Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Genre Character of the Week: Dr. Simon Tam

As I’m currently going through my old Firefly DVDs with my youngest daughter, I thought I would focus this week’s character on one of my favourite characters of the series, Dr. Simon Tam.

Here’s the thing about Simon, this guy is exactly the big brother everyone wishes they could have; the lengths he goes to in protecting his sister are pretty incredible – he throws away his career, becomes a fugitive, and effectively leaves everything he has ever known and removes any chance for a return all to do his duty and try and help out his little sister River.

I'm not at all saying that Simon has no flaws, the guy seems to have a talent for putting his foot in his mouth and even when he's trying to act like a gentleman he tends to come across as a bit of a prissy princess. I think it was this balance between being genuinely heroic and a bit of a jerk that really impressed me with the actor who played Simon (Sean Maher), who I thought was great throughout the series.

A few episodes into the series I asked my daughter about who she liked best; Dr. Tam definitely came out on top - and as we're from the same hometown as Nathan Fillion, I thought he would be a shoe in (She loved him as Captain Hammer and we watch Castle with her every week); I guess it just goes to show that if you are going to be portrayed in a flashback episode as a little kid, you should have that kid played by Zach Efron.

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