Firefly

It’s always painful to see a show killed before it had a chance to grab an audience. Firefly fans know such pain. They were hooked on Joss Whedon’s futuristic Western from the get-go, and the show quickly attracted a fanatical following… alas, it was a too-small following to justify Fox’s keeping the expensive program on the air beyond this first batch of episodes. Cancellation arrived in December 2002, though Firefly and Capt. Mal Reynolds and his crew have lived on ever since in our hearts (and, briefly, in a bid for the big screen with the feature film Serenity).

What was amazing about the show was how quickly it found its footing. Most television series, especially sci-fi shows, take some time to feel out the parameters of their own little universe, but Whedon and his writers, directors, and cast all seemed to just inhabit the world of Firefly from episode one. Imagine how great this series could’ve become had it been given five or six years to really grow.

The show recently received a long-awaited HD upgrade to Blu-ray, with an increase in detail and brighter sequences that look that much more impressive (though the darker sequences and nighttime environments aren’t quite as well rendered). Overall, however, color separation is good and black levels are solid. Despite being a two-channel show, Firefly on Blu-ray offers DTS HD 5.1 surround.

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

Most of the extras carry over from the previous series-set release, plus there’s a new roundtable chat with Whedon and stars Nathan "Mal" Fillion, Alan "Wash" Tudyk, and Ron "Shepherd Book" Glass. This is a fun, lively discussion of the show over lunch which complements the seven audio commentaries (the best being the one where Whedon goes solo on "Objects in Space" and the one featuring Whedon and Fillion on "Serenity"), deleted scenes, and featurettes. So while the prospect of any more Firefly episodes or movies may be more or less dead now, we’ll at least always have this set to keep us warm around the outer-space campfire at night.