Dedication is something you see a lot of in the nerd world. We #trainwrecks love our shows/books/movies/etc to an immense to an even unhealthy degree. We do anything for our them like spend our whole paychecks to see a very tiny, very far away Joss Whedon at comic con. It's completely worth it to us every time too.
I specifically want to speak of who I think is the single most dedicated fan base in the nerd world and that is those of the Browncoats. The Firefly fans. First let's look at the facts
1. This show aired and was cancelled 10 years ago
2. It only had 14 episodes
3. At the time, the actors were not the most famous.
4. It aired out of order
5. It aired on Fox
And yet here we are 10 years later and there is a movie and the Science channel just aired a 10 year anniversary special with most of the cast. It's amazing to see that this show still lives, and it will still live. I can't see the fan base diminishing any time soon and there are many reasons for that.
One of those reasons is definitely the cast and crew. I have never heard of a cast more bonded or more dedicated to a show than the firefly cast. None of them stayed in their trailers when they were not filming. They would all hang out on the ship like they really were the crew on Serenity. Nathan Fillion even said that he fell in love with this show and that Captain Mal was the best character he ever played and ever will play. When he found out the show was cancelled he could not sleep that night. He feared that the production would slow, and they would give up, but that obviously was not the case. He arrived the next morning, and everyone gave it everything they had. If they were going out, they were going out with the best show they could. They kept the mantra of "Whats the worst fox can do? Cancel us?" Even after they wrapped, all the cast remained in touch. Alan Tudyk even hosted a "we don't work for fox anymore" party. I mean they all came back to film the movie too. Nathan could not believe it was really happening. It took a few days of shooting for the surrealism that Joss pulled it off to wear off. The cast's love of the show projected into their performance and made us love the show even more.
The second thing that kept this going is Joss himself. "Don't bet against Joss" said Morena who plays Inara. Joss did not want to see this be the end of his vision. And when Joss decides something, that is it. He will get what he wants. Have you ever watch one of his shows after he has been told it is being cancelled? (Buffy season 7 and Angel season 5). It becomes more amazing. He makes everyone upstairs regret their decisions. Joss did have a lot of road blocks in getting the script to become a feature film. I mean who wants to produce a failed tv show and make it a movie? To most execs that is just throwing money away. Alan even gave him the button from Out of Gas and told Joss to press it when they "got their miracle." And they did. In the end though, it was Joss' belief in his script that made others believe in it too. It was his effort that us Serenity.
And obviously third is the fans themselves. The ones that wait outside for days to get that glimpse of Nathan, Joss, Alan, Adam, Sean, Jewel, Morena, Summer, Ron and Gina. The people who buy and wear the funny looking Jayne hats. The people who watch Castle just hoping Nathan will throw in another reference. These people keep the show going by showing it to others, creating great fan art and writing blogs in dedication to it. Nathan said during last years comic con something to the effect of; the worst thing was not Firefly being cancelled, the worst thing was Firefly dying. But as everyone can see the show is not dying. You can't stop Serenity.
So this post is for all of you. All the people that believed in this little show and created something more out of it. We thank you!
