The Music of Firefly

Firefly is a science fiction series created by Joss Whedon that sadly got canceled midway through its first season. DVD sales were so large that a feature film, Serenity, was made following up on the series. Alas, it failed to score at the box office so fourteen episodes plus the feature is all we have. I say 'alas' because in my books this is the best science fiction ever filmed. One reason is the extremely effective use of music. Here are the opening credits:

The first thing to notice is how utterly different this is from other theme music to science fiction shows. This is a simple country song with guitar and fiddle. No bombastic orchestra or synthesizer noodling. Joss Whedon wrote the lyrics and music for the song. But there were a lot of different kinds of music used in the show. Here is a scene from a ballroom dance in the episode Shindig:

The music is the Alla danza tedesca from the String Quartet op 130 by Beethoven. Here is an interview with Greg Edmonson, composer of the music for the series (though not the feature film). Here is a link to the CD of the soundtrack.