FIREFLY - MICHAEL FAIRMAN as Adlai Niska - Personally Signed Autograph Card 2006

Firefly is an American space western drama television series created by writer and director Joss Whedon, under his Mutant Enemy Productions label. Whedon served as an executive producer, along with Tim Minear. The series is set in the year 2517, after the arrival of humans in a new star system and follows the adventures of the renegade crew of Serenity, a "Firefly-class" spaceship.

The ensemble cast portrays the nine characters who live on Serenity. Whedon pitched the show as "nine people looking into the blackness of space and seeing nine different things".

The show explores the lives of a group of people who fought on the losing side of a civil war and others who now make a living on the fringe of society, as part of the pioneer culture of their star system. In this future, the only two surviving superpowers, the United States and China, fused to form the central federal government, called the Alliance, resulting in the fusion of the two cultures. According to Whedon's vision, "nothing will change in the future: technology will advance, but we will still have the same political, moral, and ethical problems as today".

Firefly premiered in the U.S. on the Fox network on September 20, 2002. By mid-December, Firefly had averaged 4.7 million viewers per episode and was 98th in Nielsen ratings. It was canceled after eleven of the fourteen produced episodes were aired. Despite the relatively short life span of the series, it received strong sales when it was released on DVD and has large fan support campaigns. It won a Primetime Emmy Award in 2003 for Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Series. TV Guide ranked the series at No. 5 on their 2013 list of 60 shows that were "Cancelled Too Soon".

The post-airing success of the show led Whedon and Universal Pictures to produce Serenity, a 2005 film which continues from the story of the series, and the Firefly franchise expanded to other media, including comics and a role-playing game.

Backstory:

The series takes place in the year 2517, on a variety of planets and moons. The TV series does not reveal whether these celestial bodies are within one star system, only saying that Serenity's mode of propulsion is a "gravity-drive".

The film Serenity makes clear that all the planets and moons are in one large system, and production documents related to the film indicate that there is no faster-than-light travel in this universe. The characters occasionally refer to "Earth-that-was", and the film establishes that, long before the events in the series, a large population had emigrated from Earth to a new star system in generation ships: "Earth-that-was could no longer sustain our numbers, we were so many". The emigrants established themselves in this new star system, with "dozens of planets and hundreds of moons". Many of these were terraformed, a process in which a planet or moon is altered to resemble Earth. The terraforming process was only the first step in making a planet habitable, however, and the outlying settlements often did not receive any further support in the construction of their civilizations. This resulted in many of the border planets and moons having forbidding, dry environments, well-suited to the Western genre. Synopsis: The show takes its name from the "Firefly-class" spaceship, Serenity, that the central characters call home. It resembles a firefly in general arrangement, and the tail section, analogous to a bioluminescent insectoid abdomen, lights up during acceleration. The ship was named after the Battle of Serenity Valley, where Mal and Zoe were on the losing side. It is revealed in "Bushwhacked" that the Battle of Serenity Valley is widely considered the loss which sealed the fate of the Independents. Throughout the series, the Alliance is shown to govern the star system through an organization of "core" planets, following its success in forcibly unifying all the colonies under a single government. DVD commentary suggests that the Alliance is composed of two primary "core" systems, one predominantly Western in culture, the other pan-Asian, justifying the mixed linguistic and visual themes of the series. The central planets are firmly under Alliance control, but the outlying planets and moons resemble the 19th-century American West, with little governmental authority. Settlers and refugees on the outlying worlds have relative freedom from the central government, but lack the amenities of the high-tech civilization that exists on the inner worlds. In addition, the outlying areas of space ("the black") are inhabited by the Reavers, a cannibalistic group of nomadic humans that have become savage and animalistic. The captain of the crew of Serenity is Malcolm "Mal" Reynolds (Nathan Fillion) and the episode "Serenity" establishes that the captain and his first mate Zoe Washburne (Gina Torres) are veteran "Browncoats" of the Unification War, a failed attempt by the outlying worlds to resist the Alliance's assertion of control. A later episode, titled "Out of Gas", reveals that Mal bought the spaceship Serenity to continue living beyond Alliance control. Much of the crew's work consists of cargo runs or smuggling. One of the main story arcs is that of River Tam (Summer Glau) and her brother Simon (Sean Maher). River is a child prodigy, whose brain was subjected to experiments at the hands of Alliance scientists at a secret government institution. As a result, she displays schizophrenia and often hears voices. It is later revealed that she is a "reader", one who possesses telepathic abilities. Simon gave up a career as a highly successful trauma surgeon to rescue her from the Alliance, and as a result of this rescue they are both wanted fugitives. In the original pilot "Serenity", Simon joins the crew as a paying passenger with River smuggled on board as cargo. As Whedon states in an episodic DVD commentary, every show he does is about creating family. By the last episode, "Objects in Space", the fractured character of River has finally become whole, partly because the others decided to accept her into their "family" on the ship. Signature show elements: The show blended elements from the space opera and Western genres, depicting humanity's future in a manner different from most contemporary science fiction programs in that there are no large space battles. Firefly takes place in a multi-cultural future, primarily a fusion of Western and East Asian cultures, where there is a significant division between the rich and poor. As a result of the Sino-American Alliance, Mandarin Chinese is a common second language; it is used in advertisements, and characters in the show frequently use Chinese words as curses. According to the DVD commentary on the episode "Serenity", this was explained as being the result of China and the United States being the two superpowers that expanded into space. The show also features slang not used in contemporary culture, such as adaptations of modern words, or new words altogether. For example, "shiny" is frequently used in a similar manner as the real world slang "cool", and "gorram" is used as a mild swear word. Written and spoken Chinese as well as Old West dialect are also employed. As one reviewer noted: "The dialogue tended to be a bizarre purée of wisecracks, old-timey Western-paperback patois, and snatches of Chinese". Tim Minear and Joss Whedon pointed out two scenes that, they believed, articulated the mood of the show exceptionally clearly. One scene is in the original pilot "Serenity", when Mal is eating with chopsticks and a Western tin cup is by his plate; the other is in "The Train Job" pilot, when Mal is thrown out of a holographic bar window. The DVD set's "making-of" documentary explains the distinctive frontispiece of the series (wherein Serenity soars over a herd of horses) as Whedon's attempt to capture "everything you need to understand about the series in five seconds". One of the struggles that Whedon had with Fox was the tone of the show, especially with the main character Malcolm Reynolds. Fox pressured Whedon to make Mal more "jolly", as they feared he was too dark in the original pilot, epitomized by the moment he suggests he might "space" Simon and River, throwing them out of the airlock to die. In addition, Fox was not happy that the show involved the "nobodies" who "get squished by policy" instead of the actual policy makers. Cast: Main characters: Firefly maintained an ensemble cast that portrayed nine crew members and passengers of the ship, Serenity. These characters fight criminals and schemers, Alliance security forces, the utterly psychotic and brutal Reavers, and the mysterious men with "hands of blue"—who are apparently operatives of a secret agency which is part of the megacorporation referred to in the DVD commentary only as The Blue Sun Corporation. The crew is driven by the need to secure enough income to keep their ship operational, set against their need to keep a low profile to avoid their adversaries. Their situation is greatly complicated by the divergent motivations of the individuals on board Serenity, but complex characterization was hampered by the show's brief run. All nine of the main characters appeared in every episode, with the exception of "Ariel", from which Book is absent—he was meditating at an abbey. Nathan Fillion as Malcolm "Mal" Reynolds—the owner and captain of Serenity and former Independent sergeant in the pivotal Battle of Serenity Valley. Malcolm grew up on a ranch, and was raised by his mother and the ranch hands. In the Unification War, he fought for the Independent Army, the "Browncoats", as a platoon sergeant in the 57th Overlanders. He is cunning, a capable leader and a skilled fighter. Mal's main character drive is his will for independence. While he is not above petty theft, smuggling or even killing to maintain his free lifestyle, he is generally honest in his dealings with others, fiercely loyal to his crew and closely follows a personal moral code. He is openly antagonistic toward religion. Gina Torres as Zoe Alleyne Washburne—second-in-command onboard Serenity, a loyal wartime friend of Captain Reynolds, and the wife of Wash. Her surname during the Unification War was Alleyne. She was born and raised on a ship and served under Mal during the war as a corporal. Described by her husband as a "warrior woman", she is a capable fighter who keeps calm even in the most dangerous situations. She demonstrates an almost unconditional loyalty to Mal, the only exception noted being her marriage to Wash, which the captain claims was against his orders. Alan Tudyk as Hoban "Wash" Washburne—Serenity's pilot and Zoe's husband. Deeply in love with his wife, Wash expresses jealousy over his wife's "war buddy" relationship and unconditional support of their captain, most particularly in the episode "War Stories", in which he confronts Mal regarding their relationship. He joined pilot training just to see the stars, which were invisible from the surface of his polluted homeworld, and he joined Serenity despite being highly sought after by other ships. He is very light-hearted and tends to make amusing comments, despite the severity of any situation. Morena Baccarin as Inara Serra—a Companion, which is the 26th century cross between a geisha and an escort or mistress, who rents one of Serenity's two small shuttles. Inara enjoys high social standing. Her presence confers a degree of legitimacy and social acceptance the crew of Serenity would not have without her on board. Inara displays great dignity, civility and compassion. There is strong romantic tension between her and Mal, who share many character traits, but each jokingly objects to the other's "whoring" or "petty theft", respectively. Both refuse to act on their feelings, and try to keep their relationship professional. Adam Baldwin as Jayne Cobb—a mercenary. He and Mal met on opposite sides of a rivalry; Mal, while held at gunpoint, offered Jayne his own bunk and a higher cut than his current employer, so he turned coat and shot his then-partners. In the original Pilot "Serenity" he intimates to Mal that he did not betray him because "The money wasn't good enough." However, previously he had pointedly asked the Alliance agent whether he would be required to turn on the captain to help him, and in "Ariel" defends his actions alerting the authorities regarding Simon and River by claiming he had not intended to betray Mal. He is someone who can be depended on in a fight. He tends to act like a "lummox" who thinks he is the smartest person in space, but occasional hints of intelligence peek through this façade, giving the impression that he acts dumber than he is. As Whedon states several times, Jayne is the man who will ask the questions that no one else wants to. Even though he is a macho character, he has shown a particularly intense fear of Reavers, more so than the rest of the crew. Despite his amoral mercenary persona, he sends a significant portion of his income to his mother, again suggesting that there is more to his character than what he presents to the rest of the crew. Jewel Staite as Kaywinnet Lee "Kaylee" Frye—the ship's mechanic. In the episode "Out of Gas", it is established that she has no formal training, but keeps Serenity running with an intuitive gift for the workings of mechanical equipment. Jewel Staite explains Kaylee's character as being wholesome, sweet, and "completely genuine in that sweetness", adding "She loves being on that ship. She loves all of those people. And she is the only one who loves all of them incredibly genuinely." She has a crush on Dr. Simon Tam. Kaylee is the heart of the ship: according to creator Joss Whedon, if Kaylee believes something, it is true. Sean Maher as Dr. Simon Tam—a trauma surgeon of the first caliber (top 3% in his class at a top core-planet institution), who is on the run after breaking his sister River out of a government research facility. In the episode "Safe", it is revealed that he and River had a privileged upbringing with access to the best education. In rescuing River over his stern father's severe objections, Simon sacrificed a highly successful future in medicine. His bumbling attempts at a romantic relationship with Kaylee are a recurring subplot throughout the series, and at every turn he seems to find a way to unwittingly