Firefly: The Complete Series: A-

Buffy wasn't yet all there. And Angel certainly had a long way to go. Firefly: The Complete Series, however, was a fully-formed beauty almost from the word "Go." It's surprising, when one looks back, to realize that Joss Whedon's sci-fi/western action-drama is nearly perfect - especially when that same viewer also realizes that his other two television shows (the aforementioned Buffy and Angel, one a horror-film twist, the other a noir-tribute) took many more episodes before they became great. But all Firefly needed was one nearly-mediocre two-hour pilot to set itself up, and then it shot off into the stars, blasting away all expectation. All of the expected Whedon tropes are here - narratives that quirk ironically half-way through; layered episode titles; a rich, talented ensemble cast; an over-arching plot that questions the moral structure of human beings; and dialogue that bounces, zings, zaps, and screwballs sincerely through all manner of wit and heartache - but they're all far more polished at the starting gate, and the result is an immensely entertaining, sadly short-lived, space opera.

The strongest aspect of the show, as with all Mutant Enemy productions, remains the writing. And the strongest aspect of that aspect is the dialogue. It lumbers about in "Serenity," the two-hour pilot, and "Heart of Gold," the penultimate episode, is nearly as bad, but from "The Train Job," up through and past "Gold," Whedon & Co.'s words are madly, shockingly, gleefully intelligent; they practically rub their smarts and sass in your face. More so, when a step back is taken for a sad or touching moment, it actually rings true. There must be a slight change to be noted there, because even in Angel, sentiment was a clumsy thing. Perhaps it is but a mere symptom of the ease creator Whedon has with his third, and as of yet last, show. He doesn't spend nearly any time reiterating themes or character flaws, but rather lets the inventive, oddly rich, creation at his fingertips spread and soar.

And this is what the audience finds: in the 26th-century, humans inhabit a completely new star system, spread out over hundreds of moons, with a pair of "core worlds" at the center. It's very much the Old West, outsized over thousands of light years. Another twist: the political and socioeconomic structure of the worlds is dominated by the Alliance, a massive government complex controlled by the last two superpowers: China and the United States (accordingly, every character is fluent in Mandarin and English, and their conversations flow between the two, to fizzy effect). Sounds pretty tame, if a little 1984, right? One problem: some years ago, the Alliance felt itself sufficiently strong enough to reign in and "re-civilize" the outlying moons. However, the outlying moons felt their independence was too precious to be given up so easily - thus, a civil war: the Browncoats versus the Alliance. The Alliance won, and now, some years later, we are introduced to Captian Malcolm Reynolds (Nathan Fillion), a cynical ex-Browncoat, and his crew - among them, a doctor (Sean Maher) and his fugitive sister (Summer Glau) - as they rove the various worlds looking for work as smugglers aboard their ship Serenity (class: Firefly).

The various jobs they accrue make-up episode-by-episode story, but at its heart Firefly is an exploration of the crewmembers, and the life they have had to make for themselves admist a contradictory society, wherein one-half is civilized, and the other is very "futuristic Wyatt Earp." Episodes like "Ariel," in which Serenity's crew has to break-in to a hospital on a core world, and "The Message," weave the various big-picture narrative elements together with ease and mastery. And "The Train Job," "Shindig," "Trash," and "Safe," are perfectly insular, and perfectly satisfying. Above all of them sits "Objects in Space," the series finale written-and-directed by Joss Whedon, which is, odd as it sounds, most easily summed up as an existential exploration of the crew as they attempt to fend off a psychic, psychotic, bounty hunter (Richard Brooks). What makes "Objects" so brilliant, perhaps one of the best episodes for television Whedon has ever written, is how the expected - witty conversations, thrilling heroics - is suplemented by the completely new.

And what makes Firefly so brilliant, at least for the majority of the time, is how each of these different strengths are united and tied together into one supreme package. Both Buffy and Angel would go on to be better shows, but for what it was, when it was, for the time period it was aired, Firefly was an epic character study; a funny, funky, cool action-adventure; and a drama with a studied and truthful atmosphere. If I knew how to say "This is yet another achievement on Mutant Enemy's Crown of Awesome" in Mandarin, after watching all fourteen of these episodes, I probably would.