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i know this show got cancelled a couple of years ago but i just picked up the complete series and this is easily one of the best shows i have ever seen,has anyone else seen it?

i love the theme tune to it- could never get into the series- it confused me a bit

i want to see "firefly", there going to be a movie!

I'm really looking forward to SERENITY...I want to see what RIVERs capable of doing...it's been nothing but a tease since the beginning of the Firefly series.

On another note, i'm really not impressed with my friend for loaning me the dvd's I could've done without knowing that Firefly was cancelled after one season. I loved everything about it, and Joss Whedon is a creative master. I own all the Angel seasons. With that said, Firefly had a kickass opening theme and video sequence, each episodes were different, a looting band of travellers cross the stars in the outer rims avoiding the Alliance (or whatever) as they use their ship FIREFLY as a cargo vessell to take odds and ends in shipments for whatever bids are given for payment.

Focusingo n 9 seperate characters, each with their own unique past and story lines. This show soooo could've gone longer. It reminded me a little of Cowboy Bebop too. Anyways, bring on SERENITY and hopefully they get wise and bring back the series if their's enough attention.

i am stoked about the serenity movie and the way joss whedon juggled nine different characters with ease is only a testament to the true genius he really is and come the movie i pray we get to see the reapers

i just got the DVD boxset of Firefly (complete series).... i'd heard of it before but never bothered to watch it.... and i only did so now becuase of Serenity coming out

it was freakin' great...... now i'm just annoyed that it got cancelled halfway throught the first series.... hopefully Serenity kicks enough ass to start it up again... i know Whedon had a lot more stories to tell with that crew

also the best sci-fi special effects since Star Trek DS9 and Voyager!

damn, i liked that show

This is one of my new favorite tv shows! I try to catch it when I can snag a tv at school.
I saw the movie too! It was awesome!

shame there's only 14 episodes

I saw the movie about a month ago, since then, as of tonight, I finished watching the tv series via Netflix DVDs. I gotta say, I was super impressed and deeply moved by all the story lines. Definitely the best tv series I've seen in a long time. I can't wait to see the movie again, it will make more sense now, since I've seen the series. Shame it was cancelled. I hope by a miracle that there will be more.

It looks unlikely but it is one of theose treasures that will always exist. And that is somewhat comforting. Its almost immortal among many peopl now.

bought the boxset a month ago, to keep for christmas (or more realistically, after it!)

try to watch it up until serenity comes out on dvd (whixh is february in the uk, i think)

Such a great show...

Joss Whedon =Astonishing X-Men>Firefly>Buffy>Angel

pledge your life! pledge your loyalty! plede your money!

FIREFLY SEASON 2

(haha, i just sounded really geeky...vote for DVDs!)

this was such an ace show it should never have been cancelled, especially seeing as some of the crap that is still being shown on tv

What a classic. Love the theme song, love the plot lines, love the characters, love the film. Discuss.

Too narrow to be more successful than it was. Squarely aimed at the full on sci-fi geek audience, missed the wide catchment it really needed. Very unlike Buffy in that respect.

Originally posted by Ushgarak
Too narrow to be more successful than it was. Squarely aimed at the full on sci-fi geek audience, missed the wide catchment it really needed. Very unlike Buffy in that respect.

You are absolutely right. Firefly should have been made a little better.

I much much prefer Firefly over Buffy, personally...

Firefly was good but not the 'best show ever' like people like to say it is.

Obviously, or it'd be on the air still! Hah!

I've never seen it, actually.

Originally posted by Lana
I much much prefer Firefly over Buffy, personally...

Firefly was good but not the 'best show ever' like people like to say it is.

Note: target I mentioned above.

Ush totally just called you a sci-fi nerd geek thing.

...but it's entirely true of just about everyone here.

Originally posted by Ushgarak
Too narrow to be more successful than it was. Squarely aimed at the full on sci-fi geek audience, missed the wide catchment it really needed. Very unlike Buffy in that respect.

i think it was good how they added the western style spin on it. Cattle smuggling, revolvers, double barrel shotguns, and the accents and clothes were all very western-ey. But i think you are probably right.

it's just coming up around here on cable.

is it worth watching? trailers or whatever got me intrigued.

Originally posted by Jaeh_JediPirate
it's just coming up around here on cable.

is it worth watching? trailers or whatever got me intrigued.

yeah. you should at least check it out.

Originally posted by SpartanII
i think it was good how they added the western style spin on it. Cattle smuggling, revolvers, double barrel shotguns, and the accents and clothes were all very western-ey. But i think you are probably right.

Yes indeedy, the western style was part of the appeal to that very geek audience I talk of, and I found Firefly enjoyable indeed, complete with Whedon's gift for writing great dialogue.

