The recent announcement of the Firefly revival as a animated series brought back a lot for me. First, I held off watching Firefly because I had missed it when it came out, due to life and work, and the high praises it was getting made me wary of a possible over-hype. When I finally was able to watch it, I just couldn't stop. And like so many before me, the feeling of loss, emptiness and confusion came when the series just ended. I followed the development of the movie and watched it on the big screen. The movie was great but I didn't agree with the framing of the events. I wasn't introduced yet to the graphic novels but later found them and read them. I still didn't agree with the timeline.
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| Sorry for the bad AI image |
Looks like I wasn't the only one. The timeline of the movie and with the series didn't seem right. The Operative's visit to the Laboratory didn't align with the time elapsed that with his next encounter with the Firefly crew. From The Operative's perspective it seemed a short time elapsed. From the Firefly crew's perspectives it was some time ago because River Tam's rescue was from the Laboratory was before the start of the series. Which implied that The Operator's visit to the Laboratory was long after River Tam's rescue.
That felt off to me. The Operative would have visited the Laboratory soon after River was rescued. Which means he was chasing them throughout the TV series but couldn't get close, which seemed unlikely. The Alliance High Command would have sent The Operative soon to investigate River's escape. All of this was explained in the "Those Left Behind" graphic novel series, where the Hands of Blue failed to re-capture River, the Alliance then decided it needed "a more personal touch" and The Operative had a cameo. Which meant that his visit to the Laboratory was long after River's escape. And that felt off. The Alliance would have dealt with the Laboratory severely for letting River escape. Which meant that there was nobody for the Operative to kill when he came much later.
I propose a different timeline to stretch the time between the end of the series (Objects in Space) and the movie Serenity. This would create the space for more stories to be told. Alas, this necessitates the events in of the "Those Left Behind" graphic novel no longer be canon. I developed this alternative timeline after I saw Serenity because I didn't read the graphic novel until long after I saw Serenity.
In this new timeline, the events of Serenity is not changed but rather the timing does. I propose that River Tam's rescue that we saw in the movie was done in between the end of the TV series and the movie. The fact that this could have been done by the Firefly crew is entirely possible given the events in the episode "Ariel", where they infiltrated a hospital. This would put the visit by The Operative to the Lab much later and that the time elapsed between that visit and him finding River much sooner.
The announcement forced me to re-visit these thoughts so many years later. I'll need a bit of time to think more about this. Stay tunes
