2022/08/12

After Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, Angel, it was expected that Joss Whedon’s new TV show Firefly would also be a big hit, would run at least 4-5 seasons. At least that was my expectation. Of course Firelfy was not like Buffy or Angel, this was a SCI-FI show and that is a whole other ballgame! Where Vampire/Supernatural shows mostly are successful in the last few decades, think of Supernatural, The Vampire Diaries, True Blood, for a SCI-FI show this is always a bit more difficult it seems. Of course there are enough examples where you can say I am wrong, but I can give you lots more examples to prove I am right. Just let me know in the comments!

Firefly was such an example, it was mishandled from the start by FOX, aired episodes out of order, pilot issues, little to no advertising for the show, you name it. Well these are a few of the reasons no one seemed to watch Firefly in its original run. It ran for 14 episodes at its cancellation. People were starting to discover this TV show when it already was cancelled. Firefly became one of the most popular SCI-FI shows of all time, no one understood why this was cancelled so soon, FOX had a hit on its hand but did not know it at the time of they were just plain stupid.

The cast was absolutely brilliant, Nathan Fillion as Captain Malcolm Reynolds, Gina Torres as Zoë Washburne, Alan Tudyk as Wash, Adam Baldwin as Jayne Cobb, Morena Baccarin as Inara Serra, Sean Maher as Dr. Simon Tam, his sister River Tam, played by Summer Glau, Jewel Staite who played Kaylee Frye and of course Ron Glass as Shepherd Book who unfortunately is no longer with us. This cast gelled from the very first episode, don’t think I’ve ever experienced this before, or afterwards. There is not one character who isn’t interesting, the humor of these characters, especially Captain Reynolds and Wash but by saying this I don’t do the rest of the cast justice.

Anyway Firefly gained followers every day, it got immensely popular but no new episodes were coming. Fans begged for a new season of Firefly but it never came. Of course this show should have lasted at least 5 seasons! Question remains however, would the quality of the first 14 episodes become the standard for the whole series, that is something we will never know of course, we only have 14 episodes, hard to compare this with any Star Trek show, Stargate show or for instance Babylon 5 or The Expanse. Finally in 2005 FOX threw Joss Whedon and the fans a bone, when they green lighted a Firefly movie called Serenity, the name of the ship of course.

It got mixed reviews, however I still consider it one of my all time favorite SCI-FI movies. I love it, watched it somewhere around 20 times or something, and will be watching it many times more in the future. My last rewatch of the TV series dates back to the spring of 2018, 4 years ago, might be time for another watch.

Final Word:

Of course it remains to be seen if Firefly would be able to hold viewers attention for 5 seasons or more. As I said, it is a gem, but it is hard to compare it with any other long running SCI-FI TV shows. Firefly will forever be that show that could have been…that should have been, with arguably the best cast ever put together!