Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Short version: If you're yearning for some great sci-fi, you owe it to yourself to get to know the crew of Serenity, based on Firefly, the little sci-fi show that wouldn't die.
If you haven't heard, the history of the television show Firefly (on which Serenity is based) harkens back to that of a little known TV show from the 60's that you may have heard of... Star Trek.
Like the original Star Trek series, Firefly gained a strong, hardcore following right from the start. The problem was that the show (created by Joss Whedon whose previous huge hit was Buffy the Vampire Slayer) aired on FOX network. It wasn't the fact that it was FOX so much as the fact that they showed episodes out of the intended order and instead of giving the show a chance cancelled it after only 11 episodes had aired.
Almost immediately the call went out from the dedicated fanbase to try to get another network to pick up the show. Unfortunately none of the networks wanted to give it a shot, but with sales of the DVD version of the series reaching 200,000 units, Universal decided to get a big screen version into production. If word of mouth ends up carrying Serenity into big numbers, all those networks may end up feeling like CBS after they decided to go with Lost in Space instead of Star Trek.
I would actually recommend that you pick up the series on DVD since you can find it as ridiculously low as $35. Take a couple of days over the weekend to watch it and then go see the movie. You'll enjoy Serenity that much more.
With all the comparisons I've made to Star Trek, the similarities end with the cancellation and popularity issues mentioned previously. Serenity is not about a grand mission to explore space, but is instead more like what would happen if a bunch of working class stiffs got hold of a spaceship. Serenity is the name of the ship, a Firefly-class transport that Captain "Mal" Reynolds (Nathan Fillion) purchased as a near-junker sometime after a solar system-wide civil war has taken place, and his side (the Browncoats) lost. He has a rag-tag crew (sorry for the cliche, but it fits) and they spend most of their time doing small-time jobs along the "outer rim", the outskirts of the solar system where the planets are more like the Old West than the gleaming spires of the inner, core planets. Included in the crew are a young doctor and a teenage girl who seems to be suffering from mental problems after having been a victim of experiments by the "Alliance", the government entity that won the war and is not as benign as the core planet citizens believe it to be.
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