{ the jaunty magpie }

Take my love, take my land, take me where I cannot stand... I don't care 'cause I'm still free, you can't take the sky from meee.... C'mon, sing along with me, you Nerds! The nice thing about a personal blog is the fact that it's A Personal Blog, so you write about interests and things that are meaningful, even if it is a defunct sci-fi show that's celebrating its tenth anniversary of being kicked off the air but revived in the land of cult fandom and DVDs. The series that I doth speak of is, of course, Firefly, a science fiction-slash-Western series which ran for a whopping 14 episodes on FOX back in 2002. It went from September through December, it didn't even see the light of 2003, save for when it was eventually released on DVDs and it experienced the most amazing act of Television Resurrection you can imagine, spawning a huge following of obsessive fans, making Joss Whedon's name something beyond "That 'Buffy/Angel' Guy," a hit movie (Serenity, 2005), and we thankfully see a lot of the main actors with a healthy work resume since then. 

So to celebrate this marvelous decade-old series, I've got a few Firefly-themed posts for the month of November, because it's a month to be Thankful. I'm Thankful for the fact that this series finally got the recognition it deserved, and people are more crazy about it ten years later than when it premiered to cricket-chirping Nielson ratings back in 2002. If you are a fan of the series and French Surrealism, this quirky illustration will possibly make sense, but if nothing else, I hope it just garners curiosity from non-fans to give the series a whirl. It's not like watching Lost where you have to dedicate 7 seasons to figure out just what the hell is going on.

Even though the anniversary celebrations started back in September, to mark the official start of when Firefly premiered, it's cool that The Science Channel had a special anniversary special on November 11th. I feel like it deserves a prolonged celebration, as the show stretched from fall into winter, plus I recently rewatched some favorite episodes and it hasn't aged a day. Ten years have gone by, but the writing, humor and surprising poignancy woven into each episode is still as resilient as the day it premiered. It wasn't about aliens or using technology as a crutch for interesting storylines -- it was just people trying to live their life, even if it was on the margins, and just find a bit of peace. I still have the VHS tape full of recorded first-run episodes -- yes, with commercials -- because I knew this would be a special show. I wanted to pass the tape around to convince all my friends that this wasn't like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which, incidentally is an equally awesome show, but you know, haters gonna hate. I hoped it would garner this smart, witty, unusual spin on the typical sci-fi genre a few more viewers, but perhaps Firefly was meant to live on in an afterlife of cancelled cult status. I admit, I had a little head-slap-DOH! moment when my Mister bought the series out of the blue and said, "Have you heard about this show? I hear it's good." So let us be nerd-thankful this November, cheer for the Browncoats, go out and have a drink and a fight on U-Day, and most of all: Keep On Flying.

Jaunty Fine Print: graphic by Denise Sakaki, as inspired by artist Rene Magritte and Joss Whedon's Firefly