizens beyond the scope of our vision or travels. Such images would contradict the ideological image of America as “The Liberator”, Jehovah’s chosen nation to transform all others into better “democracies” that model our own. Equality is granted by making them slaves. How can equality exist in a country where its’ citizens work in barb-wired factories for pennies a day so Americans parade around in designer jeans? Who can we turn to for guidance? Religion belongs to government, so asking ‘What Would Jesus Do’ is pointless. Perhaps it’s time to ask What Would Malcolm Reynolds Do?
Firefly provides a wonderful representation of the effectiveness of disobedience as a way to protest government policy, albeit in a much more artistically stylized and violent context than traditional nonviolent civil disobedience. The history of this great country has no shortage of (now-defined-as) heroes who crusaded against policies they believed unjust through acts of persuasive civil disobedience. Some would say the history of our nation was forged in a Boston harbor, where irate colonists disguised themselves as natives and dumped English tea into the water to protest taxation without representation. Women, African-Americans, homosexuals and other marginalized groups have all benefited from acts of civil disobedience in their pursuit of equality. During the rise of the abolitionist movement, Presbyterian minister Charles Beecher (whose sister Harriet Beecher Stowe would compose the landmark novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin) remarked:
“The law of nature, being coeval with mankind and dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding all over the globe, in all countries, at all times. NO HUMAN LAWS ARE OF ANY VALIDITY IF CONTRARY TO THIS... in conclusion, therefore, my application of the subject is—DISOBEY THE LAW.” (Weber, 1978)

