FIREFLY EPISODE DISCUSSIONS

What was the last episode of Firefly filmed?

POSTED BY: CALLITHRIXJACCHUS
UPDATED: Monday, March 10, 2014 19:06
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Tuesday, February 21, 2012 5:35 AM

CALLITHRIXJACCHUS


Hello there! This is my first time posting here. I have a somewhat trivial question, but it's driving me nuts that I can't figure out the answer to it. I was hoping one of you fine folks could help me.

A few days ago was looking for ideas for Firefly trivia question (my student group is hosting a charity geek trivia night) and I came across an online Firefly quiz. It asked what was the last episode of Firefly to be filmed. I put "The Message" without really thinking about it, since I remembered something about a funeral scene being like a funeral for Firefly blah blah. Anyway. I got the question wrong- they said it was Heart of Gold and not The Message. They also commented on how most people think it's "The Message" but it's actually not. This made me remember (I think) that in one of the commentaries Joss says The Message was the episode they were filming when they first *learned* that they were canceled, not necessarily the last episode ever filmed. However, it's been a long time since I listened.

So of course I took to Wikipedia. It also claims The Message was the last filmed, and references Joss's DVD commentary. I listened to some of the commentary for The Message, but it's just Alan Tudyk and Jewel Staite. Alan mentions something about the funeral scene being the end of Firefly, but it's not really clear and it's definitely not the commentary by Joss that I remember listening to. (wiki references "The Complete Series: Commentary for 'Serenity'"- I tried to listen to this but my DVD is all messed up).

Ok, so *then* I did a bunch of googling, and found this quote by Tim Minear about filming Heart of Gold:

Quote:

I remember the A.D. sending each actor into the room as I was shooting and they would get wrapped out of the series after I’d get them. That was weird, because you wrap out guest characters, you don’t wrap out your regular actors, except we were cancelled. So they would come into this room, do a shot or two, and then the A.D. would say, “Ron Glass. That’s a Firefly wrap for Ron Glass,” and then Ron would make a speech to the crew and everyone would cry and then each person came in. Everyone hung around until the last person was finished, because they wanted to be there for it. So that was kind of odd. Then the last shot I did of all of them together - there’s a shot where the entire crew of Serenity is walking up to a brothel. That was actually shot on a soundstage and it’s everyone walking up to this brothel and it was the last time they were all together on a stage to shoot a moment in Firefly.


(from: http://whedonesque.com/comments/8575)

This implies to me that Heart of Gold was the last episode filmed (the "wrap" of Ron Glass- Book is definitely in The Message, and there are definitely scenes in The Message where they're all together), but I'm still not sure. Is it possible that scenes from the two episodes were filmed non-linearly (like one scene from The Message was filmed and then a scene from Heart of Gold- not all one episode at once)? I don't really know much about TV production.

Anyway, this is long and ridiculous, but I'm just a huge nerd and this is driving me crazy. If you know the real answer please help!

tl;dr: Which episode was filmed last- The Message or Heart of Gold? Wikipedia is not a good enough source.

Thanks for your help!

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Tuesday, February 21, 2012 5:43 AM

ECGORDON

There's no place I can be since I found Serenity.


I don't have the definitive answer, but I'm pretty sure that info you've dug up is correct. They were filming The Message when they got the word of cancellation, but Heart of Gold was the last one filmed. It is possible some scenes from both episodes were shot around the same time though.




wo men ren ran zai fei xing.

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Tuesday, February 21, 2012 9:48 PM

FIREFLYPASSENGER


If Tim Minear says they wrapped on Heart of Gold then that is the last episode filmed.

Also check www.Browncoats.com about the episodes. It states Joss thought ending on Objects in Space was better, instead of Heart of Gold.

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Wednesday, February 22, 2012 6:03 AM

NEWOLDBROWNCOAT


The version of it that I remember is that they got the NEWS that they were being cancelled during the filming of The Message. Heart of Gold might have been shot after that.

EDITED: Aw, go se, that's what I get for not reading all the posts before replying-- that's exactly what EC finished up with...