But yes, I think that western style didn't work at all for the casual viewer.

Originally posted by SpartanII
yeah. you should at least check it out.


thanks.

I really liked Firefly and disappointed that it didnt get renewed.

I actually think it's one of the funniest TV shows out there. I couldnt stop laughing.

Ush, I do agree on your assessment on the reason on why it didnt take off, but it you can also add that FOX didnt put anything behind it, didnt release the pilot as the pilot and didnt release the shows in correct order.

I am unconvinced that Fox didn't put anything behind it- they wanted it to succeed. Joss Whedon has always said that Fox was supportive.

They did mess up the order, but actually that happens to a lot of shows.

I heard that the episodes simply cost too much money. Whether that's in ratio to the amount it would make, or simply utter b****cks, I don't know.

Good show though, even with the hit and miss dialogue, and done what a lot of TV shows fail to do smoothly (i.e. Heroes); tell a good story each episode while advancing the larger narrative still. Nice cast, too.

Hmm, actually very few of the episodes really advanced the greater story. And here is another issue- no-one really had any great idea of the nature of what that greater story was. Heroes hit you with it very hard in the first two episodes- city, boom, save it.

Whereas much of Firefly was just a bunch of stuff that happend to some guys. Which isn't even a criticism as such- plenty of shows get by on such a premise. But I have a feeling Firely needed to have that extra pull there.

I'd disagree quite strongly about that analysis. The first two episodes of Heroes do not drag you in at all. Instead, you harbour at the edge of something you know is good, that you want to enjoy but you are never involved with. It got tantalisingly close to doing what it was supposed to, but at the end of the day, it couldnt pull it together.

Heroes drags. It really does struggle to keep the storylines together (no mean feat for any show) and the strain can be seen clearly. It has the gloss, the effects and some concrete performances which evidentedly are enough to get the audience going, but it suffers from the formula it's trying to imitate, one that has never, and I doubt ever, can be adapted to TV. Explosions, attractive leads and high production values are enough for everyone though, it seems.

Firefly, on the other hand, has a very strong first two episodes, everything plays at it's own level; we meet our characters, all strong and boldly inked, from the offshoot. We also get a strong level of wonderful character conflict (which Heroes does not have) and we enjoy a "rollicking" good story at the same time. The greater story is revealed in small nuances of character and roll reversal and the foreboding feeling that not everyone's being straight with each other. Firefly succeeds in emulating the formula it's inspired by, those Western pulp novels and comics, fitting in punchy dialogue, solid stories while hinting at the oncoming storm on the horizon.

Originally posted by Ushgarak
I am unconvinced that Fox didn't put anything behind it- they wanted it to succeed. Joss Whedon has always said that Fox was supportive.

They did mess up the order, but actually that happens to a lot of shows.

Really, I was under the impression that Whedon though differently and that's why he is never going to work with Fox ever again.

It's a shame. I really liked the show, I wish it continued.

Well I feel the general reaction to Heroes as opposed to Firefly contradicts what you say, exanda. Heroes pitched better to pulling in the audience with a long term plot. Talking about 'not everyone is being straight with each other' as being a means to reveal wider plot is not actually praiseworthy; it was far too obscure and really not at all interesting. You have to hook audiences early and hook them well. Heroes did it, Firefly didn't.

Firefly simply failed, is all. Not enough people liked it, and it only has itself to blame for that.

Not the way it is Ushgarak. Heroes tries to communicate some kind of pseudo-religous idealology into every episode, tying up some small plot to become of great significance when in fact it is not of great importance to the overall plot. Ripping themes straight from Phillip.K Dick, inserting passages from the Bible are well disguised methods of simply trying to stamp some control on a meandering sopa opera. It's glossy, so like alot of the big US shows, it works. It does however, forget to tell a tight story.

Let's return to what I originally said, as it is still of great importance in the matter. Firefly manages to "...Tell a good story each episode while advancing the larger narrative still." Each episode of Firefly, at different levels of success, works on it's own. Heroes does not. In fact you have to watch about 6 or 7 episodes of it to get something you feel is controlled and directed well.

The larger structure of Firefly narrative isn't as explicit as Heroes, that much is true, but what Heroes throws at the audience in the way of enigma's it suffers for in storytelling.

Each to his own opinion..

As far as i'm concerned it was the best show ever...

Originally posted by Ushgarak
Firefly simply failed, is all. Not enough people liked it, and it only has itself to blame for that.


It actually had and still has a huge cult following.. When the season released onto DVD it sold so many copies Fox realized that they could actually make a movie and it just might do well. Making a movie after a cancelled show that didnt make it past it's first season is unheard of.

