Hello my blog'o'guilt: I write u whenever I'm not working and I should be.

There were, very recently, preview screenings around the US of a nearly-completed version of Serenity, the film based on the abortive TV-series Firefly, by Joss Whedon (creater of Buffy and Angel). I can't actually say that I'd want to see a 'nearly complete' version of just about any movie. It's like saying 'here's a shitty version we prepared earlier.' Having said this I'm in a state, one of anticipation concerning Serenity. I often find myself quite ambivalent in my feelings for science fiction, but Joss Whedon often makes me cast aside all hope of ever being invited to a more intellectual class of dinner party and just get down amongst it. This is despite the distinctly Trekkie proportions this franchise is taking on: Cancelled TV series, now a movie, possibly a trilogy, about a spaceship and boldly going, well laconically swaggering is probably more accurate in this case.
Who would'a thunk it, I found something intelligent and insightful on the IMDB boards regarding the troubled history of Firefly so I thought I'd give it a double life and whack it here:

I highly recommend renting the DVDs and watching the TV series. Then you'll understand more.

As has been explained on here, Fox had Joss under contract (Buffy and Angel were both Fox-produced shows, even though they were on other networks, because the original BtVS movie was 20th Century Fox). But for whatever reason, they never recogized his talent or genius. When the first movie (the 1992 Buffy movie with Kristy Swanson in the lead) failed miserably at the box office, they were not interested in hearing about turning it into a TV series; that's how it wound up at the WB instead. And once Joss' true vision of what Buffy the Vampire Slayer should have been came to light, critical and fan acclaim went through the roof.

Fox still didn't quite get it, though, but they knew one thing -- the guy everyone else was raving about, Joss Whedon, was on their payroll, and so they wanted him to make a series for their network that would be a hit like Buffy and Angel were for UPN and the WB. He gave them Firefly. And they STILL didn't get it. They decided the first episode ("Serenity") wasn't action-y enough for Fox, so they forced him to go back to the drawing board and create what would become the premiere episode, "The Train Job". And they totally lost faith.

When Firefly's first episode finally aired ("The Train Job"), it did so with zero fanfare, burried in a Friday night death slot. The only people who even knew it was on were longtime Joss Whedon fans who had already caught the buzz and knew to be looking for it; the majority of the potential audience out there didn't even know it existed. In fact, by the time Fox was done and yanked the show, they STILL didn't know it existed. And the handful of fans that did tune in for "The Train Job" were driven away because episodes were aired out of order (and considering this is an serial type show that has much of its story carry across several episodes, a la Buffy or Angel, that's not a good thing), and most of the time, episodes were pre-empted for baseball, wrestling, or reruns of Lethal Weapon 4. The numbers started off thin and got worse quickly. So Fox yanked the show and blamed the low ratings. By the time they did get around to airing the true first episode, "Serenity", the show had already been cancelled.

But Joss didn't give up. He got permission to make a DVD set for the show, airing all the produced episodes (including several that never saw the light of day on Fox) packaged in the correct order, and the fans took over. Existing fans went out and bought the DVD set, and then lent it to other friends who got hooked, went out and bought the DVD set, lent it to other friends who got hooked ..... I know that was the case for me personally. The DVD sales for this series -- a series cancelled after only 10 episodes and whose failure was blamed on low ratings -- went through the ceiling.

Joss got the movie rights to the series and shopped around. Universal Studios knew two things -- Joss Whedon was a wunderkind, and the DVD sales had been very healthy. They were all ears to his pitch, and gave him the funds for a big-screen version of the show. Joss made sure that he drafted the contracts for his cast so all were optioned for a trilogy provided the first movie did well.

Serenity is coming. And no power in the 'verse can stop it.

Even I (something I never do) went out and bought the box set, full on: Joss Whedon and his crazy creations must be pure genius, otherwise I'd never be so into it. Hrrrhmmm, can't wait to see Serenity.

PS. There are no images because my storage drive is broken.
PPS. The official site for the movie is www.serenitymovie.com; it is a very juvenile form of humour which makes me post the link for http://www.serenity.com/.