foil his own attempts at romance. His life is defined by caring for his sister. Summer Glau as River Tam—smuggled onto the ship by her brother. A highly intelligent, compassionate and intuitive child prodigy. Experiments and invasive brain surgery at an Alliance secret facility left her delusional, paranoid, and at times violent, though her uncanny ability to seemingly sense things before they happen leaves questions as to where the delusions end and reality begins for her. The experiments seemed to have made her a psychic. The experiments also gave her with a seemingly innate ability in hand-to-hand combat, and she is capable of killing or incapacitating several stronger opponents with ease. She gets frequent fits of anxiety and experiences post-traumatic flashbacks of her time in the Alliance facility. Her mental instability and uncanny abilities, paired with several erratic and violent acts, are a recurring source of fear and doubt among the crew, especially with Jayne, whom she once slashed with a knife. Jayne very frequently requests that River and Simon be taken off the ship. Ron Glass as Derrial Book—a Shepherd (equivalent to a pastor). Although presented as a devout Christian, Book has profound, unexplained knowledge about criminal activities, police corruption, and military strategy, tactics, and weapons. In "Safe", he was shown to have sufficient status in the Alliance to receive emergency medical treatment from an Alliance ship, with no questions asked. He is also proficient in hand-to-hand combat and the use of firearms. While objecting to violence most of the time, on a rescue mission he joins the fight, stating that while the Bible is quite specific about killing, it is "somewhat fuzzier on the subject of kneecaps". Book is a moral guide for Mal and the rest of the crew, a voice of reason, conscience and spirituality. At the same time, he seems to get along well with the amoral mercenary Jayne, with the two spotting each other while working out using a bench press. His hidden backstory would have been gradually revealed, had the series continued, but was instead explored in the 2010 comic book The Shepherd's Tale. Recurring characters: Despite the series' short run, several recurring characters emerged from the inhabitants of the Firefly universe: Mark Sheppard as Badger – an established smuggling middleman on the planet Persephone. He provided jobs for Serenity on at least two occasions. In the DVD commentary for the episode "Serenity", it was revealed that this part was originally written with the intention of Whedon himself playing the part. Badger appeared in the original pilot "Serenity" and in "Shindig", with a return in the comic book series Serenity: Those Left Behind. Michael Fairman as Adelai Niska – a criminal kingpin who has a reputation for violent reprisals, including severe, prolonged torture, against those who fail him or even irritate him. He appeared in "The Train Job" and "War Stories". Christina Hendricks as "Saffron" – a con artist whose real name is unknown. She first appeared in the episode "Our Mrs. Reynolds" as Mal's involuntarily acquired wife. She has a habit of marrying her marks during her scams. She returns in episode "Trash", where Mal jokingly addresses her as "YoSaffBridge", a portmanteau of three of her aliases, "Yolanda", "Saffron", and "Bridget". Jeff Ricketts and Dennis Cockrum as "The Hands of Blue" – two anonymous men wearing suits and blue gloves who pursue River, apparently to return her to the institute from which she escaped, as shown in "The Train Job", "Ariel", and the Serenity: Those Left Behind comic. They kill anyone, including Alliance personnel, who had contact with her, using a mysterious hand-held device that causes fatal hemorrhaging in anyone at whom it is aimed. River, during anxiety attacks or psychological meltdowns, has repeated the phrase "Two by two/hands of blue" in a way that resembles poetic meter. This suggests that River has had close experience(s) with them. Origin: Whedon developed the concept for the show after reading The Killer Angels, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Michael Shaara chronicling the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War. He wanted to follow people who had fought on the losing side of a war and their experiences afterwards as pioneers and immigrants on the outskirts of civilization, much like the post-American Civil War era of Reconstruction and the American Old West culture. He intended the show to be "a Stagecoach kind of drama with a lot of people trying to figure out their lives in a bleak pioneer environment". Whedon wanted to develop a show about the tactile nature of life, a show where existence was more physical and more difficult. After reading The Killer Angels, Whedon read a book about Jewish partisan fighters in World War II that also influenced him. Whedon wanted to create something for television that was more character-driven and gritty than most modern science fiction. Television science fiction, he felt, had become too pristine and rarefied. Whedon wanted to give the show a name that indicated movement and power, and felt that "Firefly" had both. This powerful word's relatively insignificant meaning, Whedon felt, added to its allure. He eventually wound up creating the ship in the image of a firefly. Format: During filming of the pilot episode, Whedon was still arguing with Fox that the show should be displayed in widescreen format. Consequently, he purposely filmed scenes with actors on the extreme edge of both sides so that they could only be shown in widescreen. This led to a few scenes on the DVD (and later Blu-ray) where objects or setups that were not visible in the original 4:3 broadcasts were now displayed—such as the scene in the pilot where Wash mimes controlling the ship with a non-existent yoke. However, the pilot was rejected by the Fox executives, who felt that it lacked action and that the captain was too "dour". They also disliked a scene in which the crew backed down to a crime boss, since the scene implied the crew was "being nothing". Thus, Fox told Whedon on a Friday afternoon that he had to submit a new pilot script on Monday morning or the show would not be picked up. Whedon and Tim Minear closeted themselves for the weekend to write what became the new pilot, "The Train Job". At the direction of Fox, they added "larger than life" characters such as the henchman "Crow", and the "hands of blue" men, who also introduced an X-Files-type ending. For the new pilot, Fox made it clear that they would not air the episodes in the widescreen format. Whedon and company felt they had to "serve two masters" by filming widescreen for eventual DVD release, but keeping objects in frame so it could still work when aired in pan and scan full frame. To obtain an immersive and immediate feel, the episodes were filmed in a documentary style with hand-held cameras, giving them the look of "found footage", with deliberately misframed or out-of-focus subjects. As Whedon related: "...don't be arch, don't be sweeping—be found, be rough and tumble and documentary and you-are-there". Computer-generated scenes mimicked the motion of a hand-held camera. This style was not used, however, when shooting scenes that involved the central government, the Alliance. Tracking and steady cameras were used to show the sterility of this aspect of the Firefly universe. Another style employed was lens flares harking back to 1970s television. This style was so desired that the director of photography, David Boyd, sent back the cutting-edge lenses which reduced lens flare in exchange for cheaper ones. Unlike most other science fiction shows, which add sound to space scenes for dramatic effect, Firefly portrays space as silent, because a vacuum cannot transmit sound. Set design: Production designer Carey Meyer built the ship Serenity in two parts (one for each level) as a complete set with ceilings and practical lighting installed as part of the set that the cameras could use along with moveable parts. The two-part set also allowed the second unit to shoot in one section while the actors and first unit worked undisturbed in the other. As Whedon recalled: "...you could pull it away or move something huge, so that you could get in and around everything. That meant the environment worked for us and there weren't a lot of adjustments that needed to be made." There were other benefits to this set design. One was that it allowed the viewers to feel they were really in a ship. For Whedon, the design of the ship was crucial in defining the known space for the viewer, and that there were not "fourteen hundred decks and a holodeck and an all-you-can-eat buffet in the back". He wanted to convey that it was utilitarian and that it was "beat-up but lived-in and ultimately, it was home". As Joss Whedon discusses in the DVD commentary, each room represented a feeling or character, usually conveyed by the paint color. He explains that as you move from the back of the ship in the engine room, toward the front of the ship to the bridge, the colors and mood progress from extremely warm to cooler. Besides evoking a mood associated with the character who spends most time in each area, the color scheme also alludes to the heat generated in the tail of the ship. Whedon was also keen on utilizing vertical space; thus, having the crew's quarters accessible by ladder was important. Another benefit of the set design was that it also allowed the actors to stay in the moment and interact, without having to stop after each shot and reset up for the next. This helped contribute to the documentary style Whedon strove for. The set had several influences, including the sliding doors and tiny cubicles reminiscent of Japanese hotels. Artist Larry Dixon has noted that the cargo bay walls are "reminiscent of interlaced, overlapping Asian designs, cleverly reminding us of the American-Chinese Alliance setting while artistically forming a patterned plane for background scale reference". Dixon has also remarked on how the set design contributed to the storytelling through the use of color, depth and composition, lighting, as well as its use of diagonals and patterned shadows. Their small budget was another reason to use the ship for much of the storytelling. When the characters did go off the ship, the worlds all had Earth atmosphere and coloring because they could not afford to design alien worlds. "I didn't want to go to Yucca Flats every other episode and transform it into Bizarro World by making the sky orange", recalled Whedon. As Meyer recalled: "I think in the end the feel was that we wound up using a lot of places or exteriors that just felt too Western and we didn't necessarily want to go that way; but at some point, it just became the lesser of two evils—what could we actually create in three days?" Music: Greg Edmonson composed the musical score for the series. He stated that he wrote for the emotion of the moment. However, one reviewer averred that he also wrote for the characters, stating: "Edmonson has developed a specialized collection of musical symbolism for the series". To help illustrate the collection, the reviewer gave key leitmotifs, or "signatures", various names, noting that "Serenity" recalls the theme of the show and is used when they return to the ship, or when they were meeting clandestinely; it was "the sound of their home". The slide guitar and fiddle used in this piece are portable instruments which fit the lifestyle of the crew: "the music they make calls up tunes played out in the open, by people who were hundreds of miles away yesterday. 'Serenity' conjures the nomadic lifestyle the crew leads and underlines the western aspect of the show." Another emotional signature was "Sad Violin". It was used at the end of the Battle of Serenity Valley, but also helped set up the joke for when Mal tells Simon that Kaylee is dead in the episode "Serenity". The most memorable use of "Sad Violin", however, is at the end of "The Message", when the crew mourned the death of Tracey. This was also the last scene of the last episode the actors shot, and so this was seen by them, and Edmonson, as Firefly's farewell. To denote impending danger, "Peril" was used, which is "a low pulse, like a heartbeat, with deep chimes and low strings". The reviewer also noted character signatures. The criminal Niska has his own signature: Eastern European or Middle Eastern melodies over a low drone. Simon and River's signature was a piano played sparsely with a violin in the background. This is in contrast to the portable instruments of "Serenity": the piano is an instrument that cannot be easily moved and evokes the image of "the distant house and family they both long for". The various signatures were mostly established in the first pilot, "Serenity", and helped enhance the narrative. In every episode, the musical score intensified my experience of this intelligent, remarkable show. Using and combining all these signatures, Greg Edmonson brought out aspects of Firefly's story and characters that were never explicitly revealed in the other elements of the series. The musical score expressed the cultural fusion depicted in the show. Cowboy guitar blended with Asian influence produced the atmospheric background for the series. As one reviewer stated: Old music from the future—the music of roaring campfires and raucous cowboys mixed with the warm, pensive sounds of Asian culture and, occasionally, a cold imperial trumpet, heralding the ominous structural presence of a domineering government. Completely thrilling. —Steve Townsley The show's theme song, "The Ballad of Serenity", was written by Joss Whedon and performed by Sonny Rhodes. Whedon wrote the song before the series was greenlit and a preliminary recording performed by Whedon can be found on the DVD release. The soundtrack to the series was released on CD on November 8, 2005, by Varèse Sarabande, although a 40-minute soundtrack was released by Fox Music in September 2005 as a digital EP. "The Ballad of Serenity" was used by NASA as the wake-up song for astronaut Robert L. Behnken and the other crewmembers of STS-130 on February 12, 2010. Casting: In casting his nine-member crew, Whedon looked first at the actors and considered their chemistry with others. Cast member Sean Maher recalls, "So then he just sort of put us all together, and I think it