Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #305 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-04-19
• Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 4
• Formats: Box set, PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 4
• Running time: 630 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Much praised and much missed after its premature cancellation, Firefly is the first SF TV series to be conceived by Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy and cocreator of Angel. Set five centuries in the future, it is a show where the mysterious personal pasts of the crew of the tramp spaceship Serenity continually surface. In fact, it's a Western in space where the losers in a Civil War are heading out to a barren frontier. Mal Reynolds is a man embittered by the war, yet whose love of his comrades perpetually dents his cynicism--even in the 14 episodes that exist we see him warm to the bubbly young mechanic Kaylee, the preacher Book, the idealistic doctor Simon, even to the often demented River, Simon's sister, the psychic result of malign experiments.

Firefly is also about adult emotional relationships, for example Kaylee's crush on Simon, the happy marriage of Mal's second officer Zoe and the pilot Wash, the disastrous erotic stalemate between Mal and the courtesan Inara. Individual episodes deal with capers going vaguely wrong, or threats narrowly circumvented; character and plot arcs were starting to emerge when the show was cancelled. Fortunately, the spin-off movie Serenity ties up some of the ends; and in the meantime, what there is of Firefly is a show to marvel at, both for its tight writing and ensemble acting, and the idiocy of the executives who cancelled it.

On the DVD: Firefly on DVD is presented in anamorphic 1.78:1 with Dolby Surround Sound. It includes commentaries on six episodes by various writers, directors, designers and cast members as well as featurettes on the conception of the show and the design of the spaceship Serenity, four deleted scenes, a gag reel, and Joss Whedon singing the show's theme tune, more or less. One of the things that emerges from all of this is how committed to the project everyone involved with it was, and is--unusually, you end up caring as much for the cast and crew as for the characters.

DVD Description
Episodes: Serenity (Part 1) Serenity (Part 2) The Train Job Bushwhacked Our Mrs Reynolds Out of Gas Shindig Safe Ariel War Stories Objects in Space Heart of Gold Trash The Message

Special Features

• Audio commentaries from directors, producers, writers and creator Joss Whedon
  
• Deleted scenes
  
• Serenity: The Tenth Character featurette
  
• The Making Of Firefly featurette
  
• Joss Whedon tours the set
  
• Footage from Alan Tudyk's audition
  
• Joss Whedon sings the Firefly theme!
  
• Gag reel
  
• Easter Egg (hidden feature)
  
• Interactive menu
  
• Chapter selection

DVD Technical Information:

• Aspect Ratio: Widescreen 16:9 Anamorphic
  
• Language: English
  
• Region Code: 2

Customer Reviews

Absolutely Brilliant.
I don't write too many reviews but felt compelled to write one for this series. I hadn't seen or even really heard of Firefly but saw it at a good price, the reviews were excellent and I thought I had nothing to loose in buying it. As it turns out, it is one of the best things I have had the pleasure of watching. The characters seem real and you quickly get to care about them, the action is great, the script is sharp and humorous and the story arc is wonderful considering there was only one 14 episode series. After finishing this I bought the film Serenity, which follows on from about two months after the series finished. Again; it was excellent. After watching Serenity, it made me feel a little sad to think that there were no more Firefly episodes to watch...so I put the first disc back in and started again!

Why this was ever canceled I will never know. Highly recommended.

Potentially the best Space Opera since Babylon 5
Series creator Joss Whedon had the superb idea of literally taking the "Wagon Train to the Stars" concept space opera - best exemplified by the original "Star Trek" - by creating this mesmerizing "Western" science fiction television series, "Firefly", which had too short a season. Meddlesome network television executives - FOX in this case - forced Whedon to air the series episodes not in the order they should have been aired, with the result that the final episode ever shown on the FOX network was the two hour pilot "Serenity". "Firefly" is the saga of the crew of the Firefly-class starship Serenity trying to keep themselves one light jump ahead of the totalitarian Alliance of Planets, willing to do any job - legal or otherwise - to keep themselves alive. Whedon created an intriguing cast of characters as the Serenity's crew and passengers; thankfully they may now find themselves a new cinematic lease on life in "Serenity", the forthcoming film adaptation of this series. Judging from the handful of episodes I saw, "Firefly" had the potential of becoming as fine a classic example of televised space opera science fiction as "Babylon 5".

just fab
i am about half way through the series and it is just bloody brilliant. i got into Firefly after watching Serenity on dvd, which is also an excellent purchase. Firefly starts out good and then just gets better and better, i try to enthuse how good it is to my friends but they have never heard of it so it is lost on them. By the time you get to Jaynestown you have built up such a relationship with the characters that you laugh throughout the entire episode. The next episode Out of Gas is totally different with a much more serious episode. Joss Whedon has created a fantastic series that should have had a handful of series and deserves so much more than the one series it got. the acting is excellent and the relationships between characters is absolutly genuine. Nathan Fillion leads a well sorted cast through this stylised future with absolute flourish. a must have addition to any dvd collection rarely has 10 hours of tv been so much fun.
the one bad point is the fairly annoying theme song!!!!!!!!!