Still Flyin'
Back in 2005, when I first saw the trailer for Serenity, I had never heard of Firefly. All I knew as the trailer played was that I found something appealing about the film. I didn't know what it was, but I knew I wanted to see it. Yet, the world conspired against me, and I never saw Serenity in theaters until last year. But I did have a teacher who wanted to nurture my inner aspiring filmmaker, and he loaned me a copy of Firefly on DVD. I've been a Browncoat ever since.
Firefly came at an interesting time. It came out before the "TV Renaissance", and I was usually quick to judge television as the lesser artform compared to my beloved film. Firefly helped change that. Within a few minutes, I was sucked into a universe the way Star Wars and Lord of the Rings had sucked me in before. It felt real and alive, not stiff and sterile like the Star Trek: The Next Generation reruns on TV. I lurked on the fan forums, I read the comics, I even bought CDs of fan music. Firefly crept into the heart of my creative process, and even now when I'm working on a script, I see little hints of it sprinkled throughout. Firefly is what made me start to take television seriously.
The show may have first aired fifteen years ago, but you can't stop the signal.
For the 15th Anniversary, The Hollywood Reporter interviewed some members of the cast and Executive Producer Tim Minear. Check it out.