Finding Serenity

Only 28 more days until the release of Serenity, the movie continuation of the cancelled TV series Firefly.

Unlike so much of sci-fi, Firefly is character driven. There's a nine-member ensemble cast of characters whose only real commonality is that they've all, for one reason or another, come to travel on a dinky transport vessel that is mostly used for borderline or extralegal transport operations. Five are the ship's crew, three are paying passengers (smuggling doesn't always pay the bills), and one is a sort of Space Geisha who rents out one of the shuttles in a "mutually beneficial business relationship"--she expands her client base, and having a respectable Registered Companion on board means the ship is welcomed in more places than it otherwise might be. One of the paying passengers is a priest who seems to know an awful lot about non-priestly things like what various caliber weapons will do to human flesh. The other two passengers, a doctor and his genius younger sister, are wanted fugitives with bounties on their heads. Seems the doctor bribed and smuggled his sister out of a government facility where they were doing bizarre medical experiments that left her a telepathic paranoid schizophrenic with remarkable aim.

Tonight at 7 p.m., the Sci-Fi Channel is showing the episode, "Our Mrs. Reynolds." The captain of the ship finds out he has inadevertently gotten married during a party. Actually, it's more like he was given a wife as partial payment for a job. This, you may recall, is a plot device also used in Stargate, though in Firefly, it ends much, much differently. Also, the new Mrs. Reynolds turns out to be a very different kind of wife than Sha're was.

If you don't have the DVDs, set your TiVo. On September 27, the Sci-Fi Channel will show a marathon of all the aired episodes of Firefly and a special behind-the-scenes look at the movie. There are two episodes that were made but never aired originally, and it seems Sci-Fi doesn't have rights to those last two. Shame, though, because those last two are great. At least watch the pilot episode, Serenity, which may be broken up into two parts. After that, I guarantee you'll be lining up at the theater.