That doesn't explain why he went to Angel, when there were lots of good reasons for the character not to.

---

That doesn't explain why he went to Angel, when there were lots of good reasons for the character not to.

Well, I alluded to the fact that Spike going to Angel was a condition of AtS being renewed.

I don't know - is that not a fact? It was a widely circulated story anyway.

---

But is that all that different from how he approached television? Occasionally writing, but mostly just nodding or shaking his head at other people's additions to the story

Not at all. I'm just saying that I don't think he's priming the pump for a comic series because he thought of a story that he really wanted to tell.

I don't think I can get near the Shakespeare comparison. But

It's also Joss exploring the complex moral history of post-Civil War America.

Not being overly familiar with Firefly... is there any hint that the Alliance had moral justification for deciding that "all the planets had to join under their rule"? Because one of the many things that infuriated me about that concept was, that's not a civil war, that's a war of conquest. And I had the strong impression that the government was just Eeeeevil Totalitarian Badness.

I have the strong impression that Whedon likes to come close to moral dilemmas and then bunt. See, once again, Spike. I hear he has a soul now.

---

I have the strong impression that Whedon likes to come close to moral dilemmas and then bunt. See, once again, Spike. I hear he has a soul now.

I really liked the construction of the Firefly universe, because it was fraught with interesting moral/character choices. Mal and Zoe both came out of the war changed by it, but Zoe wasn't embittered by it. Inara was aligned with the Federation. Book was too, but had rejected it. All from different angles. I didn't think there was a lot of bunting there.

---

Also, Wash only cares about the Alliance so much as they're the ones that are going to arrest him if they get caught. Jayne doesn't give a crap about them either way and would likely act the same no matter who was in charge. Kaylee doesn't seem to care for the Alliance, but I think a lot of that is simply growing up on a border world than anything else. She doesn't have anything resembling a grudge like Mal and Zoe do and in "Serenity" the episode she's unconcerned about the Alliance ship they almost got nailed by.

Joss has said, on many occaisions, that the Alliance is not an evil empire and Mal's opinion of them is incredibly biased. Unfortunately, we never saw that in Firefly itself, other than a few brief glimpses here and there. If the series had gone on further, hopefully we would have seen that rather than the fairly one-dimensional Alliance we saw.

---

I think the problem is that the two point-of-view characters (Mal and River) have exceedingly good personal experience reasons to view the Alliance as a monolithic evil. If the story were told from Wash's or Inara's perspective the government probably would have looked less Darth Vader-ish.

---

I didn't think there was a lot of bunting there.

Like I said, I can't speak to Firefly because I found it unwatchable. So maybe I don't understand what you're describing... but having characters with different histories is not, by itself, dealing with moral complexity. It's having characters with different histories.

A dilemma they used on Buffy repeatedly was, "Should I sacrifice one person I love to save thousands of others?" Once the answer was yes, and after that it was always no. And that's fine, but there's always an asspull that keeps the thousands of deaths from happening. That's what I mean by bunting. If you're going to present something as a dilemma, you can't deus ex machina the characters from the consequences of the choice they make.

Joss has said, on many occaisions, that the Alliance is not an evil empire and Mal's opinion of them is incredibly biased. Unfortunately, we never saw that in Firefly itself,

And he couldn't find a way to squeeze a hint of that into, what, 15 hours of television and a feature film? I can only discuss his writing, not what he intended to write someday.

---

but there's always an asspull that keeps the thousands of deaths from happening.

Oh! Having It Both Ways Syndrome! (Have I mentioned how much I hate Damn Yankees for that?)

One could (and I'm not sure if I agree with it) the argument, in the S5 case, that it was, at least, only half a cop-out, given that there was a significant sacrifice made. But, yeah, I much prefer the characters having to lie in the beds they have made. I do think there was some of that, though most of the examples I can think of are Wesley-centric

---

And he couldn't find a way to squeeze a hint of that into, what, 15 hours of television and a feature film?

I got the hint. I just wanted more.

---

I'm wondering if bunting is necessitated by series television-- you can only make so many changes to the premise. Is there a show (with more than two seasons) that really lived up to the moral dilemmas presented?

---