I Would Like To Begin By Closing

One of the things I did during my vacation was watch the series Firefly. Of creator Joss Whedon’s three series (including Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel) it is probably – for me – the weakest. But that doesn’t mean I don’t find it interesting and even compelling. This sci-fi series is all tarted up as a western and it even has echoes of a civil war that the captain of the good ship Serenity is trying to find closure for – although he is far more likely in any given episode to challenge the powers that be as if for him the war hasn’t really ended.

For a series that hinged on the subject of closure, its abrupt cancellation (just when the characters were starting to fill out and the story was becoming more complex) was at least a little ironic. Sure, Whedon gave his fans some closure with the film Serenity, but to some extent the ultimate fates of many of the characters will hang in limbo – a reminder that even in Hollywood the expected happy ending might be neither. Meanwhile, the DVD release of the series has sold briskly and the ongoing web campaign to reinstate the series hasn’t died out yet.

This is because a cancelled series is a problem for fans who seek things like catharsis and closure in their entertainment. How much do they want closure? Think back to the 80’s comedy mystery series, Remington Steele. I just picked up seasons 4 and 5 on DVD and I had a sense of completion – the whole set… mine at last. But the six-episode season five is a reminder of the difficulty of closure in a TV series.

When Brosnan opted to leave the series to become the new James Bond, he was forced to come back for another season and lose his chance at the role of a lifetime (temporarily, as it turned out) because the studio held him to his contract, mainly because of a fan-based write-in campaign that got the show back on the air. But only for six episodes. Just enough time for Brosnan to lose his opportunity and not enough time for fans to enjoy a full season. Nobody was happy. But the writers did at least try to resolve the romantic relationship between the two main characters and also resolve the mystery of ‘Remington Steele’s’ true identity. Fans weren’t entirely happy, but I thought the series ended on a truly touching note while leaving Steele with many unanswered questions. Perfect for a man of mystery.

Another DVD set out this week yet again illustrates the slippery nature of closure. The new Apocalypse Now package includes both the original theatrical version of the film as well as Coppola’s director’s cut (fifty minutes longer), otherwise known as the Redux version. Director’s cuts are about opening up the vault and saying, “Now here is the film the studio wouldn’t let me show you.” It’s a concept that appeals to anyone who sees film as more art than entertainment. But Coppola, in trying to settle things with a definitive version, has only made things worse for me.

The first version has a mythic feel to it. Sure, it’s in Vietnam, but it could be about any war. And it is a world cut off from the feminine. There is something lopsided about the whole story and that is what makes it nightmarish and deeply psychological. The Redux adds Playmates and a love interest, as well as a lengthy sequence at a French plantation where the war is made more historical and political and specific. These are two different films. My perfect version would leave out the Playmates and the plantation, but preserve the lover character who briefly brings Willard back from the dead-to-life. The love scene gives Willard motivation for that later moment when he decides to not take Kurtz’ place at the end of the film. It’s a motivation the original film lacked. But this scene can’t exist without the plantation scene and so there can be no perfect version of this film for me. It’s appropriate that this film the studio was afraid would never get made by that director gone mad in the jungle can, in a sense, never achieve artistic closure – at least for me.

These few examples of how closure can be imposed and yet thwarted illustrate how even Hollywood can’t nail things shut in a way that pleases everyone. Stories resist perfect endings because the child always wants to hear more before going to sleep, or the audience want to hear the same old story with slight variations. The end of a story is a kind of death and our stories, like their creators, resist endings and, if they have to, go into a chrysalis state similar to what happened to Star Trek until the audience is ready for them again in a new form.

Maybe even little firefly-sized stories get a second chance…