A DVD SECOND SEASON for Firefly?

Let’s say that Joss Whedon, creator of Firefly, wanted to bring the series back to air. (Though “back to air” is a TV phrase now as anachronistically quaint as “switching the dial.”) Let’s say he found a million Firefly fans online—and, trust me, they’re not hiding—who were willing to pay, say, $39.99 each for a sixteen-episode season of Firefly. (Not an unreasonable price, given how many people pay about that amount for full seasons on DVD.) Suddenly, Joss Whedon’s got roughly $40 million to play with—and he doesn’t need a network. Or a time slot. Or advertisers. He can beam the damn shows right to your computer if he wants to.

Great idea. But it’s a hypothetical. I actually asked Firefly executive producer Tim Minear about this kind of thing the other day, and he said there’s nothing like this in the works.

Maybe he should have added “yet.” Read the whole article, which has lots of interesting insights. (Via Bill Adams).

And this bit certainly describes my experience to a tee:

This summer, Universal did something kind of weird: It released Serenity, a sci-fi movie based on a poorly rated TV show, Firefly, that had been canceled after eleven episodes. Making movies of hit TV shows has a self-explanatory logic, but there aren’t too many movies based on TV flops. But I saw Serenity and liked it a lot, so I went out and bought the entire run of the Firefly TV series on DVD, watched it, and liked it a lot as well.

I bought the DVD set and enjoyed it too. I’d actually rather watch DVDs than regular TV.

And here’s a Blogcritics review of Firefly.