was very quick, like right out of the gate, we all instantly bonded". All nine cast members were chosen before filming began. However, while filming the original pilot "Serenity", Whedon decided that Rebecca Gayheart was unsuitable for the role of Inara Serra, and shot her scenes in singles so that it would be easier to replace her. Morena Baccarin auditioned for the role and two days later was on the set in her first television show. "Joss brought me down from the testing room like a proud dad, holding my hand and introducing me," Baccarin recalled. Whedon approached Nathan Fillion to play the lead role of Malcolm Reynolds; after Whedon explained the premise and showed him the treatment for the pilot, Fillion was eager for the role. Fillion was called back several times to read for the part before he was cast. He noted that "it was really thrilling. It was my first lead and I was pretty nervous, but I really wanted that part and I wanted to tell those stories." Fillion later said he was "heartbroken" when he learned the series had been cancelled. Fillion has called his time on Firefly the best acting job he ever had, and compares every job he has had to it. Alan Tudyk applied through a casting office and several months later was called in for an audition, where he met with Whedon. He was called back to test with two candidates for the role of Zoe (Wash's wife) and was told that it was down to him and one other candidate. The Zoes he tested with were not selected (Gina Torres eventually received the role) and Tudyk was sent home, but received a call informing him he had the part anyway. His audition tape is included in the special features of the DVD release. Gina Torres, a veteran of several science fiction/fantasy works (Cleopatra 2525, The Matrix Reloaded, Alias, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys), was at first uninterested in doing another science fiction show, but "was won over by the quality of the source material". As she recalled, "you had these challenged characters inhabiting a challenging world and that makes for great storytelling. And no aliens!" For Adam Baldwin, who grew up watching westerns, the role of Jayne Cobb was particularly resonant. Canadian actress Jewel Staite videotaped her audition from Vancouver and was asked to come to Los Angeles to meet Whedon, at which point she was cast for the role of Kaylee Frye, the ship's engineer. Sean Maher recalls reading for the part and liking the character of Simon Tam, but that it was Whedon's personality and vision that "sealed the deal" for him. For the role of Simon's sister, River Tam, Whedon called in Summer Glau for an audition and test the same day. Glau had first worked for Whedon in the Angel episode "Waiting in the Wings". Two weeks later, Whedon called her to tell her she had the part. Veteran television actor Ron Glass has said that until Firefly, he had not experienced or sought a science-fiction or western role, but he fell in love with the pilot script and the character of Shepherd Book. Production staff: Tim Minear was selected by Whedon to be the show runner, who serves as the head writer and production leader. According to Whedon "Minear understood the show as well as any human being, and just brought so much to it that I think of it as though he were always a part of it". Many of the other production staff were selected from people Whedon had worked with in the past, with the exception of the director of photography David Boyd, who was the "big find" and who was "full of joy and energy". The writers were selected after interviews and script samplings. Among the writers were José Molina, Ben Edlund, Cheryl Cain, Brett Matthews, Drew Z. Greenberg and Jane Espenson. Espenson wrote an essay on the writing process with Mutant Enemy Productions. A meeting is held and an idea is floated, generally by Whedon, and the writers brainstorm to develop the central theme of the episode and the character development. Next, the writers (except the one working on the previous week's episode) meet in the anteroom to Whedon's office to begin 'breaking' the story into acts and scenes. For the team, one of the key components to devising acts is deciding where to break for commercial and ensuring the viewer returns. "Finding these moments in the story help give it shape: think of them as tentpoles that support the structure". For instance, in "Shindig", the break for commercial occurs when Malcolm Reynolds is gravely injured and losing the duel. "It does not end when Mal turns the fight around, when he stands victorious over his opponent. They're both big moments, but one of them leaves you curious and the other doesn't." Next, the writers develop the scenes onto a marker-filled whiteboard, featuring "a brief ordered description of each scene". A writer is selected to create an outline of the episode's concept—occasionally with some dialogue and jokes—in one day. The outline is given to showrunner Tim Minear, who revises it within a day. The writer uses the revised outline to write the first draft of the script while the other writers work on developing the next. This first draft is usually submitted for revision within three to fourteen days; afterward, a second and sometimes third draft is written. After all revisions are made, the final draft would be produced as the 'shooting draft'. Costume: Jill Ohanneson, Firefly's original costume designer, brought on Shawna Trpcic as her assistant for the pilot. When the show was picked up, Ohanneson was involved in another job and declined Firefly, suggesting Trpcic for the job. The costumes were chiefly influenced by World War II, the American Civil War, the American Old West, and 1861 samurai Japan. Trpcic used deep reds and oranges for the main cast, to express a feeling of "home", and contrasted that with grays and cool blues for the Alliance. Since the characters were often getting shot, Trpcic would make up to six versions of the same costume for multiple takes. For River, mostly jewel tones were used to set her apart from the rest of the Serenity crew. River had boots to contrast with the soft fabrics of her clothes, "because that's who she is—she's this soft, beautiful, sensitive girl, but with this hardcore inner character," recalled Trpcic. The designers also wanted to contrast Simon, River's brother, with the rest of the crew. Whereas they were dressed in cotton, Simon wore wool, stiff fabrics, satins and silk. He was originally the "dandy", but as the show progressed, he loosened up slightly. For Kaylee, Trpcic studied up on Japanese and Chinese youth, as originally the character was Asian. Other inspirations for Kaylee's costumes were Rosie the Riveter and Chinese Communist posters. Inara's costumes reflect her high status, and are very feminine and attractive. Trpcic designed and created the clothes for the minor character of Badger with Joss Whedon in mind, since he intended to play that part. When Mark Sheppard played the role instead, he was able to fit into the clothes made for Whedon. For the Alliance, besides the grays and cool blues, Trpcic had in mind Nazi Germany, but mixed it with different wars, as the first sketches were "too Nazi". The uniforms of the Alliance soldiers are from the 1997 film Starship Troopers. In the commentary for the pilot episode Whedon points out that "bad guys wear hats, good guys don't". Unproduced episodes: Since the cancellation of the series, various cast and crew members have revealed details they had planned for the show's future: Alan Tudyk had the idea for an episode about a planet that is always day on one side, and night on the other. On the night side, Jayne accidentally spills a type of pheromone on himself and the crew, which attracts a species of dogs. The crew are chased back to the ship by these dogs. There River uses her mind powers to domesticate the dogs. Adam Baldwin wanted to make an episode in which Jayne goes up against Mal as captain of his own ship. Tim Minear revealed the secret of Inara's syringe, as seen in the pilot episode; she is infected with a deadly disease. There would have been an episode where she is gang-raped by Reavers. Because she injected herself with the syringe, all of the Reavers on the ship die. According to Nathan Fillion, there was an episode in which the crew land on a dying planet. The inhabitants try to steal Serenity, after they explain to the crew about their need to get off the planet. The problem is that unless they were to run into another ship along the way, with the extra passengers, Serenity would not have enough fuel and oxygen to make it to the closest destination. While everyone else is asleep, Mal takes the ship himself and discovers that help never would have arrived. Reception: Critical response: Many reviews focused on the show's fusion of Wild West and outer space motifs. TV Guide's Matt Roush, for instance, called the show "oddball" and "offbeat", and noted how literally the series took the metaphor of space operas as Westerns. Roush opined that the shift from space travel to horseback was "jarring", but that once he got used to this, he found the characters cleverly conceived, and the writing a crisp balance of action, tension and humor. Several reviewers, however, criticized the show's setting; Tim Goodman of the San Francisco Chronicle felt that the melding of the western and science fiction genres was a "forced hodgepodge of two alarmingly opposite genres just for the sake of being different" and called the series a "vast disappointment", and Carina Chocano of Salon.com said that while the "space as Wild West" metaphor is fairly redundant, neither genre connected to the present. Emily Nussbaum of the New York Times, reviewing the DVD set, noted that the program featured "an oddball genre mix that might have doomed it from the beginning: it was a character-rich sci-fi western comedy-drama with existential underpinnings, a hard sell during a season dominated by Joe Millionaire". The Boston Globe described Firefly as a "wonderful, imaginative mess brimming with possibility". The review further notes the difference between the new series and other programs was that those shows "burst onto the scene with slick pilots and quickly deteriorate into mediocrity... Firefly is on the opposite creative journey." Jason Snell called the show one of the best on television, and one "with the most potential for future brilliance". Reviewers also compared Firefly to Whedon's other series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Chocano noted that the series lacks the psychological tension of Buffy, and suggests that this might be attributable to the episodes being aired out of order. MSN, on the other hand, pointed out that after viewing the DVD boxed set it was easy to see why the program had attracted many die-hard fans. "All of Whedon's fingerprints are there: the witty dialogue, the quirky premises and dark exploration of human fallacy that made Buffy brilliant found their way to this space drama". Fandom: Firefly generated a loyal base of fans during its three-month original broadcast run on Fox in late 2002. These fans, self-styled Browncoats, used online forums to organize and try to save the series from being canceled by Fox only three months after its debut. Their efforts included raising money for an ad in Variety magazine and a postcard writing campaign to UPN. While unsuccessful in finding a network that would continue the show, their support led to a release of the series on DVD in December 2003. A subsequent fan campaign raised over $14,000 in donations to have a purchased Firefly DVD set placed aboard 250 U.S. Navy ships by April 2004 for recreational viewing by their crews. These and other continuing fan activities eventually persuaded Universal Studios to produce a feature film, Serenity. (The title of Serenity was chosen, according to Whedon, because Fox still owned the rights to the name 'Firefly'). Numerous early screenings of rough film cuts were held for existing fans starting in May 2005 as an attempt to create a buzz to increase ticket sales when the final film cut was released widely on September 30, 2005. The film was not as commercially successful as fans had hoped, opening at number two and making only $40 million worldwide during its initial theatrical release. On June 23, 2006, fans organized the first worldwide charity screenings of Serenity in 47 cities, dubbed as Can't Stop the Serenity or CSTS, an homage to the movie's tagline, "Can't stop the signal". The event raised over $65,000 for Whedon's favorite charity, Equality Now. In 2007, $106,000 was raised; in 2008, $107,219; and in 2009, $137,331. In July 2006, a fan-made documentary was released, titled Done the Impossible, and is commercially available. The documentary relates the story of the fans and how the show has affected them, and features interviews with Whedon and various cast members. Part of the DVD proceeds are donated to Equality Now. NASA Browncoat astronaut Steven Swanson took the Firefly and Serenity DVDs with him on Space Shuttle Atlantis's STS-117 mission in June 2007. The DVDs were added to the media collection on the International Space Station as entertainment for the station's crews. A fan-made, not-for-profit, unofficial sequel to Serenity, titled Browncoats: Redemption, premiered at Dragon*Con 2010 on September 4, 2010. According to the film's creator and producer, Whedon gave "his blessing" to the project. The film was sold on DVD and Blu-ray at the film's website, with all proceeds being distributed among five charities. The film was also screened at various science-fiction conventions across the United States, with admission receipts similarly being donated. All sales ended on September 1, 2011, one year after its premiere, with total revenues exceeding $115,000. Community discussion continues regarding screenings in conjunction with the Can't Stop the Serenity project. Cult status: In 2005, New Scientist magazine's website held an internet poll to find "The World's Best Space Sci-Fi Ever". Firefly came in first place, with its cinematic follow-up Serenity in second. In 2012, Entertainment Weekly listed the show at No. 11 in the "25 Best Cult TV Shows from the Past 25 Years," commenting, "as it often does, martyrdom has only enhanced its legend." Brad Wright, co-creator of Stargate SG-1 has said that the 200th episode of SG-1 is "a little kiss