Maybe it didnt have quite the following it needed during it's airing but as more and more people got a hold of it through different means it did develop a fan base. They killed off main characters in the movie so I highly doubt they would ever make another season, but if they hadn't done that I could see another season of Firefly doing real well.

Originally posted by SupezM'
It actually had and still has a huge cult following.. When the season released onto DVD it sold so many copies Fox realized that they could actually make a movie and it just might do well. Making a movie after a cancelled show that didnt make it past it's first season is unheard of.

Maybe it didnt have quite the following it needed during it's airing but as more and more people got a hold of it through different means it did develop a fan base. They killed off main characters in the movie so I highly doubt they would ever make another season, but if they hadn't done that I could see another season of Firefly doing real well.

Leaf on the wind, leaf one the wind, LEAF ON THE WIND!!

Exanda- sorry, but that simply is the way it is. Your opinion here is irrelevant. You can keep trying to say that Firefly told a better story until the cows come home. But the publi don't agree with you, and as the public are the ones that you try and tell storiesd to, that is the yardstick you measure success by.

if we are just talking about opunions, then mine is that Heroes beats the crap out of Firefly's efforts by quite a considerable margin. And Heroes' story isn't even THAT good. Firefly didn't really have an arc that was worthy of any consideration. If it had tried harder there, maybe it would have done better.

I'm not the hugest fan of Heroes. I am simply pointing out an undeniable fact- Heroes pulled people into the story in a way Firefly nevr did. Just look at Heroes' popularity on this forum and people's interest in such plots. You can try and yell as loud as you like that it is not true- but it is.

And you can talk about cult follwings all you like- irrelevant. It's viewing figures were not good. The DVDs sold well precisely because of what I said in my first response to this thread- because it sold well to the nerd/geek types, who are disporportionately represented among such sales. And because of it they made a film out of it... and the film did disappointingly as well. It was not popular enough. If it was they would have kept making it. That is as far as the logic of popularity goes.

Firefly simply failed. It did not make the cut. Plenty of hardcore fans try and make excuses for it, and each and every one of them is rubbish. They say Fox messed with the scheduling, but plenty of shows survive that- it is common in the US. Babylon 5 got dicked around with much more and survived. They say Fox did not support it, but that is backed by no evidence and whedon has never said it- quite the contrary. Some people say that it was too smart or highbrow for audiences to understand. Consdering the popularity of The West Wing, that is hard to fathom, but in any case a direct comparison kills it- the far more cerebral Battlestar Galactica has outdone Firefly in popularity and longevity also.

If you showed 100 people the first two episodes of Heroes and Firefly, I will give you a cast iron guarantee that they will know what thearching plot of Heroes is better than Firefly. It's beause it is actually TOLD to you, whilst in Firefly you just have some background dressing. In its entire run it only managed about two arc episodes. Heroes' approach was clearly better.

The silly thing is, long-term story is actually the worst place to try and defend Firefly. Its individual stories and the behaviour of the characters within were the best thing about it. Series don't even NEED arcs to live. Firefly's death was not based on the arc- in which it was using the same technique as the much more successful Buffy- but on its lack of wide appeal.

The only reason I am so strongly pointing out how Heroes got its arc across much better... is simply because you have tried to defend Firefly by claiming the opposite which does not stand up to any form of close examination at all.

When it comes to Firefly, there are a whole load of people that just need to get over it, really. It's a failed sci-fi idea and will never ever be more than that.

There was nothing wrong with the concept, mixing two very liked genres was actually a pretty good idea. Firefly just didn't have the following while it was airing to keep it on the air. Doesn't mean that it wouldn't do well if they gave it another shot, with the fans its gained since it's been off the air I think it would do real well.

I learned about the show through the movie, never even heard about it prior to that. I showed the series and movie to several of my friends and they all loved it, some them were even die hard Star Trek fans until Firefly came along...

I believe much of Firefly's appeal stemmed from the family environment it had on the ragtag wild west edges of space. It presented the feeling that anyone on ship would die for the other person. I've watched a lot of Sci-Fi TV series and none of them captured that like Firefly did. The captain was the head of the family and he ran it like one very convincingly, a mans man with a strong if not slanted set of moral values that he would die for.

Ush, ban me please. Your inability to respond to another posters words and points is simply infuriating here, a Strawman's argument at it's very worst.

And no, this is not one of those particular "Can't think off anything to say replies", because you've touched upon alot of points there, bar the fact that you have the wrong end of the stick.

Stick to some silly Computer post please.

Heh, just an example.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/dvd/ref=sv_d_3/104-9029895-3355936


Firefly series is the highest selling DVD they have... #1. Five years after the show was canceled it's the top selling DVD on amazon, beating out current shows and movies.

