Fox's One-Season Sci-Fi Masterpiece Was So Good, A Fan Campaign Revived It For A Movie After It Got Canceled

One of the greatest sci-fi TV shows of all time was canceled after one season, but fan interest managed to resurrect it for a movie follow-up. Plenty of beloved TV shows have been canceled prematurely over the years, sometimes for good reason and sometimes for no reason at all.

Some shows have strong cult followings that don't necessarily appear on a network or streamers' traditional metrics. These groups of fans can wield considerable power when it comes to getting their shows back on the air, and series like Family Guy, Community, and Jericho have their fervent fan bases to thank for their returns.

Firefly had a similarly devoted fanbase. Joss Whedon's 14-episode, 1-season series for Fox is set in the year 2517 and follows the crew of a Firefly-class smuggler's ship called Serenity, most of whom fought on the losing side of a civil war, years ago and now make their livings on the fringes of society as part of a sort of pioneer culture.

The series was a hit with sci-fi fans, but Fox was not worried about having a core contingency of acolytes; they wanted a show with broad appeal. The network canceled the show after 11 of the 14 episodes of the show were aired, and with an average of 4.7 million viewers per episode according to Nielsen, you can understand their thinking (via EOnline).

Then something unexpected happened: Whedon shopped the series around to networks but was denied until he switched his pitch to a film sequel. The sale of over 200,000 copies of the DVD that released around the same time, surely encouraged Barry Mendel and Universal Pictures to take another crack at it (via WeeklyStandard).

Why Firefly Inspired Such An Invested Fandom

Firefly is the perfect confluence of things certain sections of fandom hold dearly: Western tropes, sci-fi settings and characters, and Joss Whedon's punky, sharp-tongued dialogue. The series is in some ways a classic space Western in the mold of Star Wars, Star Trek, and more recent examples like The Expanse.

However, Firefly is like if Star Wars was totally focused on Han Solo's smuggling career, and all the side characters were more variations of Solo. Unlike those examples of space Westerns, Firefly doesn't just use Western tropes to help tell its story; it is like a classic Western TV show ported to outer space.

The heroes are exactly like cowboys in the untamed Wild West, helping out the poor and forgotten, though never being perfect citizens themselves. Villains are often mustache-twirling, and riding off into the sunset is replaced by flying off towards a literal sun. It's a clever combination of the new and the old, and people immediately gravitated to the flavorful series.

Serenity Was A Satisfying Follow-Up To Firefly

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As Joss Whedon said in one of the early showings of Serenity to the 200 fans gathered to watch,

"This movie should not exist. Failed TV shows don't get made into major motion pictures--unless the creator, the cast, and the fans believe beyond reason. . . . It is, in an unprecedented sense, your movie. Which means, if it sucks, it's your fault."

Though he was, of course, being tongue-in-cheek, there's some truth to what Whedon was saying. Just because the movie was a victory for fans did not guarantee that it would be any good, and if you look at its $40 million box office, which barely covered the budget, you would be forgiven for assuming it was a failure (via BoxOfficeMojo).

Critically, the film fared better, with an 82% on Rotten Tomatoes and with fans generally approving of the movie. Serenity loses none of the fun and explosiveness of the show, and that's what hardline fans were searching for most. The biggest compliment you can give Serenity is that it in no way affected the legacy of Firefly, which is still considered among the best sci-fi shows of all time.