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| Generations of charm. |
Firefly continues to oscillate between the satire and the saccharine, the mindless and the maudlin. It's starting to feel like the wheels are falling off the show a little bit, particularly with the extremely weepy conclusion to
The Message. Which is something of a shame, given how tight the episode feels overall. Slightly deeper research however, reveals an explanation for
The Message's jarringly heavy-handed conclusion; the news of the show's cancellation came during the production of
The Message. Whedon and Minear used the final moments of the episode as a vehicle for their own farewell to the show. Cast in this light, the episode's conclusion is no less jarring but is, at least, forgivably so, putting
The Message up there with the series' best.
