AtheisTV (Firefly)

Watched the first episode of Firefly the other night.

Firefly was created by Joss Whedon who also created the series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the movie of the same name.

Firefly is about the small crew of the Firefly class cargo ship Serenity and their adventures as they try to make a living in a westernesque version of the future.

I'd seen a few episodes before but never really paid it much attention. Apparently the Sci-Fi channel is going to show all of them in order as a prelude to a feature length movie called Serenity that is currently scheduled for a 9/30/2005 release date.

At first glance, one thing I notice is a preponderance of religious references. The main character shows some religious devotion (kissing a cross on a necklace) in the opening scenes where his army unit has been abandoned and told to lay down their arms and surrender. Then in the main story line (6 years later) he displays an animosity towards religion. This seems to be setting up the classic "what turned you against God?" line that a lot of believers like to use. Additionally one of the main characters on the ship is a "shephard" (ie. a priest) played by Ron Glass (whom you'll probably remember as Detective Ron Harris from Barney Miller) so it seems to me that one of the side stories is likely to be a battle of faiths between the captain and the Shephard.

There are only 15 episodes of this series and it'll be interesting to see how it pans out.