Last Saturday, I succumbed. The Temptation Zone (otherwise known as Best Buy) had 1 copy of Firefly left on their shelves. Even though it was officially released last month, it seems to be taking an inordinate amount of time for any appreciable number of copies to trickle into retail outlets. (It was nowhere to be found last month when I checked on release day.) I decided to call it a holiday present to myself, and made the purchase.

Drove home through the snowy blizzard-like conditions, started cooking a fresh pot of bean dip, and immediately settled down to watch the pilot. The real pilot. Serenity. Not the half-baked excuse for an introduction (but otherwise good episode) that Fox decided to air as the "premiere" in September of 2002.

I had seen a few scattered episodes of Firefly when they aired. (Given the way the bozos at Fox scheduled things, I guess random tidbits were really all anyone saw of it back then.) Though I liked the show, and thought it had a lot of cool ideas, I never got into it emotionally to the level of Buffy and Angel back then. It just didn't have quite the same magical Joss-bestowed element of tv enchantment. Or did it?

Getting into the DVDs, watching episode after episode in order, learning the characters and their humor, as little details about the setting unfolded more with each episode, I fell in love. This is a freakin awesome tv show, in every way. Its only flaw, if it can be called that, is that only half a season was made. All sorts of hints at long term story arcs, whose ultimate culmination can only be guessed, abound.

Given time, the crew of Serenity could have become every bit as endearing as the Scooby Gang. In fact, if we compare the point at which Firefly was cut off to the state of the Buffy-verse at the end of season 1 (or very early season 2), Malcolm Reynolds et al might just come out ahead. That's no small feat, considering that Firefly has a cast of 9 regulars, each with their own distinctive personalities, quirks, histories, and secrets.

As for the fully literal "western in space" idea, it does take some getting used to. In practical terms, I agree with Joss that realistically, if humanity does eventually colonize other habitable planets in space, it is likely that such colonies would be primarily agrarian in nature. However, I strongly doubt that with the presence of motorized technology, we would still see horses all over the place. But nevermind that. This is fiction and fantasy anyway, and horses on colonized planets is at least as plausible as the idea of "beaming" around from place to place.

Much more interesting is the historical applicability, where the future, meets the past, meets the present. Imagine an interstellar scenario in which the American colonies lost the revolutionary war against the British (i.e. Alliance), the "wild west" (border planets) teem with danger, treacherous characters lurk around every corner, and then....

ZOOM (in a very literally cinematic sense) in on one little independent smuggling ship, trying to make its way in the 'verse.

I could go on to describe each of the characters (which is really what makes the show), and how well conceived, written, and acted they are, and how the interplay between the different characters in various situations and settings is just fastinating. But honestly, I'm getting sleepy, and I need to get up tomorrow.

I've watched all the episodes of Firefly through once, some of them twice, and, if you count listening to commentary tracks, I've seen a few of them 3 times now. I just can't get enough of that damn show.

Why, oh why, out of all the crap that's on tv, did they decide to cancel this one without really even giving it a chance?

The dvd set itself is awesome too. Nice widescreen transfers. Some fun extras are on the last disc, and there are lots of commentary tracks spread throughout the series. Joss, various other writers and crew, as well as some of the cast, all chime in about various facets of the production. On the back of the cases, along with the episode descriptions, the original airdates are also printed. If nothing else, this serves the purpose of showing what a mess the network made of the continuity by scrambling the order around.

If there is one commentary track on the whole thing that is really worth listening to (but really, they all are, right?), it's when Joss talks about his writing process during Objects in Space, the final episode. Nice brain dump. (But he still refuses to reveal spoilers, in the hope that the story can still be finished in some form or another in the future.)

Anyway... getting sleepy.... Firefly... most excellent...

Even the theme music (and lyrics) get me.

Anyway, goodnight.