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Wednesday, February 22, 2012 6:06 AM

GWEK


It is possible, although not likely (especially in light of the Minear quote), that HOG was the last overall episode filmed but the funeral scene was the final SCENE.

Given the need for re-shoots, especially in light of trying to fit in a few episodes before the hammer fell, it would be plausible for episodes to be completed non-chronologically.

I know the writers, at least, have said that they were working fast and furious on multiple episodes at the same time, leading to the apparent continuity error where Jayne knows River is psychic in The Message, even though the episode occurs before Objects in Space. The writers weren't sure of episode order at the time, and no one caught the gaffe during filming. (At least that is my understanding based on interviews.)

www.stillflying.net: "Here's how it might have been..."

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Wednesday, February 22, 2012 6:42 AM

PHOENIXROSE

You think you know--what's to come, what you are. You haven't even begun.


Quote:

Originally posted by GWEK:
I know the writers, at least, have said that they were working fast and furious on multiple episodes at the same time, leading to the apparent continuity error where Jayne knows River is psychic in The Message, even though the episode occurs before Objects in Space.


The Message was definitely filmed after Objects in Space, even if it wasn't the last episode filmed. Had the show not been cancelled, Objects in Space would not have been the 'official' ending episode in the box set, because there would have been a full season with a planned ending. Since there was no planned ending and OiS was Joss Whedon's favorite episode, it was shuffled to being the 'last' episode so that the series would end on a high note.


What reason had proved best ceased to look absurd to the eye, which shows how idle it is to think anything ridiculous except what is wrong.

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Wednesday, February 22, 2012 11:43 AM

CALLITHRIXJACCHUS


Yeah, That's what I remember, but I can't find the source. Do you remember where you heard that? Some commentary? I don't think it's the DVD commentary for The Message.

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Thursday, February 23, 2012 6:03 PM

NEWOLDBROWNCOAT


Quote:

Originally posted by Callithrixjacchus:
Yeah, That's what I remember, but I can't find the source. Do you remember where you heard that? Some commentary? I don't think it's the DVD commentary for The Message.



In my head, I can HEAR Jewel and Alan talking about the mood onset that shooting day, and I KNOW I can HEAR Alan talking about why he acted the way he did while shooting the ship piloting/chase sequence. SO it must have been on a commentary track somewhere, or maybe the round table discussion on the Blu-Ray set. Sorry, can't identify it any better.

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Thursday, February 23, 2012 10:15 PM

PHOENIXROSE

You think you know--what's to come, what you are. You haven't even begun.


Okay, so here is a direct quote from the Firefly Official Companion (Volume Two) regarding Heart of Gold:

"There's one more edict of the network - 'For god's sake, no Western.' And then we saw the dailies from 'Heart of Gold' and went, 'Oh, we're in trouble. Oh, we're in so much trouble.' We did a lot of re-shoots on 'Heart of Gold' just to explain why it was so Western because we thought the network was going to kill us. The network was going to kill us, but we didn't know that was going to happen right away at that point."

Sounds to me like Heart of Gold was shooting before the hammer dropped.

Also, in the same book there is this quote about The Message:

"It was the last episode we filmed and therefore the funeral scene was incredibly funereal."

Both of these are direct Joss Whedon quotes. I don't think it gets much more official than that.


What reason had proved best ceased to look absurd to the eye, which shows how idle it is to think anything ridiculous except what is wrong.

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Friday, February 24, 2012 4:34 AM

CALLITHRIXJACCHUS


Welp, I think that about wraps stuff up. Thanks for your help!

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Monday, March 10, 2014 7:06 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


Not sure if you still are interested...
There is some confusion resulting from the sudden cancellation.
HoG was filmed before Message. FOX execs blew a gasket saying it was too "westerny" in violation of one of their previous fits - they didn't want anything that looked like a western. HoG is reportedly why Firefly was cancelled. Message was finished, and some re-writing of the script for HoS was done, and the scene in OiS which changed the sequence of episodes. The last day of shooting was 20 Dec 2002, finishing the HoG scene, then they all went home and saw that the final episode that FOX aired that Friday night was the previously unaired Pilot Serenity, which then won the Emmy for Special Effects.

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