I imagined that there would be some kind of a table set up, with the people I knew from the leasing office handing things out. Whether some kind of bright sign or banner, balloons, or friendly faces, it was clearly going to be recognizable.

That morning, I stumbled out of the house in my typical morning daze. Not seeing anything matching my concept of the event, I promptly forgot about it. As I prepared to turn onto my street, a dour fellow guarding a lime green laundry basket approached my car with a nondescript item in hand.

“What are blasted pamphleteers doing in my parking lot?” I fumed to myself, pointedly ignoring him. “You’d think they’d have better things to do this early in the morning.” Only when I was halfway down the street did the realization occur: that guy had been handing out the free breakfast and I completely missed it. Shortcomings in the event itself aside, I had such a clear pattern going in that I was unable to adapt my construct to match the real situation, and lost out as a consequence.

Speaking of questionable male figures, when I worked at the stables I knew people who looked just like this guy, only instead of shopping at farmer’s markets they slept with underage girls in the back of horse trailers… His look is probably the visual definition of hick, but the joke’s on you because he’s the one Summer Glau sleeps with at night.

Think on that, fanboy.

To me, seeing the show’s characters again was like visiting old friends, and I got sad all over again when the adventure concluded. Interestingly, Rachel told me that it was the theme song that initially put her off to the show. As soon as she heard the opening phrases she thought, “This is stupid.” If she hadn’t persisted for my sake, she would have completely written it off.

After basking in the testament to her love for me (awww), I began to wonder how many others had a similar objection. The show was very character-driven, so if a potential viewer had ditched the show at the beginning thanks to the song,  they would likely have had a difficult time connecting to the characters at a later stage.

Firefly – Main Title by Greg Edmonson
Download now or listen on posterous

01 Firefly – Main Title.mp3 (1767 KB)

Dollhouse recently got handed a similar fate. I suppose that if these kinds of shows can’t grab an audience right from the beginning, they’re doomed. All the more reason to ditch network TV.

Posted via email from Michael’s posterous

Unlike other popular sci-fi stories (regrettably, Star Wars is one of these), Firefly understands that you generally cannot hear sounds in space and other realities like decompression. Yet there seem to be a few inconsistencies that perhaps some of the bigger Firefly buffs out there could explain to me. With the technology available to terraform planets, why is it that many of the planetary settlements seem to have no access to electronic devices? I can understand being poor and undersupplied, but it seems to be that in a Galactic Era certain items would be considered necessities.

Also, what’s with the medical setup? Why are they still using a needle and thread for stitches? We have technologies that could eventually eliminate stitches entirely already.

Either way, it’s a great show, and it’s done an excellent job at filling my holiday break time in between zombie attacks.