No big deal. Most Jewish or gentile characters in this 'verse would do the same, but I wondered why it was so important to make this pushover Jewish in the first place. But on the other hand, who cares? I soon forgot about it, until I saw Serenity -- that's the movie Joss Whedon made a couple of years later to tie up the series' loose ends following Fox's uber-terrible cancellation.

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Enter a new Jewish character, Mr. Universe. Mr. Universe is the ultimate tech geek, and he lives alone on a moon. Oh wait, not alone. He's married to a robot wife, because clearly he's less than a man. Oh, and how do we know he's Jewish? Well, for one, he's portrayed by David Krumholtz.

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When Krumholtz has lunch with Larry David and Adrien Brody in LA, he's known as the "the Jewy one."

The second bit of evidence is that we're shown footage of Mr. Universe's wedding, where he wears a yarmulke and breaks a glass as per Jewish tradition. Oh, and he exhibits that classic Firefly Jewish trait -- he caves under pressure instantly. Yep, Mr. Universe bends over for "The Operative" faster than Whedon can remove his female protagonist's shoes. Is that racist? No. Is it awful? No. But it's just weird that two characters who cave under evil are revealed to be Jews, even though their religion is completely irrelevant to the plot.

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It's even more weird because WWII imagery is already in Firefly on a symbolic level. The Alliance has clear Nazi overtones as a totalitarian regime bent on controlling more and more worlds, espousing only one correct way to live, experimenting with psychic warfare and, ultimately, committing genocide. Indeed, my favorite moment in the series is when Simon and his sister, River, hide on the outside of the ship, almost like Anne Frank in the attic, as the Alliance interrogates the Firefly crew. So when you already have symbolic Jews in your show, it's a little jarring to suddenly see real ones, especially when they only seem to show up to be lame.