http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Series/Firefly

Simon: You had the Alliance on you, criminals and savages; half the people on the ship have been shot or wounded, including yourself — and you're harboring known fugitives.

Mal: We're still flying.

Simon: That's not much.

Mal: It's enough. "Serenity" You had the Alliance on you, criminals and savages; half the people on the ship have been shot or wounded, including yourself — and you're harboring known fugitives.We're still flying.That's not much.It's enough.

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If you're looking for actual fireflies, see Lighting Bug.

Firefly is a Science Fiction Space Western that ran on the FOX Network in the 2002-03 season. It was canceled after 14 episodes were produced, three of which not airing until after the show's cancellation. Its quick cancellation helped give rise to The Firefly Effect. A DVD box set was released in December 2003 and has sold briskly ever since.

In the future, humanity has spread across the stars, terraforming planets for colonization and creating a new frontier reminiscent of the old Wild West. The dominant power in this time is the monolithic Alliance, whose iron grip on the 'verse has tightened after a failed rebellion by a group known as 'Independents' or 'Browncoats' (the latter having become the demonym for the franchise's fandom).

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Malcolm Reynolds is a former Browncoat who now captains a run-down tramp freighter called Serenity. Working as an amoral jack-of-all-trades, he tries to eke out a life for himself and his crew away from the reach of the Alliance. However, things change when he inadvertently lets a deadly Alliance secret board his ship: a Mysterious Waif who was subject to horrific experimentation aiming to turn her into a living weapon.

The show was created by Joss Whedon and Tim Minear (Mutant Enemy Productions), and combined science fictional concepts (interplanetary travel, spaceships, terraforming) with a Western setting (poor agricultural colonies where people ride horses, cattle ranching, cowboy slang). The Firefly universe contains no non-human sentient beings, and in fact no non-Earth-based life at all.

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The cast included:

Hulu has all 14 episodes of the series available for streaming. (NOTE: Does not play outside of the US.) It is also all up for instant stream on Netflix, Amazon Instant and Hulu Plus. Starting March 6th 2011, the show also began playing, in the correct order, on the Science Channel and in glorious HD. This page has a recap page here.

Firefly's life story is an interesting one: despite its early cancellation, it became a runaway cult hit DVD series spawning media including:

Serenity (September 30, 2005): A feature-film continuation released by Universal to critical acclaim making Firefly one of the few canceled television series to be spun off into a major motion picture. It was titled Serenity because FOX still owned the rights to the name Firefly.

R. Tam Sessions (2005): A series of five short Web Videos released online to tie in with the film depicting excerpts of counseling sessions with River Tam while she is held at the The Academy.

Comic Books

Dark Horse Serenity Serenity: Those Left Behind (2005) Serenity: Better Days (2008) Serenity: The Other Half (2008) Serenity: Float Out (2010) Serenity: The Shepherd's Tale (2010) Serenity: Downtime (2010) Serenity: It's Never Easy (2012) Serenity: Leaves on the Wind (2014) Serenity: The Warrior and the Wind (2016) Serenity: No Power in the 'Verse (2016)

Boom! Studios Firefly (2018-) Firefly: Bad Company (2019) Firefly: The Sting (2019) Firefly: The Outlaw Ma Reynolds (2020) Firefly: Blue Sun Rising (2020-) Firefly: Watch How I Soar (2020)



Literature

Serenity (2005): A novelization of the film by Keith R.A. DeCandido.

Firefly: Still Flying (2010): A background book that included Short Stories.

Firefly: Big Damn Hero (2018)

Firefly: The Magnificent Nine (2019)

Firefly: Generations (2020)

Firefly: The Ghost Machine (2020)

Tabletop Games

Serenity Role-Playing Game (2005): The Role-Playing Game based on Serenity. As an interesting note, the company (Margaret Weis Productions) had only the rights to Serenity (meaning that the events of the Firefly series could only be talked about in very Broad Strokes terms within the book proper), yet nevertheless it obtained high acclaim while it was in production. The "second edition" of this game was made using the Firefly rights proper (which, ironically, means that the events of Serenity are the ones getting the Broad Strokes treatment).

Firefly: The Game (2013)

Firefly: Out to the Black (2013)

Firefly Role-Playing Game (2014)

CLUE: Firefly Edition (2014)

Monopoly: Firefly (2014)

Firefly: Tall Card (2015)

Legendary Encounters: A Firefly Deck Building Game (2016)

Firefly Fluxx (2016)

Firefly Adventures: Brigands and Browncoats (2018)

Video Games

Firefly Online: A when-it's-ready MMORPG

There are also constant rumors about a second television series (Whedon and many of the principals have constantly said they would be willing to pick up the show, with Fillion going so far as to say he'd be willing to buy the rights from Fox), and the cult status the series has attained after its premature cancellation may have saved a later Whedon work from a similar fate .

In November 2012, the Science Channel aired a Firefly 10th anniversary special, titled "Browncoats Unite". It featured two of the main writers of the show, Jose Molina and Tim Minear, along with most of the cast, including Nathan Fillion, Adam Baldwin, Summer Glau, Alan Tudyk and Sean Maher, where they did a sort of retrospective of the show's history and its cult-classic status over the past ten years. In addition, Jewel Staite, Gina Torres and Morena Baccarin were interviewed separately and added their own comments on their involvement with the show. The forty-minute special culminated in the writers and actors taking the stage at their Comic-Con panel, which included Joss Whedon himself as well.

This series provides examples of:

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