Watched most of the episodes that were on TV here... I t was pretty good show.

Of all of Joss Whedon's projects, I come to the inevitable conclusion that Firefly had the most potential out of all of them. However, I will also say that because it was only two episodes (if you include the unreleased ones) longer than Buffy's very own first season, it did not have enough time to sink its roots into the proverbial soil of primetime television, and therefore, I regard it second only to Angel -- which in turn -- I place above Buffy itself (even though, lol, Buffy was my first true TV love). It's a weird vicious circle.

Truth be told, all three of the series had excellent lead characters. Buffy was the angst-filled teenager struggling with an epic, legendary, and frightfully demanding duty that ultimately dominated all aspects of her life, much as she hated it. Angel was once the most sadistic vampire to ever 'grace' the Earth, and he fights for redemption now, cursed with a soul, struggling with his newfound conscience. Malcolm was a veteran of a war he ultimately lost, a narcissist and a cynic, struggling with his odd sense of honor. I often akin him to James Spader's character from Boston Legal (it's not really a stretch if you watch both shows), Alan Shore.

Whedon did an ingenious job, portraying each of these characters. I also have to say that Firefly's ultimate lack of success was due primarily to Fox launching the second episode ahead of the first episode(s), thus entirely screwing with the establishment of the characters. That, and Whedon was already managing two other successful shows at the time.

Just my two cents.

Originally posted by Ushgarak
Exanda- sorry, but that simply is the way it is. Your opinion here is irrelevant. You can keep trying to say that Firefly told a better story until the cows come home. But the publi don't agree with you, and as the public are the ones that you try and tell storiesd to, that is the yardstick you measure success by.

Ush, you're not totally wrong, but neither is Exanda. Sure, Firefly failed, but it sure as hell wasn't the show's fault. I'm one of those people that didn't bother to watch it while it was on FOX. I just didn't think to on a Friday night, and I didn't see a whole lot of advertisements for it so it wasn't fresh on my mind. And the commercials they did show gave no really idea on what the show was about. I assume I was on the same boat as a number of other people.

Later, I saw Serenity, like it, and learned that it was continued from the show. I happened to catch an episode on Sci-Fi and loved it. I ended up buying the full season, and haven't regretted it. It's probably one of the best shows I've seen, and people I know that have seen it within the past year feel the same. It's a great show, for all the reasons already mentioned. Sure it failed, but it was no fault of it's own. It was on FOX for their failure. They took a show, stuck it on a bad schedule (Friday night, while also having to be held back for whatever game was scheduled), had a serious lack of advertisement, and playing every episode out of order, which make it hard for people to know what exactly was going on. Fans and critics alike thought the show was great, but unfortunately they got the short end of the stick.

Started watching this show again recently... forgot how great it is. The great thing about waiting probably about 5 or 6 years since I saw it the first time is that I don't remember it very well and it's like watching it for the first time!! Haha.. this show rocks. Haven't looked into it, but hopefully Whedon is still determined to continue it somehow. The movie was awesome. Would love to see another one if they've got it in 'em..

I liked the story arc of Firefly, I'm not saying it was comprehensive but it reminded me of those old school shows like The Prisoner where each episode could stand on it's own. Yes I am disappointed that it got cancelled after 14 shows but I actually think that that adds to it's cult status. If they had gone on for another few years it might have got a bit too silly. I liked the frontier aspect of the show but I think it could have done with a more dynamic theme tune. Incidentally, Mal Reynolds was recently voted best sci-fi character of all time, not too sure I agree with that completly but I do love the character and find him very believable and am glad that the character gets the recognition he deserves.

I just found this show on Netflix a couple of months ago.
It was 10/10 for me, the story, the script, the music, the settings...

I cannot believe that it was canceled.

And then I watched "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" and was like, "Hammer Man... is... MAL!" It made me very happy.

... you're just now discovering Firefly?

Originally posted by RE: Blaxican
... you're just now discovering Firefly? Lot's of people discovered the programme late. No need to be a dick about it.

I only found out about it in 2009.

Originally posted by RE: Blaxican
... you're just now discovering Firefly?

Blax just discovered that he has a small penis. That's why he's overcompensating with having discovered Firefly a bit earlier.

Bardock just discovered he's German. That's why he's overcompensating by defending the weak.

Like, instead of mass executing people because they're weak, he's defending them. It's a holocaust joke, see? Because he's German? Nazis? hahaha

What's nazis?

Your Mom's nazis.

Can you imagine if this show got 3 seasons? It would've blown our freakin minds. sob.

Its bullshit with Fox

they let stuff like Family Guy and Futurama get more seasons but then deny it for a show like this.