to Serenity and Firefly, which was possibly one of the best canceled series in history". In the episode, "Martin Lloyd has come to the S.G.C. [Stargate Command] because even though 'Wormhole X-Treme!' was canceled after three episodes, it did so well on DVD they're making a feature [film]". The follow-up film, Serenity, was voted the best science fiction movie of all time in an SFX magazine poll of 3,000 fans. Firefly was later ranked #25 on TV Guide's Top Cult Shows Ever. The name for the Google beta app Google Wave was inspired by this TV series. On the CBS sitcom, The Big Bang Theory, Sheldon Cooper is a fan of Firefly. When he and Leonard Hofstadter are discussing their roommate agreement, they include a passage in which they dedicate Friday nights to watching Firefly, as Sheldon believes it will last for years. Upon its cancellation, he brands Rupert Murdoch, the owner of Fox, a traitor. During the second season of The Big Bang Theory, in episode 17 ("The Terminator Decoupling"), Summer Glau appears as herself, encountering Sheldon, Leonard, and their friends on a train to San Francisco. When Raj tries to hit on her he says that although he is an astrophysicist, she was actually in space during the shooting of Firefly. Glau chides him for believing this and Raj backtracks, saying, "Those are crazy people!" On the NBC comedy Community, the characters Troy and Abed are fans of the show. They have an agreement that if one of them dies, the other will stage it to look like a suicide caused by the cancellation of Firefly, in the hopes that it will bring the show back. In the 2003 Battlestar Galactica miniseries/pilot, a ship resembling Serenity appears in the background of the scene with Laura Roslin (Mary McDonnell). Serenity is one of several spaceships inserted as cameos into digital effects scenes by Zoic Studios, the company responsible for digital effects in both Firefly and Battlestar Galactica. In an interview on February 17, 2011, with Entertainment Weekly, Nathan Fillion joked that: "If I got $300 million from the California Lottery, the first thing I would do is buy the rights to Firefly, make it on my own, and distribute it on the Internet". This quickly gave rise to a fan-run initiative to raising the funds to purchase the rights. On March 7, 2011, the organizers announced the closure of the project due to lack of endorsement from the creators, with $1 million pledged at the time it was shut down. Joss Whedon, Tim Minear, and cast members Nathan Fillion, Alan Tudyk, Summer Glau, Adam Baldwin and Sean Maher reunited at the 2012 San Diego Comic-Con for a 10th anniversary panel. Ten thousand people lined up to get into the panel, and the panel ended with the entire crowd giving the cast and crew a standing ovation. A tenth anniversary special, Browncoats Unite, was shown on the Science Channel on November 11, 2012. The special featured Whedon, Minear, and several of the cast members, in a discussion on the series' history. The television series Castle, where Fillion plays the lead character Richard Castle, has made ongoing homages to Firefly. Castle has props from Firefly as decorative items in his home, has dressed up as a "space cowboy" for Halloween ("You wore that five years ago," cracked his daughter), speaks Chinese that he learned from "a TV show [he] loved", and has made rapid "two-by-two" finger motions while wearing blue surgical gloves. He has been humorously asked if he has ever heard of a spa known as "Serenity", and Firefly catchphrases such as "shiny", "special hell" and "I was aiming for the head" have been used as punchlines during various dramatic scenes in Castle. He has worked a murder case at a science fiction convention with suspects being the cast of a long-cancelled space opera that only ran for a season, and has had incidental interaction with people portrayed by Firefly cast members. Con Man, a 2015 comedy web series created by Tudyk and co-produced by Fillion, draws on the pair's experiences as cult science fiction actors touring the convention circuit. Though it is not autobiographical, the show's fictional Spectrum echoes Firefly and Tudyk's and Fillion's roles reflect their own Firefly roles. Torres and Maher made guest appearances. Maher played himself as a former Firefly actor. According to Reason's Julian Sanchez, Firefly's cult following "seems to include a disproportionate number of libertarians." The story themes are often cautionary about too-powerful central authority and its capacity to do bad while being considered by the majority as good. The characters each exhibit traits that exemplify core libertarian values, such as the right to bear arms (Jayne, Zoe), legal prostitution (Inara), freedom of religion (Book), logic and reasoning (Simon), and anti-conscription (River). Joss Whedon notes this theme, saying "Mal is, if not a Republican, certainly a libertarian, he's certainly a less-government kinda guy. He's the opposite of me in many ways." Awards: Firefly won the following awards: Emmy Award: Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Series, 2003 Visual Effects Society: Best visual effects in a television series, 2003 (episode "Serenity") Saturn Award: Cinescape Genre Face of the Future Award, Male, 2003 (Nathan Fillion) Saturn Award: Saturn Award for Best DVD Release (television), 2004 SyFy Genre Awards: Best Series/Television, 2006 SyFy Genre Awards: Best Actor/Television Nathan Fillion, 2006 SyFy Genre Awards: Best Supporting Actor/Television Adam Baldwin, 2006 SyFy Genre Awards: Best Special Guest/Television Christina Hendricks for "Trash", 2006 SyFy Genre Awards: Best Episode/Television "Trash", 2006 The series was also nominated for the following awards: Visual Effects Society: Best compositing in a televised program, music video, or commercial, 2003 Motion Picture Sound Editors, USA, "Golden Reel Award": Best sound editing in television long form: sound effects/foley, 2003 Hugo Award: Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form, 2003 (episode "Serenity") Hugo Award: Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form, 2004 (episodes "Heart of Gold" and "The Message", which at that time had not been shown on television in the USA) Golden Satellite Award: Best DVD Extras, 2004 Broadcast history: Firefly consists of a two-hour pilot and thirteen one-hour episodes (with commercials). The series originally premiered in the United States on Fox in September 2002. The episodes were aired out of the intended order. Although Whedon had designed the show to run for seven years, low ratings resulted in cancellation by Fox in December 2002 after only 11 of the 14 completed episodes had aired in the United States. The three episodes unaired by Fox eventually debuted in 2003 on the Sci Fi Channel in the United Kingdom. Prior to cancellation, some fans, worried about low ratings, formed the Firefly Immediate Assistance campaign whose goal was to support the production of the show by sending in postcards to Fox. After it was canceled, the campaign worked on getting another network such as UPN to pick up the series. The campaign was unsuccessful in securing the show's continuation. The A.V. Club cited several actions by the Fox network that contributed to the show's failure, most notably airing the episodes out of sequence, making the plot more difficult to follow. For instance, the double episode "Serenity" was intended as the premiere, and therefore contained most of the character introductions and back-story. However, Fox decided that "Serenity" was unsuitable to open the series, and "The Train Job" was specifically created to act as a new pilot. In addition, Firefly was promoted as an action-comedy rather than the more serious character study it was intended to be, and the showbiz trade paper Variety noted Fox's decision to occasionally preempt the show for sporting events. Fox remastered the complete series in 1080i high-definition for broadcast on Universal HD, which began in April 2008. On March 12, 2009, the series was the winner of the first annual Hulu awards in the category "Shows We'd Bring Back". The Science Channel began airing the series on March 6, 2011. All episodes aired in the intended order, including episodes "Trash", "The Message" and "Heart of Gold", which were not aired in the original Fox series run. Along with each episode, Dr. Michio Kaku provided commentary about the real-life science behind the science fiction of the show. Home video releases: A box set containing the fourteen completed episodes (including those which had not yet aired in the United States) was released on region 1 DVD on December 9, 2003, region 2 on April 19, 2004, and region 4 on August 2, 2004. The box features the episodes in the original order in which the show's producers had intended them to be broadcast, as well as seven episode commentaries, outtakes and other features. The DVDs feature the episodes as they were shot in 16:9 widescreen, with anamorphic transfers and Dolby Surround audio. By September 2005, its DVD release had sold approximately 500,000 copies. The series was re-released on Blu-ray Disc on November 11, 2008, comprising three discs; exclusive extras to the Blu-ray release include extra audio commentary from Joss Whedon, Nathan Fillion, Alan Tudyk and Ron Glass for the episode "Our Mrs. Reynolds", as well as an additional featurette, "Firefly" Reunion: Lunch with Joss, Nathan, Alan and Ron. Media franchise: The popularity of the short-lived series served as the launching point for a media franchise within the Firefly universe, including the feature film Serenity, which addresses many plot points left unresolved by the series' cancellation. Additionally, there are two comic-book mini-series, Serenity: Those Left Behind (3 issues, 104 pages, 2006), Serenity: Better Days (3 issues, 80 pages, 2008) and a one-shot hardcover Serenity: The Shepherd's Tale (56 pages, 2010), along with the one-shots Serenity: Downtime and The Other Half and Serenity: Float Out in which Whedon explored plot strands he had intended to explore further in the series. The comics are set, in plot terms, between the end of the TV series and the opening of the feature film. The two mini-series were later published in collected form as hardcover and paperback graphic novels. A six-issue series titled Serenity: Leaves on the Wind began in January 2014 and the series takes place after the events of the film. In July 2014, the release of video game Firefly Online was announced, in which all the cast will reprise their roles. FIREFLY CHARACTERS: Malcolm Reynolds: Malcolm Reynolds, played by Nathan Fillion, is owner and captain of the Firefly-class spaceship Serenity, and was a volunteer in the war between the Alliance and the Independents (aka "Browncoats"). He got the name for his spaceship from a famous battle he fought and commanded in, the Battle of Serenity Valley. When asked why he named his ship after a lost battle, Zoe comments "Once you're in Serenity, you never leave. You just learn how to live there." He is fiercely loyal to those he calls his crew. Malcolm's main mission is to keep his crew alive and to keep his ship flying. As Firefly writer Tim Minear stated in an interview: "It's just about getting by. That's always been the mission statement of what the show is– getting by." In "Serenity", Mal says of himself: "If the wind blows northerly, I go North." Screens from Serenity suggest that Mal was born on September 20, 2468– which would make him 49 at the time of the series Firefly – though, as the average human lifespan is 120, this would make him the equivalent of a man in his early 30s today. Mal was raised by his mother and "about 40 hands" on a ranch on the planet Shadow. Though Mal usually seems more practical than intellectual, he occasionally surprises his friends by displaying familiarity with disparate literature varying from the works of Xiang Yu to poems by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, though he has no idea "who" Mona Lisa is. Mal volunteered for the Independents army during the Unification War against the Alliance, gaining the rank of sergeant during that time. His loyal second-in-command Zoe was by his side for most of the war, surviving many dangerous conflicts with him. The show mentions three such battles, including the Battle of Du-Khang in 2510 (featured in "The Message") and a long winter campaign in New Kashmir (as told by Zoe in "War Stories") where he commanded a platoon. Mal was also involved in the ground campaign during the Battle of Sturges (as seen in the comic book Serenity: Those Left Behind), which according to Badger was the "bloodiest and shortest battle in all the war", although Mal considers it a distant second. Mal fought in many more battles, but the turning point for him and the Independents came with their physical and emotional defeat at the Battle of Serenity Valley on the planet Hera. On-screen information from the film Serenity suggests that Mal was given a brevet promotion to Captain during the Battle of Serenity Valley to take command of the ever-increasing number of Independent troops who were losing their officers at the hands of the Alliance. This might explain why, in one of the deleted scenes from the Firefly pilot, Mal is described as having commanded at least 2000 men. On-screen information in Serenity shows him to have been attached to the 57th Overlanders Brigade; in the series pilot, Badger calls it the "Balls and Bayonets Brigade", though it is unclear whether that was a disparaging nickname coined by Badger himself or the actual unit sobriquet. After the war, Mal acquired his own ship, a derelict 03-K64 Firefly-class transport whose previous owner was a man named Captain Harbatkin (Mal never got around to changing the registration papers). Mal named the ship Serenity after the Battle of Serenity Valley, the decisive battle of the Unification War. Zoe Washburne: Zoe Washburne (birth name Alleyne) was played by Gina Torres. Born February 15, 2484, "Vesselside" (given her statements to Wash during an argument in the episode "Heart of Gold", this is clearly an expression meaning "aboard a spaceship"), Zoe served in the Unification War under Sergeant Malcolm Reynolds and continues under his command on his spaceship, Serenity. She shares his belief in the corruption of the Alliance and wants freedom for the Border Planets. A loyal first mate and a