HWT Christmas Gift Guide

The best science fiction series that you've never seen was FOX's Emmy award winning Firefly. Premiering in 2002 it failed to find an audience, owing in no small part to the fact that the network chose to air the episodes out of order dumping viewers into an unfolding story without necessary background information. The series was canceled after showing only 11 of the 14 episodes which were filmed.

Strong sales of the DVD box set and a determined campaign by the shows fans convinced Universal to make a movie for theatrical release based on the series which starred the original actors. Series creator Joss Whedon wrote and directed the movie in which he told the end of the story that he had been planning to develop over the five years which he had hoped the series was going to air.

The movie, called Serenity, was voted the best science fiction movie of all time by the readers of SFX Magazine.

The premise of the series can best be described as The Outlaw Josey Wales in space. A pair of soldiers who were on the losing side in an interplanetary civil war purchase an old cargo spaceship, assemble a crew and proceed to take any job they can get legal or illegal. Along the way they pick up a brother and sister who are running from the evil Alliance government (the winner of the civil war).

For fans of science fiction a DVD box set of the 14 series episodes along with the collectors edition DVD of the movie would make an excellent stocking stuffer.