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(2507 A.D.) Five hundred years in the future, Earth-That-Was is no longer habitable and mankind has colonized a distant galaxy. The Central Planets within this new solar system are bound by one law, one Alliance. “For every good action there is a reaction, and the forming of the Alliance does not create an evil empire or a totalitarian state,” comments Whedon, “but a power so great that there’s no way it can justly rule over the entire universe. Whenever you create some kind of utopia, you find something ugly working underneath it.”
Captain Mal Reynolds (NATHAN FILLION) was one of the holdouts on the losing side of the great War for Unification, where the Alliance sought to bring the outer rim planets under its control. “Mal is someone who fought at a time when he was just crushed by the opposing force,” says Whedon. “There was no way he was going to be able to stop the tide of history. And the experience changed him.”
“He’s not an evil man,” finds Whedon. “He hasn’t lost his moral compass completely. He has just given up on the idea of the decency of human nature. Or that anything is worth fighting for, except the next meal and the people around him.” Fillion adds, “As empty as he is, as hard as he is, he desperately clings to and protects what makes him whole, which is the ship and everyone on it.”
His second-in-command, Zoe Alleyne (GINA TORRES), fought by Mal’s side in more than a dozen campaigns, including their planet’s final battle for independence against the Alliance. She was the only other member of the 57th to survive the bloody fight for Serenity Valley. Zoe’s husband, Hoban Washburn—Wash—(ALAN TUDYK), is her opposite: a good-natured pilot who loves to fly but hates to fight. “Zoe’s great passion is keeping this ship from falling into oblivion,” says Torres. “She’s a career soldier and is completely loyal to Mal, which sometimes causes friction with her husband.”
“Zoe’s a killer…and that’s far from who Wash is,” Tudyk explains. “He just wants to fly the ship, make some money. And then, once they get some money, he wants to go on a vacation. He doesn’t love the crime, but his pilot skills come in handy when he has to be the getaway driver.”
Kaylee (JEWEL STAITE), a scrappy farm-girl with a genius for machines, is the ship’s engineer and mechanic. “Kaylee is really the soul of the ship,” describes Whedon. “She believes that life is decent. She loves machines. She loves being on that ship, keeping it running. She thinks that’s a great life.” Explains Staite, “There are so many beautiful, more high tech ships out there with lots more gizmos. But Fireflies are special because they’re fast; they maneuver easily; and they have all kinds of hidden compartments for smuggling things. It’s like a vintage car...it’s kind of junky; it breaks down every other week, but you keep repairing it.”
Where Kaylee is all heart, mercenary fighter Jayne Cobb (ADAM BALDWIN) is all muscle. “Jayne is big and self-interested,” says Whedon. “He’s not from the war. He shoots people because he gets paid. He is not somebody you necessarily want at your back in a firefight because if the other guy’s paying more, he might be a little closer to your back than you want.”
In their travels across planets both primitive and civilized, the crew runs under the radar, as far from the enforced order of the Alliance as the ship and a succession of small-time heists can take them. Their freedom comes at the price of, “not having food, being broke, having things fall apart on the ship,” explains Alan Tudyk. But unbeknownst to them, their fate becomes inextricably tied to the addition of the ship’s two newest passengers. Simon Tam (SEAN MAHER), a young doctor and his unstable sister, River (SUMMER GLAU).
“Malcolm Reynolds and his band of renegades have taken in a young girl and her brother who are not everything they appear to be,” says Whedon. “They’re on the run from the Alliance, and Mal tends to do things to piss them off when he can. But this helpless young girl he has taken on board turns out to be both not that helpless and possibly not that great a choice for a passenger.”
A natural telepath, River spent years subjected to experiments in an Alliance lab that left her forever altered, possibly even dangerous. They have unknowingly exposed her to the dark secret that keeps the order the Alliance seeks to uphold. “She is filled with secrets she’d rather not know…because even the best of societies have ways of keeping themselves powerful,” comments Whedon.
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