Firefly was created by Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. Firefly departed from these shows' horror roots to tell a very different story. Firefly was a science fiction western in every sense of the word. The idea was to take, as Whedon describes it, "70's cheesy" westerns and transplant them into a sci-fi setting. Indeed, the main protagonist, Captain Mal Reynolds was an officer in a war not unlike the Civil War and now, his side having lost, has found himself just trying to exist in a world he no longer feels a place in. Many conventional western themes and ideas found their way into this series, often in novel and exciting ways.

The crew itself consisted of who you might find in a television western: the wandering cowboy/Lone Ranger type (Mal), his faithful sidekick (Zoe), the parson (Book); the doc (Simon); the saloon madame (Inara); the mercenary (Jayne); and others. The plots would also use the conventional trappings of westerns in novel ways: a train robbery, a big party/shindig, the single woman whose property lease is about to run out, cattle rustling, and more. Throw into the mix some Chinese language and culture (American and China merged as the last remaining superpowers on Earth), the emergence of corporations as government (particularly the enigmatic Blue Sun Corp), the now just not legal, but very presdigious job of escort/prostitute, and two mysterious blue-gloved government agents relentlessly pursuing our heroes, and you've got a very interesting show.

The show was truly inspired and had a fantastic cast. Unfortunately, Fox executives chose to air the episodes in an order different from Whedon's intended order, which caused a lot of confusion and discontinuity concerning plot development and character relationships. Other things hampered the show's performance, such as not being shown in widescreen like it was shot, and probably not the best time slot. These and other factors led up to the show's cancellation after only a few episodes.

The good news is that Firefly seems to have found new life on DVD. I discovered the series in this format and instantly fell in love with it. DVD sales appear to be good and hopefully that will accomplish one or two things. One, hopefully it will make the Firefly movie a certainty. Whedon has already written some of it and Universal has picked it up. There do seem to be delays in this happening, however. Secondly, a probably much more of a long shot is the return of the show to television. This seems very unlikely at this point, but I hope that brisk DVD sales will make Fox executives reconsider the cancellation.