tough, deadly fighter, Zoe is the only member of Mal's crew to regularly call him "sir", a vestige of their past as soldiers. She trusts Mal unconditionally, but has been known to disobey orders in serious situations when she disagrees with him. Zoe married Serenity's pilot Wash sometime after he joined the crew, though initially she claimed that something about him "bothered" her. In the DVD commentary for the episode "Shindig", costume designer Shawna Trpcic mentions that the leather necklace Zoe always wears is a symbol of her marriage bond. However, she is seen wearing the necklace in the flashback sequences of "Out of Gas", well before she has married Wash. In the book Firefly: The Official Companion– Vol. 1, Torres speculates that the necklace is actually a shoelace from the boots that Zoe wore during the Unification War. Although Zoe and Wash worked a very dangerous sort of lifestyle, they managed to retain a rather happy marriage with one another. Wash at times grows jealous of Zoe's close relationship with Mal. Zoe and Wash considered having children, but were unable to do so due to Wash's death in Serenity. Zoe and the rest of the crew built a memorial for her husband on Mr. Universe's moon. As revealed in the comic Serenity: Float Out, Zoe was pregnant with Wash's daughter. According to the book Serenity: The Official Visual Companion, Firefly series creator Joss Whedon writes that Zoe's last name was Alleyne (at least at the time of the Unification War), and she took the name Washburne after her marriage to Hoban Washburne. This is confirmed in a deleted scene from Serenity, in which a display lists her military name as Corporal Zoe Alleyne. In the documentary Re-Lighting the Firefly, her name is given as Zoe Warren, apparently a version of her name which was considered at one time, but changed by the time the film Serenity was released. At the time of the Battle of Serenity Valley, Zoe had attained the rank of Corporal. She and Sergeant Malcolm Reynolds were the only survivors of their platoon in that battle. The prop used as her weapon of choice, a Mare's Leg lever action pistol, was originally used in the series The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. Hoban Washburne: Hoban "Wash" Washburne is played by Alan Tudyk. Wash serves as the pilot of Serenity, and is married to the ship's first mate, Zoe. He is only ever referred to as "Wash", the first syllable of his surname. When Mal confronts him in the Serenity film novelization, Wash's reasoning is "Why would anyone call themselves Hoban?" He grew up on a planet whose atmosphere is so polluted that no stars are visible. He claims to have spent time on a moon whose principal form of entertainment is juggling geese, both of which he mentions in the episode "Our Mrs. Reynolds". A laid-back guy with a dry and occasionally laconic sense of humor, Wash tends to represent the pragmatic, cut-and-run opinion in any shipboard debate, and often serves as the calming influence in heated arguments. His actions sometimes appear cowardly, but Wash has proven his resolve and willingness to put himself in harm's way and do violence on behalf of his friends on many occasions. Raised on an unnamed polluted planet, Wash became a pilot in part to see the sky beyond his home. Some of his backstory is given in the Serenity novelization. After Wash's friend Mr. Universe hacked the records and became top of the class before Wash, Mr. Universe silenced him by offering his services whenever they were needed. During the commentary on "War Stories", Tudyk states his belief that Wash served in the Unification War as a pilot, although he did not specify which side. Tudyk also jokes that Wash's ship was shot down after a single flight and he was put in a POW camp, where he spent the remainder of the war entertaining the other prisoners with shadow puppets. Later traveling widely, Wash's pilot skills and reputation grew so that he was actively courted by multiple captains when he met Malcolm Reynolds. Wash accepted Mal's offer and eventually fell in love with and married Reynolds' second-in-command, Zoe. Wash dies near the end of the 2005 film Serenity when a harpoon launched by a Reaver ship impales him, killing him instantly. His last words are "I am a leaf on the wind, watch how I..." (the final word "soar" is cut off by his being impaled). His shipmates erect a memorial to him (it is unclear if this is a tomb as well) on Mr. Universe's moon. Mal Reynolds then takes up his duties as pilot of Serenity with River Tam as his new co-pilot. As a tribute to Wash, his collection of toy dinosaurs remains on the pilot's station of the bridge. Whedon has said at least twice since the film's release that, had the series continued, Wash would not have been killed. When he reiterated this during the Firefly 10th anniversary reunion at the 2012 San Diego Comic Con International, Tudyk was apparently ecstatic. Inara Serra: Inara Serra is played by Morena Baccarin. Born in the late 25th century on Sihnon, Inara is a Companion, a high-society courtesan licensed by the Union of Allied Planets (the "Alliance"). In Alliance society, Companions are part of the social elite, often accompanying the wealthy and powerful. There is considerable ritual and ceremony surrounding their services, which appear to extend beyond sex to nurturing psychological, spiritual, physical, and emotional well being. Companions do not view themselves as prostitutes and are insulted by the suggestion. Actress Rebecca Gayheart was initially hired to play the part of Inara but was fired after only one day of filming. Joss Whedon said that there was a lack of chemistry between her and the rest of the cast. Morena Baccarin filmed her first scene the very day she was accepted for the role. As of the end of the original Firefly series, most of what is known about Companions is derived from Inara herself and incidental discussions with and about other Companions and Companion-trained individuals. These sources suggest that the extensive Companion training begins either in childhood or young adulthood and includes social and physical grace, self-defense, at least some performing arts, and psychology. The structure and rituals of Companions resemble that of religious orders, though it is unconfirmed if this is the case. Comments made by Inara suggests that she is displeased with alterations to the traditional training she underwent, which is resulting in less-experienced novices being introduced to certain aspects of the profession prematurely instead of when she feels they would be ready. Companions choose their own customers, and to be chosen by one is considered a great honor and status symbol, as those chosen must be both wealthy enough to afford a Companion's often steep price and desirable enough to attract one. Companions may choose to become the permanent Companions of someone should they desire and can have ungracious customers blacklisted and banned from any Companionship at their discretion. Inara has a number of frequent clients throughout the Allied worlds, and takes both male and female clients, although most of her clients are male. Inara, a Buddhist, was a rising member of Companion House Madrassa when she suddenly and inexplicably left to travel the outer rim. She has suggested that she "wanted to see the universe", although it is strongly hinted that she had other reasons. Less than a year before the events of the pilot episode, she leased one of Serenity's shuttles for transportation, living space, and work space, providing her with some mobility. In exchange, her presence on the ship cuts through bureaucratic red tape and lends their operation an air of credibility. For this reason, Inara is nicknamed the "Ambassador" by the others on the ship. Though earning Mal's disfavor initially by stating that she supported unification of the Alliance and the Independents (in a flashback in "Out of Gas"), she and Mal have developed an unacknowledged attraction to each other which they resist, ostensibly for both business and personal reasons, which is expressed in the form of jesting and sometimes-hurtful bickering. Mal constantly insults her career, but takes offense when others do so, going so far as to punch a client who did so. Mal tells Inara, "I may not respect your job, but he didn't respect you." Inara is especially fond of Kaylee, with Inara taking a somewhat doting and sisterly role towards the optimistic mechanic, and Inara also watches out for River when Simon needs support. Inara appears to be at least somewhat adept at swordplay ("Shindig"). In the movie Serenity, it is shown that she also may have been trained somewhat in the martial arts, and is skilled with a bow and arrow, apparently preferring them over firearms. In a proposed extended version of a scene from Serenity, in Inara's Companion montage, she was to be seen teaching the girls how to use the bow, but this idea was dropped because she appeared too much like "Wonder Woman". A subplot for Inara was hinted at throughout the series. Joss Whedon explained in the DVD audio commentary for the pilot episode that the syringe Inara takes out during the Reaver encounter is not for suicide. Second, when the ship is disabled in the episode "Out of Gas", Simon said, "I don't want to die on this ship", to which Inara replied, "I don't want to die at all." In "Heart of Gold", Nandi remarks that she did not age at all. The secret was apparently revealed in a panel at 2008's DragonCon; Morena Baccarin confirmed that Inara was dying of a terminal illness. This was later also confirmed in Firefly: Browncoats Unite, a Firefly 10th Anniversary Special aired on Science Channel in November 2012. In the same Special, show writer Tim Minear explained Inara's mysterious syringe, saying that it contained a drug that would cause the death of her rapists in case she were to be raped. Minear also said that if the show hadn't been cancelled, a future episode might have involved Inara being abducted and raped by numerous Reavers, all of whom are eventually found dead (due to the effects of the drug) by Mal. Jayne Cobb: Jayne Cobb (played by Adam Baldwin) is a tall (6'4"), physically imposing mercenary who did not fight in the Unification War. Despite his comparatively brutish manner, Jayne regularly displays cunning and common sense. Adam Baldwin, when asked to describe the character, said "Sex. Muscle. Humor. Thuggery. Jayne." He also calls Jayne a "practical guy", explaining his character's use of gallows humor by explaining that when in peril, the choice is to "panic and cry and crap your pants, or you make a joke and you try to survive." Baldwin won the SyFy Genre Awards in 2006 for Best Supporting Actor/Television. Though generally acting brutish and simple, occasionally he hints at a more complex and sensitive character. In the first episode, "Serenity", Jayne joins Shepherd Book in a silent grace. In "The Message", Jayne is revealed sending money earned by his mercenary activities home to his mother. His mother was using the money to care for a sick child named Mattie. In the same episode, he proudly sports an orange and yellow knit cap with earflaps and an orange pom-pom (a tuque), simply because his mother made it for him, to "keep him warm" as he traveled through space. Jayne thinks the hat is quite cunning, though his fellow shipmates gently mock him about it. Adam Baldwin auctioned the original hat from the show for the charity Marine Corps–Law Enforcement Foundation for $4,707.57 USD and Fox asserts intellectual property rights in the burgeoning replica market. In "Ariel", he shows shame for having sold out Simon and River and is noticeably disgusted upon hearing what the Alliance has done to River. In "The Message" he is noticeably upset while seeing a family receive their dead son and in "Jaynestown" when a young man saves his life by jumping in front of a shotgun blast meant for him. Jayne has shown a fear of anything to do with Reavers, a subpopulation of feral, cannibalistic humans. Jayne has demonstrated fear of dying in what he considers an unmanly fashion, notably being "spaced". In "Out of Gas" Jayne is seen on-screen curiously poking at Simon's birthday cake. In the commentaries for episodes "Out of Gas" and "War Stories", it is mentioned that Adam Baldwin added a "tactile" compulsion to the character. Jayne tends to touch, smell and taste things habitually, being constantly in touch with his surroundings. Originally a member of a gang that ambushes Malcolm and Zoe, Jayne switches allegiances and joins them after Mal offers him a larger share of the take from heists and his own cabin. Though he engages in a few one-night stands, Jayne has no long-term love interest, beyond a lingering crush on Kaylee that Joss Whedon pointed out in the Serenity commentary. His feelings for her can be seen in his concern during the pilot episode, when he watched her surgery, as well as in his hostility towards Simon (Kaylee's obvious love-interest). Jayne is contemptuous of Simon and River, and sees them as a danger to his safety as they may bring the Alliance down on them. Jayne keeps a large arsenal of weapons in his cabin on Serenity, the largest and most powerful being a firearm (specifically, a "Callahan full-bore auto-lock with a customized trigger, double cartridge and thorough gauge") nicknamed Vera, which he attempts to trade with Mal for his "wife" Saffron in "Our Mrs. Reynolds". Jayne frequently carries a handgun based on a LeMat Percussion Revolver nicknamed Boo, and in the movie Serenity, carries a machine gun named Lux. Jayne is regarded as something of a Robin Hood-like folk hero by the people of Canton on Higgins' Moon ("Jaynestown"), who have erected a statue of him in the center of the town and sing a song dedicated to "the hero of Canton, the man they call Jayne" ("The Ballad of Jayne Cobb") in which they tell how "he robbed from the rich and he gave to the poor". The true story is that Jayne double-crossed his partner Stitch Hessian and was forced to jettison the money in order to escape. Jayne eventually accepts the town's hospitality but seems to feel guilty that the people view his self-interested actions as heroic. Kaylee Frye: Kaywinnet Lee "Kaylee" Frye was portrayed by Jewel Staite. Kaylee has exceptional mechanical aptitude, despite her lack of formal training, and serves as ship's mechanic on Serenity. Kaylee