I took some time to watch a television show called Firefly recently. Okay, I'll admit it - a DVR and a marathon on the sci-fi channel were a winning combination for me.
For those short on patience, I'll open by saying I found the show to be excellent and well worth watching. In fact, I have every intention of renting the DVDs so I can see the episodes that never aired. That's right - some episodes never aired. You see, for some reason Fox decided to cancel the series before the first season finished running. This was a big mistake. Fans were outraged at the cancellation. Universal, hearing the fans collective plea, released the entire first season - including the un-aired episodes - on DVD. The fans were grateful, and the DVDs sold exceptionally well. Universal saw this and responded in kind. A feature film, entitled Serenity, will be released this weekend.
Firefly is set five-hundred years in the future in a universe where the earth's natural resources were depleted and humanity moved on. The human race has found a new galaxy and tera-formed planets to live on. An alliance was formed by core planets, and they decided they were in charge of, well, everything. They took control by force. The story itself is about a Firefly-class freighter ship called Serenity and it's crew. They travel the outer rim looking for work and essentially just trying to survive.
The show could be classified as a sci-fi western, which by definition is pretty unique and interesting. The culture portrayed is actually a mixture of many cultures and time periods. The result is something that is familiar enough to be comfortable to look at, but foreign enough to make a watcher think. The character development is deep; even a casual watcher will grasp the characters' motivations and histories will be revealed in reasonable portions.
Overall I think it's an excellent series; everything is top notch. It's so engaging that I find myself really getting absorbed into the world as I would with a book. I will definitely be following up by watching the rest of the season, and seeing the feature film. I would urge any science fiction fan to do the same.
I hate to admit it, but I suppose I'm harboring some hope that this film is going to be used by Universal to gauge interest in a second season, and a third, and so forth. A little hope is a good thing.
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