Firefly
Star Trek has the reputation for being a short-lived sci-fi series, but it’s got nothing on Firefly. Fox bought the show, ran the episodes out of order, and killed it after only 14 were filmed. Nonetheless, Joss Whedon’s dystopian space western launched a cult following that, while not quite of Star Trekian proportions, was large enough to result in the film Serenity, which closed out many of the show’s story lines. (Fans of Firefly are called Browncoats, BTW, which you will understand shortly into the series.)
If this is your cup of tea at all, you might as well run out and get the DVDs (actually, if you knew about it and didn’t hate it, you probably already own the DVDs), but in case you’re not sure, the complete series is available on Netflix and Hulu Plus (and Serenity is available on Netflix, as well).
A stand-out character in the series is Adam Baldwin’s Jayne. If you like Baldwin in NBC’s Chuck (which had its fourth-season premiere last night), you’ll definitely dig him in Firefly and Serenity. Plus it features Nathan Fillion displaying all the charm he shows in Castle and Dr. Horrible (and that he didn’t not in the short-lived Drive).
I’m purposefully leaving out the details of the show, because I think it’s better to go in open to discovering what it has to offer. But in a television landscape that is increasingly full of remakes or retellings of the same old stories—or worse, reality show tripe—shows like Firefly are rare. If it had only been successful, maybe we could have a slew of space western clones instead of spinoffs of The Girls Next Door.
Firefly: The Complete Series on Netflix
