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Ta-Nehisi Coates

Ta-Nehisi Coates - Ta-Nehisi Coates is a senior editor for The Atlantic, where he writes about culture, politics, and social issues for TheAtlantic.com and the magazine. He is the author of the memoir The Beautiful Struggle. More

Born in 1975, the product of two beautiful parents. Raised in West Baltimore—not quite The Wire, but sometimes ill all the same. Studied at the Mecca for some years in the mid-’90s. Emerged with a purpose, if not a degree. Slowly migrated up the East Coast with a baby and my beloved, until I reached the shores of Harlem. Wrote some stuff along the way.

Serenity Now

By Ta-Nehisi Coates
May 25 2010, 3:30 PM ET Comment

At the suggestion of a lot of the people here, I've started watching Joss Whedon's Firefly. Yeah, I'm truly late. But I'm enjoying myself and I'm really sad the show got cancelled. It's good, clean fun. Looking back on it, I think I didn't enjoy BSG  because I felt like it was never as deep as it thought it was. Every second I felt like I could hear the show's creators saying things like "this is sci-fi naturalism," or "this show is really dark," or "this ain't no punk-ass Star Trek." 

I don't know. I like Firefly because they don't seem to be trying to say anything, or do anything. It actually reminds me of Cougartown in that sense. It's just a TV show trying to be a decent TV show. It doesn't have any lofty aspirations.

The scif-fi/Western mash-up actually put me in the mind of one of my favorite childhood cartoons, Galaxy Rangers. Theme songs kicked ass back then. I loved that they had a smart black dude on the show.



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