is exceptionally sweet and chipper, the type who maintains a bright and positive attitude even when others are feeling low. Jewel Staite explains Kaylee's character as being wholesome, sweet, and "completely genuine in that sweetness", adding "She loves being on that ship. She loves all of those people. And she's the only one who loves all of them incredibly genuinely." Staite told Interview magazine, "She's kind of a floozy who wears her heart on her sleeve." Kaylee has shown an affinity for strawberries. Alongside her mechanical aptitude which allows Kaylee to fix just about anything, she has a desire for feminine things and is annoyed when Mal does not see that she is a woman as well as a mechanic. Although most notable in the episode "Shindig"—when he criticized her desire to purchase an elaborate dress on the grounds that she would have no opportunity to wear it in her job—this recurs throughout the series. The background of the character is revealed in the episode "Out of Gas", showing her joining the crew of Serenity. The ship's captain, Malcolm Reynolds, interrupted her and Bester, the ship's mechanic at the time, having sex in Serenity's engine room. However, when Bester incorrectly informed Mal that the ship could not be fixed, Kaylee quickly proved him wrong by diagnosing the problem and repairing the grounded Serenity virtually on the spot. Impressed with her mechanical ability, Mal immediately offered her Bester's job. Kaylee happily accepted, and left her family (and Bester) behind to join the crew. When Kaylee first sees Simon Tam in the pilot episode, she is immediately enamoured with the well-dressed doctor. When she is later shot in the stomach by another passenger, Simon refuses to treat her injury unless he is allowed to remain on Serenity with his sister, River. Despite this, Kaylee finds herself further attracted to the doctor after he saves her. Jayne Cobb would embarrass her in this and later episodes by making fun of her attraction to Simon, usually right in front of Simon. The romantic attraction to Simon Tam remains unconsummated during the run of the series, even though it is clear that Simon bears strong feelings for her as well. (In the novelization of Serenity, River reveals that the attraction between Simon and Kaylee is not a simple crush or infatuation, but that the two are in fact, in love.) In the closing scene of the episode "Jaynestown", he states it is his 'proper' attitude that makes it difficult for him to express his feelings for her. The problem is compounded by the fact that he sometimes makes comments that hurt Kaylee's feelings, insulting the lifestyle of the crew, Serenity, and even herself, though he never intentionally means to insult her; a prominent example of his ineptitude at making conversation is in "The Message" when he described her as 'the only girl in the world', on the grounds that all the other women he knew were either married (Zoe), professional (Inara) or related to him (River). Simon himself almost never gets mad at Kaylee, the exception being "Objects in Space" when Kaylee revealed River's disturbing aptitude with a firearm, which placed a dark cloud over River in the eyes of the others. In the movie Serenity, Simon Tam confesses his feelings for her, which she reciprocates. The ending depicts the two finally consummating their relationship. At Dallas Sci Fi Expo, Jewel Staite said if the show had continued she would have liked to have seen Kaylee and Simon have a baby. Simon Tam: Doctor Simon Tam, played by Sean Maher (and in a flashback by Zac Efron), appears in all episodes of Firefly, the feature film Serenity, and the Serenity comics. Simon was born in late November, c. 2490 to Gabriel and Regan Tam, and was born and raised on Osiris, a Core World planet with major Alliance ties. In the original script for the episode "Bushwhacked" it is revealed that Simon supported Unification, the issue that sparked the eponymous War of Unification. Since he was young, Simon's wealthy family had hopes for him to have a future in medicine. Simon was accepted to the best Medical Academy, or "MedAcad", on Osiris. Simon graduated in the top 3% of his class, and promptly moved onto a medical internship, which he completed in a mere eight months (as opposed to a year), and is licensed to practice medicine. From there, he became a resident trauma surgeon on one of the major hospitals in Capital City, Osiris. Around this time, Simon's little sister River, whom he adores, attended an elite Alliance-sponsored school called The Academy. Eventually, Simon realized that River was writing to the family in code and began a quest to find and rescue her from the Academy. After learning about River's abuse at the Academy, he is unable to help her for two more years. However, Simon is eventually contacted by a group of men from an underground movement, and they help him with the rescue. Simon willingly gives up his career and is disinherited after becoming a fugitive in order to save his sister. While Simon and River head for Persephone, the Alliance freezes all of Simon's monetary accounts and labels Simon and River as fugitives. After landing on Persephone Simon looks for a ship to take him and a cryogenically stabilized River off-planet. He chooses Serenity. The ship's mechanic, Kaylee Frye, is immediately infatuated with Simon. Later, the Serenity crew learn of the siblings' backstory. Because of the need of Simon and River to stay on the move, Mal Reynolds offers Simon a post as medic on Serenity, and Simon accepts. Simon soon settles into life on the ship, spending time with River, in attempts to figure out what happened to her at the Academy. Simon's privileged background from the center planets of the Alliance puts him at odds with his rougher shipmates. He often comes across as stuffy or pretentious and is far more formal than the majority of the crew. Simon believes in having manners when no one is watching and his dedication to his sister is his main defining characteristic, often leading him to gladly make personal sacrifices for her benefit. The Tams remain below Alliance radar, despite some close calls. There is also some tension with Jayne Cobb. After River attacks him with a knife during one of her psychotic outbursts, Jayne attempts to turn them in and collect the reward, although the plan backfires when he is double crossed by his Alliance contact. After an incident in "Safe" involving the absence of River, Simon is clearly more a part of the crew. In "Jaynestown", Simon and Kaylee have their first moment where it's realized that Simon may have more feelings for Kaylee than originally thought. By "Objects in Space", the final episode, Simon has begun to loosen up much more, especially around Kaylee. This process is also underlined by a change in his costume: After the events in "Ariel" he dresses more casually, wearing pullovers instead of shirts and waistcoats. In the film Serenity, Simon has finally become well-adjusted to the crew—to the point where he even stands up to Mal and punches him when Mal puts River in danger during a heist. Near the end of the film, Simon admits to Kaylee that he would have liked to have had a romantic relationship with her just as they prepare for an apparently hopeless battle with Reavers and the two consummate their relationship in the end. River Tam: River Tam played by Summer Glau, first appears in Firefly and also appears in the R. Tam sessions, the comic Serenity: Those Left Behind, and the feature film Serenity. River is the teenage sister of Dr. Simon Tam, both of whom take refuge aboard Serenity. She was considered a prodigy from a very young age, intelligent beyond her years and athletically gifted. Simon stated that compared to her, he is an "idiot child", despite having graduated from medical school near the top of his class and finished his internship a full four months earlier than his classmates. Summer Glau won the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as River in Serenity in May 2006. Glau was also runner up for Best Actress/Movie in the SyFy Genre Awards for 2006. River grew up with her brother Simon, with whom she was very close, as part of the wealthy Tam family on the "core" (Alliance-dominated) planet of Osiris. Having a high intellect and a ready grasp of complex subjects, she was sent to a government learning facility known only as “The Academy” at the age of fourteen. While her parents and Simon believed the Academy was a private school meant to nurture the gifts of the most academically talented children in the Alliance, it was in fact a cover for a government experiment in creating the perfect assassin. While in the hands of the Alliance doctors and scientists, River was secretly and extensively experimented on, including surgery that removed most of her amygdala, preventing River from being able to control her emotions. She has abrupt periods of mental instability and nurtures psychic and “intuitive” abilities, but although the R. Tam sessions imply that she may have already had some form of latent psychic abilities prior to being recruited, how and when this translated into her apparently full-fledged mind-reading abilities is unknown. The Alliance isolates River from her family, though she managed to send a call for help by putting a coded message in a letter to her brother. Simon decoded the message and sets out to rescue his sister, despite his parents' insistence that he was simply being paranoid. He succeeds two years later. When the Alliance learns of River's rescue, they promptly freeze all of Simon's monetary accounts, leaving him with nothing but his medkit, and put out a warrant for the arrest of both Simon and River, labeling them as fugitives. As evidenced in Serenity, River is extraordinarily skilled at hand-to-hand combat, and in one episode of Firefly, she fires three fatally accurate shots from a pistol after only a single quick glance into the battlefield (in both Firefly and Serenity, it is heavily implied that the Alliance was attempting to create a 'super-soldier'). On two separate occasions she ventures into large melees (20–30 opponents against her at the same time), and on both occasions she emerges not only victorious but (apparently) with only relatively minor injuries. The fighting style used by River in Serenity was a kung fu/kickboxing hybrid, modified to be more "balletic". River is portrayed by actress Summer Glau in the 2002 TV series Firefly and the 2005 film Serenity. The nature of the character and her role in the franchise has garnered both praise and criticism from various reviewers. In 2005, Summer Glau won the SFX Magazine award for Best Actress for her role as River in Serenity. Glau later won a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress, again for her role as River in Serenity in May 2006. Glau was also runner up for Best Actress/Movie in the SyFy Genre Awards for 2006. Production details: Joss Whedon selected Summer Glau for the role after having previously worked with her on another of his shows, Angel. River Tam was Glau's first major role. Glau's inexperience assisted her in playing the character: she likened River's emotional withdrawal to her own initial apprehension on the set. In many of the hand-to-hand combat scenes featuring the character, particularly those in Serenity, Glau's own experience in ballet dancing was incorporated into her fight choreography. Depiction: During River's early childhood, she grew up alongside her brother, Simon, part of the wealthy Tam family on the "core" planet of Osiris. She was extremely gifted intellectually from a very young age and also very graceful. She has been portrayed and described consistently as having always had both a strong thirst for knowledge and a love for and intuitive grasp of dance. By the time she was 14 years old, she had grown “bored” with her studies and was already in the graduate program for physics. It was at this point that she was sent to a government learning facility known as "The Academy". While her parents and Simon believed the Academy was a private school meant to nurture the gifts of talented children, it was in fact a cover for a government experiment in creating assassins. While in the hands of the Alliance doctors and scientists, River was secretly and extensively experimented on, including surgery that damaged her amygdala. According to Simon, the Alliance attempted to isolate River from her family, though she managed to send a call for help by putting a coded message in a letter to her brother. Simon decoded the message and set out to rescue his then 16-year-old sister, despite his parents' insistence that he was being paranoid. Simon exhausted his personal fortune and sacrificed a promising career in medicine, but eventually located and freed River with the help of anti-governmental groups. The R. Tam sessions depict her descent into insanity, and also portray hints of her psychic abilities. She references the "G-23 Paxilon Hydrochlorate", which would later be a plot point in the film Serenity, and mentions the Academy's first subject “dying on the table”, something she could not have learned through conventional means. The first session clip indicates she has strong “intuitive” abilities and can easily understand complex subjects. River is mostly barefoot throughout the series. When not barefoot, she tends to favour heavy steel toe capped boots that appear incongruous with the dresses she wears. Reception: In 2005, Summer Glau won the SFX Magazine award for Best Actress for her role as River in Serenity. Glau later won a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress, again for her role as River in Serenity in May 2006. Glau was also runner up for Best Actress/Movie in the SyFy Genre Awards for 2006. The nature of the character and her role in the franchise has garnered both praise and criticism from various reviewers. Some have positively likened the character's erratic behavior to autism. Dr. Karin Beeler of the University of Northern British Columbia compared and contrasted River to Buffy Summers, protagonist of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer franchise (also created by Joss Whedon), in her book Seers, Witches and Psychics on Screen: An Analysis of Women Visionary Characters in Recent Television and Film. Beeler labeled the character an anti-heroine, in comparison to the more