My "Browncoat Quickening"

By Jonestein

As most of the few friends I have will tell you, I am the Couch-Potato Incarnate. My life revolves around movies, television, and books...especially the television shows I love, some more than others. The "some" I speak of usually become obsessions.


Without a doubt, the short-lived, 2002 series "Firefly" has become my latest obsession. When the show aired on FOX in 2002, I vaguely remember catching the first episode, but I'm not sure why I didn't get hooked. It might have been because I picked up on the "Western" feel of the show, and I typically don't care for the Western genre. I know now that had the idiots at FOX aired the original two-hour pilot, I would have been eased into the whole western thing and probably wouldn't have given it a second thought.


This new obsession began recently when I rented the movie "Serenity" from my local Blockbuster store(which, by the way, had a pathetic amount of shelf space allocated for the movie...it took me three weeks to finally get my hands on a copy). Even though I'm a fan of Joss Whedon's work (Buffy, Angel), I really didn't have any expectations about "Serenity". Well folks, no-to-low expectation movies usually turn out to be among my favorites, some, like "Serenity", ignite the obsessive-compulsive in me and I completely immerse myself in the obsession.


I've dubbed this latest obsession the "Browncoat Quickening"...those familiar with the "Highlander" universe will understand the metaphor. After watching Serenity, I immediately became hooked on the Firefly universe (or 'Verse). The next day, Serenity and the Firefly DVD set joined my DVD library, and the "Browncoat Quickening" began. My head was shaking in disbelief when I finished the original 2-hour pilot (also titled "Serenity"), followed immediately by the pilot that FOX chose to air("The Train Job"). What a complete and unmitigated job of sabotage by the knuckleheads at FOX, the same knuckleheads who cancelled great shows like "Brimstone", "John Doe", "Strange Luck", and ironically, "Dark Angel", whose Season Two FOX sabotaged, cancelled, and replaced with "Firefly". The "Train Job" wasn't a bad episode, but it was an ineffective PILOT episode that rushed to introduce the characters and the Firefly 'Verse...and as I mentioned earlier, stressed the Western-genre flavor of the show before FIRST establishing the character-driven & naturalistic science fiction aspects that are essential for understanding and "getting" the show. Firefly was doomed from the start.

Anyway, following the head-shaking, disbelief, and explicatives, I devoured the remaining Firefly episodes in about a day and a half, then re-watched the movie Serenity with a whole new appreciation...not just for the great movie, but the fact that the movie was even made. And the "Quickening" continues...I've sought out every online Firefly resource, bought the comic book, the collection of Firefly essays, the visual companion, and the Serenity soundtrack.

I am completely hooked and can say without a shred of doubt: Firefly was the best damn television show EVER made, period.