One doesn’t need faith in God to realize every person is fallible. It becomes everyone’s responsibility to take action against unjust political policies. It has become harder to rely on religious factions to challenge the status quo, for nowadays government policy has become associated with the predestined will of God, since He would never allow a sinful person (most likely man) to acquire a powerful government position.
There are even more challenges to overcome. The mass media does not frame dissent as a valuable tool to initiate social change, regardless if the need exists, because “the media are monopolized by the dominant classes which divert them to their own advantage” (Baudrillard 1981). This point is further articulated within the propaganda model formulated by Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman. These gentlemen hypothesize “mainstream media, as elite institutions, commonly frame news and allow debate only within the parameters of elite perspectives” (McQuail 2002). The acquisition of capital is paramount to this dominant class, and they utilize their positioning to label all forms of dissent as unacceptable and criminal deviance. As a result, the media’s depiction of everyday life remains incomplete and askew, for “whatever inhibits and prevents communication diminishes the vitality of culture, the reach of experience, and the capacity for growth” (Carey 1997). Characterizing alls acts of disobedience in a negative fashion draws attention to the rocky chasm between the freedom of expression granted in the Bill of Rights and committing ethically sound disobedient acts considered deviant or illegal. It has become tragically ironic that hugely successful nonviolent acts of civil disobedience, even those not based on religious assumption, are considered landmarks in the evolution of our nation’s attempt to expand the limits of liberty and freedom to our land’s marginalized inhabitants, yet modern protests and acts of civil disobedience against the government are routinely ignored or discouraged by the media and labeled as unpatriotic. It has given rise to a paradigm that links open political dissent with a negative connotation.
For instance, the broadcast media has inadequately exposed the many factors contributing to a likely cataclysmic environmental disaster, just as government officials, educators and the media dismiss Reavers as anecdotal in the Firefly universe. We live in a world where irreparable harm is hidden in everyday products we, as consumers, eagerly possess and claim vital to our existence. Unbiased freedom has granted Americans the unfortunate right to consume with no regard to the ethics surrounding production and waste. Such harmful effects of unchecked consumerism are chillingly outlined in James Kunstler’s The Long Emergency, which postulates a grim future in which the global society is “entering a historical period of potentially great instability, turbulence and hardship” caused by the horrific degradation of the world’s energy supplies, means of transportation, food production, system of commerce, fresh water supply and concept of everyday life (2005). Catastrophic environmental policies fueled by capitalism/consumerism have seriously threatened the proliferation and sustainment of human life on this planet. Such perspectives are often dismissed in the media; environmental dissenters are labeled “tree-huggers” and their message is often disregarded, while industries contributing to the degradation of our only eco-system advertise their products with ease on primetime television. Our nation terrorizes perceived enemies abroad while local enemies are eagerly given our weekly wages. Tonight on the 10 o’clock new: Our meddlesome government drops some more bombs (out of sight, out of mind) to solve the problems it created, inspiring new generations of “terrorists” to plot revenge against the land of the free.
These problems will not be solved before the commercial break.
Concluding Remarks
“If the TV tube fires the right ammunition at the right people it is good.”
-Marshall McLuhan, 1964
Polysemy inhibits the ability to conclusively draw irrefutable evidence through simple content analysis, though it is important not to discount fictional drama as lacking in empirical substance, for any interpretation that preaches a re-evaluation of the construct of modern society may hold viable lessons for humanity, for “the difference between an image (or code) and reality is no longer important” (Baudrillard 1983). Firefly offered the world, however briefly, a vision in which a government was rigorously challenged and held accountable for its transgressions against humanity. Is Whedon one of “the commercially disenfranchised and politically hungry [who] make innovative uses of communication technologies” (Cottle 2003), or is Firefly simply a failed commercial product and unworthy of academic critique? Regardless, this author hopes that Firefly will be regarded as one of the true great examples of subversive content to ever grace network television. And though the Firefly narrative has come to a close, it raised the valid proposition that an oppressive government, no matter how powerful, can never truly “stop the signal” (Whedon 2005).
Works Cited
Baudrillard, Jean. (1981). For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign. (C. Levin,
Trans.). St. Louis, MO: Telos Press.
Baudrillard, Jean. (1983). Simulations. (P. Foss, P. Patton, & P. Beitchman, Trans.). New
York: Semiotexte.
Baudrillard, Jean. (1998). Jean Baudrillard: Selected Writings. Ed.: Mark Poster.
Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Carey, James. (1997). James Carey: A Critical Reader. Eds.: Warren and Munson.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Cottle, Simon. (2003). Media Organization and Production. London: Sage.
Denzin, N. (1997). Interpretive Ethnography. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Grossberg, Lawrence, Ellen Wartella and D. Charles Whitney. (1998). Media Making.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Hillier, Paul. (2006) Thinking Television Project Assignment. Unpublished.
Kunstler, James Howard. “The End of Oil”. Rolling Stone Magazine, Issue 971. New
York, NY: April 7, 2005.
McLuhan, Marshall. (1964). Understanding Media. New York: McGraw-Hill.
McQuail, Denis (Ed.). (2002). McQuail’s Reader in Mass Communication Theory.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Owen, A. Susan. (2004). Critical Approaches to Television. Eds.: Warren and Munson.
New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Ulmer, Gregory. (1989). Teletheory. New York: Routledge.
Vande Berg, Leah, Lawrence Wenner, and Bruce Gronbeck. (2004). Critical Approaches
to Television. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Weber, David R., ed. Civil Disobedience in America. Cornell University Press. Ithaca,
NY: 1978.
Whedon, Joss et al. (2002). Firefly [Television Series]. Hollywood, CA: 20th Century
Fox.
Whedon, Joss (Director). (2005). Serenity [Motion Picture]. Hollywood, CA: Universal
Studios.
Williams, Raymond. (1974). Television. London: Fontana.

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Monday, May 1, 2006 7:01 PM

FLORALBUNNY

I miss McLuhan.

Wonder what he'd have made of the internet, and TV with so many channels.

"Global Village" is obsolete, as the "electronic fireplace" has split up, and so many of us are back in our separated spaces, but the separation is, this time, of a different kind.

We're able to yell through the chimneys at each other, but our new, electronically supported pseudo-isolation allows each of us to remain unseen, to take on persona(e)we could not maintain in a public setting, to misrepresent anything or everything about ourselves...

OMG, I left this fray long, long ago.

Have a virtual strawberry. They're fresh-picked. Drop the hull into the compost, please.

bun
~6/23~Serenity/Firefly Summer~9/30~
----- why's the rum gone? -----

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Monday, May 1, 2006 9:31 PM

VINTERDRAKEN

Wow, Ive studied courses like that on the U, and man is it boring. Kudos for you and congratulations for finishing of this great paper.