heroic role of Buffy Summers. Film critic and horror author Michael Marano also compared the character to Buffy, citing the two characters' combat prowess as similarities and describing River as the apotheosis of Joss Whedon's strong female characters. Derrial Book: Derrial Book, played by Ron Glass, is a "shepherd", or preacher, who provides frequent spiritual advice and perspectives for the crew of Serenity. He has a mysterious past, and on numerous occasions has demonstrated a depth of knowledge in a number of fields with which one would not expect a clergyman to be familiar, including space travel, firearms, hand-to-hand combat, and criminal activity. Book's past appears to involve the Alliance in some way; he possesses an Alliance identity card that gives Book priority status for medical treatment on an Alliance ship, and in "The Message", he demonstrates knowledge of Alliance military procedures. In "Serenity: The Shepherd's Tale", this character's mysterious backstory is revealed. Shepherd Book was born Henry Evans, running away from his abusive father at an early age. In his early adulthood, he was shown to have a criminal record and pending arrest warrants - and his penchant for violence was what caused the Independents to recruit him. Before the war even started, he infiltrated the Alliance military as Derrial Book - a name he stole from another cadet whom he jumped and killed. His rise through the ranks was meteoric, until he singlehandedly masterminded the Alliance's greatest defeat - where in one military maneuver, the Alliance lost over 4000 men. Instead of a trial and formal dismissal, he and the Alliance's devastating defeat were swept under the rug, and he was left to die on a random planet with no supplies. A few years later Book found God, joined the Abbey, and finally left, healed, to become a member of the crew of Serenity, where, in the end, he would find love and family. Shepherd Book dies in the movie Serenity when Haven, the planet where he had been living, is attacked by Alliance forces on orders of the Operative. He took a few of them with him, using a flak gun to shoot down an Alliance assault craft; Mal finds him lying next to the gun, an irony not lost on the dying Shepherd. Minor characters: Minor characters are defined as any character who is not a part of the crew of the fictional ship Serenity including any who appear in the R. Tam sessions, the television show itself, the comic book series Serenity: Those Left Behind, or the film Serenity. Badger: One of the crew's contacts on the moon-planet Persephone, Badger, portrayed by Mark Sheppard, first appears in the pilot episode of the series, "Serenity". Badger, an "honest businessman" refuses to pay for cargo that he has commissioned the crew to retrieve after finding out it had the stamp of the Alliance forces. At the time, Badger threatened to provide information to the Alliance about Malcolm Reynolds and his salvage operation. Although Badger cannot be trusted, he apparently is consistent enough that Reynolds is willing to do business with him. Badger is clearly a criminal, but he views himself as a business man and "better than" Mal and other smugglers who do not have a base of operations. Badger reappears in the episode "Shindig", and hires the crew again to collect some cargo (in truth a herd of cattle) from a "fancy reception" where he is unwelcome. In the comic book series Serenity: Those Left Behind, Badger sets events in motion by providing Reynolds with his initial contract. Badger speaks with a cockney accent, identified and imitated by River Tam. Joss Whedon mentions in the commentary on "Serenity" that he originally wrote the character with the intention of playing the role himself. Bester: Bester was Serenity's original engine mechanic, portrayed by Dax Griffin. At some point before the events of Firefly (as shown in a flashback in "Out of Gas"), Malcolm Reynolds caught him having sex with a local girl, soon identified as Kaylee Frye, in the engine room. Mal demands to know what is taking Bester so long to fix the engine, and Kaylee then demonstrates that she has more knowledge of ship engine workings than Bester, whom Mal immediately fires in favor of Kaylee. Sheriff Bourne: Sheriff Bourne is the sheriff of Paradiso, a mining town on Regina featured in "The Train Job". When Mal, Zoe, and Jayne rob the train between Hancock and Paradiso, Sheriff Bourne questions Mal and Zoe, who are pretending to be newlyweds, coming to Paradiso to find work in the mines. Bourne realizes there is something questionable about their story, but when Inara arrives claiming Mal as her escaped indentured servant, he thinks that is the problem. Later, as Mal was preparing to return the stolen medicine to Paradiso, Bourne and a posse tracked him down. However, he accepts that Mal has done the right thing by bringing the medicine back, and lets the crew go free. Sheriff Bourne is played by Gregg Henry. Rance Burgess: Rance Burgess, played by Fredric Lehne in "Heart of Gold", is a rancher who runs afoul of the crew of Serenity when he decides to wage war against a brothel run by Nandi, a former Companion and friend of Inara Serra. According to Nandi, Burgess was the richest man on the planet, and kept everyone else poor so he could play at being "a cowboy in his own gorram theme park". Malcolm Reynolds and his crew lay out the defense of the Heart of Gold and defend the brothel when Burgess and his men attack to try and take the son he begat on one of the prostitutes, Petaline. Burgess loses the battle, attempts to escape, is captured by Mal, and is executed by Petaline herself. Dr. Caron: Dr. Caron, played by Sarah Paulson in the film Serenity, was a member of the rescue team that investigated the strange happenings on Miranda. Her recording of the event, noting the Alliance's inadvertent creation of what would become the Reavers, is pivotal in the film's climax. She, along with the rest of her team, is killed by the Reavers after their ship crashed. Lawrence Dobson: Lawrence Dobson, played by Carlos Jacott, appears in the series pilot episode, Serenity. He is an undercover Alliance agent in pursuit of Simon and River Tam. When he suspects to have found Simon on the planet Persephone, he joins him and the Shepherd Derrial Book as a passenger on board Serenity. Soon after leaving the planet he attempts to contact the Alliance to report his discovery. Wash detects this transmission and is able to scramble it. Wash informs Mal that someone has betrayed them. Believing Simon to be the traitor, Mal strikes him, only to realise Dobson is the spy when he is seen pointing a gun at Simon. During a moment of panic, Dobson shoots Kaylee and is knocked out by Book. He is locked up for a while, and when interrogated by Jayne, he attempts to bribe Jayne for his freedom. By the time the ship arrives at the moon Whitefall, Dobson has escaped his quarters, assaulted Shepherd Book and attempted again, unsuccessfully, to contact the Alliance. He reveals a more sadistic side of himself as he beats Book unnecessarily in a fit of anger having already knocked Book unconscious. Up to this point, Book had been protecting him, mainly from Jayne. Dobson then finds River and tries to leave the ship while holding her at gunpoint. Malcolm Reynolds, returning from his mission, sizes up the situation and without hesitation shoots Dobson in the head. Mal and Jayne then toss him from the ship, leaving him for dead. Joss Whedon intended for Dobson to survive the shooting and return for vengeance. The series was cancelled before this could occur, but the idea continued as a key part of the plot in the three-issue comic book miniseries Serenity: Those Left Behind, which takes place between the TV series and the film Serenity. In the comics, Dobson is still alive, his right eye (destroyed by Mal's bullet) replaced by a prosthesis. Obsessed with seeking revenge on Reynolds, Dobson joins the "Blue Gloves" in the search to find Serenity, its captain and the Tam siblings. When the two finally meet again, Mal shoots the former agent first (in his good eye), and kills him for good. However, before he leaves, Mal shoots Dobson again, "just to make sure". In the pilot Firefly episode called "Serenity", Lawrence Dobson's initial clumsiness and common appearance contrasts him to the viewer (and the other characters) with the more suspicious-looking Simon Tam, to conceal Dobson's role as villain on the ship. This is an effect shared by other Joss Whedon characters portrayed by Jacott, where he also switches from seeming innocent, clumsy, and unimportant to being someone with more malicious intentions. Jubal Early: Jubal Early is a bounty hunter who appears in the finale episode "Objects in Space". Early, played by Richard Brooks, boards Serenity with the intention to kidnap River Tam in return for a bounty. Joss Whedon's DVD commentary for this episode reveals that Early was partly inspired by the Star Wars character Boba Fett. He shares his name with the Confederate Civil War General Jubal Anderson Early, who is an ancestor of Nathan Fillion. Early is athletic and is clearly adept at unarmed combat. He is also intelligent and eccentric, given to rambling on philosophic matters in the middle of tense situations. When River is on his ship, she is able to deduce that he is/was a sadist, who tortured his neighbors' pets, and that his mother's dog never took a liking to him because of this. She also sensed that his mother was relieved to see him leave home, as she sensed a darkness in him. He also threatened to rape Kaylee if she did not do as he told her, and used the same threat of raping Kaylee when he dealt with Simon. At the end of "Objects in Space", Mal leaves him floating through space. Early has the distinction of uttering the last lines in the Firefly television series as he floats through space: "Well... here I am." Early's fate is unknown, but, when questioned by Inara, Mal stated that his chances for survival were "One in... a very large number" with the oxygen he had remaining. In an interview, Joss Whedon stated that Early definitely survived the encounter, and that he "loves that character". He later appears in the Leaves on the Wind comics title, which began release in January 2014 and is set after the Serenity film. Fanty and Mingo: Fanty and Mingo are twin brothers who appear in the Serenity comic as well as the film. They are seen as fences for goods acquired by Mal Reynolds and the crew of Serenity. Although identical twins, Mal is able to tell the two of them apart (he claims "Fanty's prettier"). Their full names are Mingojerry and Fantastic Rample. The novelization states that they were named at birth by their mother– Mingojerry as a mis-remembered Mungojerrie from Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot, and Fantastic for what she said when she realized that she was carrying twins, meaning she had to give birth again. They are portrayed in the film by twin brothers Yan and Rafael Feldman. The characters are named after the characters played by Lee Van Cleef and Earl Holliman in the 1955 film The Big Combo. Blue Gloves: The "Blue Gloves" are a pair of mysterious men, portrayed by Dennis Cockrum and Jeff Ricketts, who wear suits and what appear to be blue gloves. In the comic book miniseries Serenity: Those Left Behind, the blue "gloves" are shown to extend to and cover the upper body as well. They work for the Blue Sun Corporation, a contractor to the Alliance, and are in pursuit of River and Simon Tam. Jayne can be seen wearing a Blue Sun T-shirt in the episode "Bushwhacked". They will not hesitate to kill anyone who has had contact with River, even Alliance personnel, using a handheld device that induces fatal hemorrhaging to anyone near it (except themselves). The pair are never officially named in either Firefly or Serenity. In the DVD commentary for the episode "The Train Job", Joss Whedon refers to them as "the men with blue hands" and "the blue-hands men". The scripts refer to them as "Blue Gloves". River refers to the pair with the litany "two by two, hands of blue". In Serenity: Those Left Behind, the duo are referred to as "independent contractors", and are killed when Serenity's thrust incinerates their ship. The Alliance then passes the assignment to retrieve the Tams to the Operative. Sir Warwick Harrow: Sir Warwick Harrow, played by Larry Drake in "Shindig", is a nobleman on Persephone who owns some "property" that he needs moved off-planet. After he refuses to deal with Badger, Badger sends Malcolm Reynolds to talk to him. Harrow then serves as Reynolds' second when Reynolds inadvertently challenges Atherton Wing to a duel after Atherton insulted Inara. The manner in which Reynolds handles himself in the time leading up to and during the duel convinces Harrow of Mal's character and he decides to trust him with his "property", finally revealed to be a herd of cattle. Stitch Hessian: Stitch Hessian was a former comrade of Jayne Cobb. The pair carried off a heist on Higgins' Moon, but when their craft was hit by anti-aircraft fire while escaping, Jayne pushed Stitch overboard. Stitch claims that he would never have done that to Jayne. Stitch was captured by Boss Higgins's men and put into solitary confinement for four years until he is released by Higgins when the crew of Serenity land on Higgins' Moon in "Jaynestown". He then confronts and tries to kill Jayne in revenge, revealing the truth about the heist to the people of Higgins' Moon, who believe Jayne had dropped the money out of benevolent rather than selfish motives. He tries to shoot and kill Jayne, but an unidentified hero-worshipping boy of Higgins' Moon leaps in front of Jayne and takes the shotgun blast, giving Jayne an opening to throw a knife into Stitch's chest. The two fight and Jayne smashes his head into the plinth of his statue, killing him. He is portrayed by Kevin Gage. Fess Higgins: Fess Higgins is the formerly-virgin son of the magistrate of Higgins' Moon. His father, known only as Magistrate Higgins or Boss Higgins, contracts with Inara Serra for her to usher Fess into manhood. Inara talks Fess through some of his insecurities with his father and makes him look upon himself as his own man. As a result, Fess is able to stand up to his father when Boss Higgins tries to stop Serenity from leaving Higgins Moon with Jayne Cobb on board at the end of "Jaynestown". Fess Higgins is portrayed by Zachary Kranzler. Magistrate Higgins: Magistrate Higgins is the final word of law on Higgins' Moon, a small moon that has a primary export of mud. Higgins is a man who looks out only for himself. He treats his workers, known as mudders, harshly, almost as slaves, and metes out strict punishment to any who cross him, as evidenced by the confinement cage in which he imprisons Stitch Hessian after he and Jayne Cobb robbed him. Concern over his son Fess's virginity causes him to hire Inara Serra to turn Fess into a 'man', but the attempt is more successful than he'd expected; Fess openly defies his father and allows Serenity to lift off. Boss Higgins is portrayed by Gregory Itzin. "The Interviewer": "The Interviewer" is a man at the Academy who interviews River Tam in the R. Tam sessions. He is killed when River stabs him in the neck with his pen. He is portrayed by Joss Whedon. His face is never shown. Lenore: Introduced in the film Serenity, Lenore is Mr. Universe's LoveBot and wife. As he dies, she is used to record a warning message for Mal. She is portrayed by Nectar Rose. Dr. Mathias: Dr. Mathias is the doctor who headed the research project which resulted in River Tam's psychosis and increased abilities. He is very proud of his achievements and the importance it brought to him. Mathias is present when Simon Tam manages to free River from the medical center. Following questioning by the Operative about River's escape, the Operative kills Mathias for his failure. Dr. Mathias is portrayed by Michael Hitchcock. Mathias is mentioned in the R. Tam sessions, and is seen, but not named, in the film Serenity, although he is named in the shooting script and novelization. Mr. Universe: Mr. Universe is a reclusive techno-geek in the movie Serenity portrayed by David Krumholtz. He lives on a moon with his love-bot "wife", Lenore (portrayed by Nectar Rose). He has a great affinity for data and is capable of intercepting nearly any transmission or signal in the system. He boasts, "There's the truth of the signal. Everything goes somewhere and I go everywhere." He is seen stepping on a cloth-wrapped glass while wearing a yarmulka in a video clip of his wedding, implying that he is Jewish (or a member of a Judaism-influenced religion), and making him the second potential Jew seen within the Firefly universe; the other being Amnon the postman (the episode "The Message" clearly shows him wearing a kippah and tzitzit). In the novelization for the movie Serenity, he is alleged to have been a student at the same flight school as Wash, achieving the highest possible grades by manipulating the school's software, and providing Wash with information in exchange for Wash keeping quiet about what he did. He is killed by the Operative, but set plans in motion for Malcolm Reynolds to broadcast a report from Dr. Caron that reveals the origins of the Reavers, leaving the message with his love-bot bride before he dies. Monty: Monty is a long-time colleague of Mal Reynolds who also fought on the side of the Independents in the Unification War. An extremely large (Zoe refers to him as a "sasquatch") and mostly genial man, he is known among his friends for wearing a thick beard and mustache. However, he shaved off his beard for his wife, Bridget, who turns out to be the con woman Saffron. Monty is portrayed by Franc Ross in the episode "Trash". Monty apparently has a formidable reputation as a brawler; when Kaylee asks if Mal got into a fight with him (due to wounds from his scuffle with Saffron/Bridget), Zoe notes that if he had, the crew would be down in the dirt picking up Mal's teeth. Nandi: Nandi, played by Melinda Clarke in "Heart of Gold", is a former Companion who knew Inara on Sihnon before they both left the planet. Nandi gave up her life as a Companion– having concluded that it was too restrictive– to become a brothel madam, overseeing common prostitutes on one of the outer planets. When Petaline, one of her girls, becomes pregnant with the son of a local landowner, the richest, most powerful man on the small planet, she calls Inara to see if the crew of Serenity can help against the baby's father, Rance Burgess. Nandi and Mal share a one-night stand, which upsets Inara deeply, before Nandi is killed during a gunfight with Burgess and his men, and Petaline takes over the brothel. Adelei Niska: Adelei Niska is a major crime lord of the Firefly universe, played by Michael Fairman and first seen in "The Train Job". Thoroughly ruthless in his business practices, he is dedicated to maintaining his reputation for exacting terrible reprisals on those who cross him– a reputation well-deserved, as Malcolm Reynolds and Wash discover in "War Stories". In that episode, he espouses admiration for the brutal philosophy of a fictional Chinese dictator (the 'volcano' quote is sometimes attributed to Xiang Yu, but neither he nor any other Chinese warlords had ever written such a poem). In his first appearance, he hired Serenity to steal medicines being sent to a town where they were badly needed, but when Mal and Zoe learned what they'd done, Mal sent the medicine back to the town and returned Niska's money to his henchmen. Refusing to allow this slur on his reputation to pass, Niska returned to capture and torture Mal and Wash in revenge, only releasing Wash after Zoe paid him ransom money. (However, he claimed that she'd given him slightly too much, and so cut off Mal's left ear and gives it to her as a 'small refund'.) As a result, the entire crew of Serenity invades his satellite headquarters, allowing Mal to break free and forcing Niska to flee. Throughout both episodes in which he appears ("The Train Job" and "War Stories"), the instrument associated with him in the soundtrack (i. e., providing his leitmotif) is the duduk. The Operative: Introduced at the end of the comic book miniseries Serenity: Those Left Behind, the Operative is the principal antagonist of the film Serenity, in which he is portrayed by Chiwetel Ejiofor. The Operative is an agent of the Alliance government; he works directly for its parliament. Similar to a black ops agent, the Operative does work that is not specifically acknowledged by the government. He has no name or official rank; however, he has free access to the Alliance facility where River was being studied, as well as deference from its highest-ranking scientists. The Operative believes his missions will "make the world a better place" and ultimately create "a world without sin"; he believes these ends justify means he admits are evil. He freely kills as part of his job, murdering several people personally and ordering other attacks that kill Derrial Book and others. He is courteous in all his dealings and is shown to be distressed only when confronted by Reaver attack. Highly proficient at hand-to-hand combat and firearms, the Operative prefers to use a sword, which he sees as more civilized and classic method of killing. He often tries to paralyze his targets by taking out a nerve cluster near their waist, and then stabs them; on some occasions, he has his enemies fall forward onto his sword, much like disgraced Roman generals used to do. In Serenity, the Operative is ordered to retrieve River, bringing him into conflict with Mal and his crew, who have discovered the reason why the Alliance wants her back. In the film's climax, the Operative fights Mal atop a large suspended computer terminal. Mal emerges victorious from the fight thanks to an old war wound that caused the nerve cluster the Operative normally attacks to have been moved. He then causes the Operative to doubt his mission by forcing him to watch a report by Dr. Caron, revealing that the Alliance itself was responsible for accidentally creating the Reavers in the course of mass mind control experiments on the planet Miranda. When Mal broadcasts this secret to the universe, the Operative admits defeat and decides to leave the Alliance, calling off the search for River and helping the crew piece Serenity back together after the damage sustained in the crash. In a deleted scene, he asks Mal how he went on after the Battle of Serenity Valley, where he lost everything, but Mal simply tells him that the Operative would need to learn that for himself, muttering to himself loudly, "What a whiner". Ott: Introduced in Those Left Behind, Ott and his gang steal the "coin" (a large sum of money) from Mal and crew in the town of Constance. There are Chinese characters tattooed along the right side of his face, and his personality is depicted as very greedy (he even tries to take Mal's gun from the war). Patience: Patience, an elderly woman, is the leader of the backwater moon Whitefall and notorious in the backstory of the crew of Serenity for having previously shot Mal due to what he describes as a "perfectly legitimate conflict of interests". Mal nonetheless takes the crew to her in order to shift some troubling cargo in the pilot episode, "Serenity". Despite her treachery, they successfully sell the cargo. She is portrayed by Bonnie Bartlett. Saffron: "Saffron" is one of several known aliases of a character played by Christina Hendricks. She is a very crafty and amoral con artist who assumes convenient identities to commit grand thefts. She is also known to seduce– and frequently marry– her marks. Malcolm Reynolds and the crew of Serenity have encountered her twice as of the close of the original Firefly series. In "Our Mrs. Reynolds", Mal finds himself married to her in an obscure native ceremony, as she pretends to be a demure, compliant girl trained to be a subservient wife. Saffron overtakes the crew with stealth and guile and sends the ship off to be scrapped by pirates, but they manage to escape. In "Trash", she convinces Mal to steal a priceless antique laser pistol owned by a man who turns out to be another husband of hers. She manages to steal the artifact from them, but the crew were secretly playing her from the beginning and take the artifact back for themselves. When last seen, Saffron is trapped in a trash bin by Inara, awaiting release by the authorities who are en route to her location. Saffron's real name is unknown to the Serenity crew. She poses as "Bridget" for Mal's smuggler friend Monty, and as "Yolanda" to Durran, the wealthy owner of the priceless Lassiter laser pistol, both of whom also married her. Mal quips on this name confusion in "Trash" by calling her "Yo-Saff-Bridge". According to Serenity crew member and Companion Inara Serra, Saffron has had some Companion training. This organization of legal, high-society courtesans appears to provide its members with psychological education to enable them to establish more than a merely sexual relationship with their clients. Saffron uses these skills to help her seduce her marks, even attempting to seduce Inara herself. Both Mal and Durran suspect Saffron is mentally unbalanced, because she reverts to seduction when caught or trapped. This usually follows events of aggression toward or contempt for her targets. She seems unable to trust anyone, telling Mal that everyone plays everybody else. Tracey Smith: Tracey Smith was a war buddy of Malcolm Reynolds and Zoe Alleyne from the war against the Alliance. Mal helped get Tracey through the war, but after the war Tracey became something of a drifter, eventually falling in with organ smugglers. When he runs afoul of them, he arranges to have his apparently dead body shipped to Reynolds for transportation back home. In reality Tracey is drugged into a deep coma to simulate this post-mortem state, trying to doublecross the organ smugglers. Cornered by Alliance officers who are after the illegal organs that Tracey is carrying, the crew of Serenity plan their escape, but Tracey misunderstands their intentions and takes Kaylee hostage, thinking that they intend to hand him over to the soldiers. He informs Mal that he sought out Mal and Zoe because they were saps. In the ensuing conflict, Tracey is shot by Zoe, then again by Malcolm, and dies shortly after learning that the soldiers hunting them were there illegally and would not be missed if they were killed. He subsequently apologizes to Mal and Zoe before dying. He is portrayed in "The Message" by Jonathan M. Woodward. Gabriel and Regan Tam: Gabriel and Regan Tam are River and Simon's parents. Well-to-do, they take great pride in their social position and Simon's achievement. They support the Alliance and do not believe it could or would do anything to harm their daughter, River, who was in their care in a special school. In the episode "Safe", Simon expresses both his concern that River is in danger and his belief that River's nonsensical letters are a code to his parents, who scoff at the idea, saying that the letters are one of River and Simon's "games" and that Simon is just "lost" without his sister. Later in the same episode Simon is apparently arrested for his actions involving trying to gain access to River. His father is seen bailing him out through legal means, but warns Simon that if he gets into trouble a second time he will no longer be part of the family. In a deleted scene, Gabriel hints that he has his suspicions about the Government school but is too afraid to confront the Alliance because it could lead to a loss of status. In "Safe", Gabriel Tam is played by William Converse-Roberts and Regan Tam is played by Isabella Hofmann. Atherton Wing: Atherton Wing is a young nobleman on Persephone who has hired Inara Serra on multiple occasions. On some of these occasions, he has proposed a more permanent arrangement with her. In "Shindig", at a fancy ball to which he has taken Inara as his partner, he refers to Inara in terms which reflect his regard for her as a valuable slave or piece of property, causing Mal (also in attendance) to strike him. In Atherton's social circle (and unbeknownst to Mal), such an attack is regarded as an invitation to a duel, which he accepts. Wing is known on Persephone as a master swordsman and duelist (which Mal is definitely not), but he is defeated due to Inara's intervention and Reynolds' ruthless combat soldier's skills. Angered by his loss, he threatens her with physical and professional harm, but Inara tells him that he is the one in trouble: Wing now has a black mark in the Companion books, and will be henceforth unable to hire Companions. The character is played by Edward Atterton.