Firefly and Serenity

Jennie and Jonathan got Dan and I into this series and movie created by Joss Whedon, and we were hooked. "Firefly" is a series Joss Whedon started that was tragically canceled after its first season. Serenity is the movie he made after the cancellation, I guess to take the story where it had been headed in the series. The genre is Sci-fi Western, which is fun. The major conflict is man vs. THE MAN, which is always relevant. What makes the show/movie great though is what generally makes a work of fiction great in my book, character and dialogue. I fell in love with the characters easily and quickly. The casting is fantastic. The dialogue is witty, and I often laugh out loud, but at the same time, the drama is also intense. The series is better than the movie, but I'm glad Whedon was able to make the movie, so that we could get an idea of the full vision. After finishing the series, I was seriously bummed that there was only one season made, but then, my experience with Whedon's "Buffy" and "Angel" has been that a Whedon series goes down hill after a couple of seasons, so maybe it's good that "Firefly" never got to go down hill. (Actually I had some issues with the two episodes before the last one, which was great, so maybe signs of the downward turn were already there---I'll console myself with that thought).