You can’t stop the Signal.
Keep spreading the word about Firefly!

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Monday, May 1, 2006 9:31 PM

VINTERDRAKEN

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Monday, May 1, 2006 9:31 PM

VINTERDRAKEN

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Monday, May 1, 2006 9:31 PM

VINTERDRAKEN

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Monday, May 1, 2006 9:31 PM

VINTERDRAKEN

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Monday, May 1, 2006 9:31 PM

VINTERDRAKEN

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Monday, May 1, 2006 9:35 PM

RUXTON

MACTAVIUS:

This is brilliant stuff in its scope. I said what you said many years ago, but not many wanted to agree that Firefly was cancelled because of its blatant (and entirely correct) anti-gov't stance.

I suspect your grader(s) will not completely like what you wrote because of their involvement with government money, to whatever extent.

As a professional editor I was pleased and impressed with your use of language. I could not find serious fault (though I didn't get as deeply into your analyses as much as I'd have liked, about 3/4 through your paper -- too late at night), but did find this:

"As he threatens to end her life, Mal casually ends his life with a quick shot to his head."

PLEASE CHANGE IT TO THIS:
"As he threatens to end her life, Mal casually ends Dobson's life with a quick shot to his head."

Oh, and I suspect your reviewers won't like the use of "casually" in that sentence

Massive kudos, and thanks for sharing.

............G.F.

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Tuesday, May 2, 2006 3:38 AM

ELOISA

This is fantastic - many, many things I have felt about Firefly and its cancellation for a very long time but have lacked the wherewithal to say. Kudos to you and I hope you do well in your course. (PS Please clear up the punctuation blips before handing in the final paper!)

~Zoë Eloisa

***
http://forums.ffonline.com/forumdisplay.php?f=19
Creative Writing

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Tuesday, May 2, 2006 4:39 AM

BUK

I suddenly notice quite alot of what you have said is true between the alliance compared to the goverment.

Also you mentioned how the media is biased, reading that I could see that you are also biased in places.

Also theres a spelling mistake in the 5th paragraph
"and hire an eclectic crew to reside " Shouldnt that be "an electirc"?

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Tuesday, May 2, 2006 12:07 PM

RUXTON

BUK:
Look up eclectic. Don't be so lazy. Do your homework!

Make your bed! Wash your clothes!

And ask yourself if an electric crew makes any sense at all.

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Tuesday, May 2, 2006 12:07 PM

RUXTON

BUK:

Your own spelling mistakes are egregious:

There are no such words as ALOT and GOVERMENT.

Look 'em up.

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Tuesday, May 2, 2006 1:20 PM

BUK

Shh! I'm suppose to be failing English and I'm doing my gorram hardest to live up to that expectation

.

Also electric crew could mean other things I quote from answers.com
"Emotionally exciting; thrilling: gave an electric reading of the play.
Exceptionally tense; highly charged with emotion: an atmosphere electric with suspicion".

One last thing I'm well known for doing homework at the last minute and this wasn't last minute. This post was. So after looking around I now know what eclectic means, happy? I'm not I had to learn...

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Wednesday, May 3, 2006 11:44 AM

RUXTON

Buk, you are forgiven. Thanks for the comeback.

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Wednesday, May 3, 2006 3:30 PM

MACTAVIUS

thanx for the feedback thus far. I agree I could have done a bit more analysis, but I only needed to write 15 pages and I have A LOT of other important assignments to complete (and I'm more concerned with style over substance anyday). The video presentation I did ate so much of my time. I just showed the 16 minute clip I fashioned to my roommate and his friend and they loved it. I don't think the instructor with take issue with the paper; he wanted to rent firefly after I did my presentation on the paper. And thus another browncoat is born.

take a fish, throw it on the ground and teach it the facts of life

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Wednesday, May 3, 2006 6:58 PM

RUXTON

Mactavius, I'd give you an A+, not only for the paper, but for the potential conversion of your instructor.

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Thursday, May 4, 2006 12:50 PM

BUK

Wow...I would like to see that clip you made..then continue the conversion of my friends.

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