Unification Day Special: Looking back on 15 years of Firefly.

"You can't take the sky from me."

Those words have been crooned for a decade and a half. According to one of the stars, it's "the little sci-fi show that could." A unique alloy of space action and a western program - more Wagon Train to the Stars than even Star Trek was - Firefly quickly established its own voice and dialect, a marriage of Eastern influence in a Western setting, with a healthy does of Joss Whedon style quirky writing. 

The setting puts us 500 years in the future, after humanity has outgrown its own solar system, finding another system and having migrated there, terraformed as many planets to Earth-like conditions as possible, and turned an entire solar system into the Old West. Thus, a cargo ship, like the Firefly-class ship Serenity, would become not dissimilar to the old wagon trains. To add to the western flavour, the outer reaches had just fought a war with the Central planets, not dissimilar to the American civil war.

Enter Malcolm Reynolds, Captain of Serenity, who fought against the Alliance, and his rag-tag crew of adventurers that sailed from here to oblivion.

However, given such a unique spin on two very disparate yet similar styles, the Fox network hadn't a clue as to what to do with it. Despite Whedon's string of success from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, Firefly was given the high-hat; aired in unstable time slots, and out of order. What further insult could be done to a show? As a result, it only lasted a single season. Not even all of them had been aired. 

In spite of this, the fandom finds a way. The fans banded together, granting it cult status and garnishing a feature film to tie up every loose end. 

Despite beating these seeming impossible odds, the only continuations have come in comic book form. But it still has stood the test of time,  becoming much lamented and beloved, still watched by at least thousands around the world. 

Amoung the best known actors from it have managed to stay in the public view. Namely: Nathan Fillion, Christina Hendricks, Alan Tudyk, (All three of who leant their voices to different episodes of Rick and Morty) and Morena Baccarin of now Deadpool fame. But that's all boilerplate information for anyone even vaguely familiar. 

It's also worth mentioning that we ought to remember the late Ron Glass, 1945-2016, who played the enigmatic Shepherd Book. It's been less than a year, but he is as lamented and missed as the show itself. Not just by the fans, but the people who had the pleasure to work with and know him. 

I guess for me, Firefly was a breath of fresh air that I've never had from much anyplace else. It was so much brighter, shinier, if you will, than it's counterparts: namely, at the time, Angel, Star Trek: Enterprise, Farscape, and the like. The language and taste of it set it apart from anything else, mostly to Whedon's unique style of speechcraft. And the endearing heart of the series never fails to lift one's spirits. 

And since I imagine, it's shameless self-promotion time, I've tried to live in the 'verse again.to that end, I've started a continuation of it. I have to admit, I've taken a lot of time trying to put it together, because I want to do the original justice. To be frank, I had to suss out the story before I continued on. So, I will let you judge for yourself as to how I've done.

Until then, stay shiny, fellow Browncoats. Keep watching, as we may have been on the losing side of the networks with this. But I'm still not convinced it was the wrong one.

-Eli

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