At a recent convention in Australia, Firefly’s Jewel Staite revealed that a new release of Firefly is headed to a home-theater near you.

Staite told the gathered audience that she had been asked to come to Los Angeles to work on a new set of extras for what she called a “special edition” release of the short-lived but much-loved FOX show.

“I just heard that they’re re-releasing Firefly, a special edition of Firefly in a box set” she said. “They actually asked me if I was able to come down to L.A. and do commentary in the spring at some point. So I think that would be fun.”

The announcement set off a whirlwind of speculation on the Internet yesterday with fans wondering if this was a new release of the original box-set or the Australian release of the series.

Television Shows on DVD contacted FOX and found out that Firefly is headed for a Blu-ray release at some point in the future. The contact noted that “news travels fast.” No details on what new extras will be part of the set or a potential timeline for the series’ release on the new HD format.

While at the convention, Staite also gave hope to Firefly fans that we may see the Serenity fly again. She said that a second Firefly movie is a good possibility and will probably happen.

We must warn our readers that while this is good news, nothing has been officially confirmed by a studio or Joss Whedon about a second installment in the Firefly big-screen series. As always, we’ll keep our eyes and ears open and bring you any updates.

A full day of Firefly on the SCI FI Channel this President’s Day, Monday Feburary 18, 2008.

Click on the image to get the full schedule listing.

This was the show that started the great Browncoat revolution meant to save the program from the Fox Network’s very bad lapse of good judgment in television programming. The enthusiasm from Browncoats and other fans alike, while not getting a return of the series, did produce a two-hour big screen feature and made “Firefly,” the very short-lived TV series and “Serenity” the successful film feature two of the highest grossing DVD sellers since record keeping of this sort of thing began.

One would think that after all this time (5 years since “Firefly” went off the air & 2 years since the movie premiered) the campaign for more of the antics of Captain Malcom Reynolds and his motley crew would have died down…..not so! In fact, demand for more of the Verse created by Joss Whedon is higher than ever.

Reminiscent of the granddaddy of all revivals “Star Trek,” “Firefly” has sparked a whole series of worldwide CONs, an annual screening of “Serenity” all over the globe with proceeds benefitting charity, film festivals and “Firefly” marathon parties that crop up all over the place.

“Firefly” made big named stars out of all of most of its crew including Nathan Fillion, Gina Torres, Morena Baccarin, Adam Baldwin (already a well-know fixture in Hollywood), Ron Glass (another veteran actor), Summer Glau, Sean Maher, Alan Tudyk and Jewel Staite. Thanks to “Firefly,” these fine actors have had no problem finding work since. Adam Baldwin can now be seen on the popular geek-fest called “Chuck,” Nathan Fillion and Gina Torres have strong film careers, Morena had a major stint on the long-running series “Stargate SG-1″ and in 2008 will be seen in the Stargate DVD film “Stargate: The Ark of Truth” as well as the big screen feature “Boy in a Box.” Summer Glau is featured in two series at the same time — “The 4400″ and the new “Terminator - The Sarah Connor Chronicles,” Staite is now a regular on “Stargate: Atlantis.” Maher and Tudyk continue to find roles in both television and movies as a result of their work with Joss Whedon’s series and the old “Barney Miller” veteran himself, Ron Glass, continues to be able to pick and choose his roles as he desires.

Now fans will get another chance to see what started all the hoop-la. Be sure to tune in, TiVo, DVR, or whatever, just be sure to catch the marathon. It will be a real treat.

The Signal podcast has just released a free internet album of Firefly & Serenity music called “Songs from the Black”. The album is a compilation of songs previously played on The Signal, and many have never been available for individual download before.

Tracks include: The Ballad of Serenity by Tree Leyburn, The Theme from Old Wounds by Jack Ward, Unsere Crew Serenity by the Firefly Music Project, In My Sky - Springbok, Can’t Stop the Signal by Firefly Music Project, Reel Violin Only by Sharon Bee, To the Border by Mary
Bowerman, The Theme from Mosquito by Nathan Town, A Man Named Jayne by the great Luke Ski, Reavers by Lich King, Mal’s Song by Michelle Dockrey and more!

There are a number of different ways the album can be downloaded including a special RSS feed to the individual tracks, a unified mp3 of the entire album, and direct download links for each track. There is also album artwork available as a PDF file (A4 and letter sized) if you
wish to burn the songs to an Audio CD.

For full details visit The Signal website.

Source: Bit-Tech.net
Written by: Ryan Garside

Firefly was a brilliant television series. Will the MMO live up to that?

Multiverse, a company made up of former Netscape employees, was founded in 2004 with the aim of creating a network of Massively Multiplayer Online Games. Two years later and the company has announced a major coups, the rights to make the MMO for the cult hit television series Firefly. They will now be in charge of a project that will bring the Firefly universe to the internet.

The irony is that the company who canned the television series (to the anger of many) is now commissioning the MMO. Adam Kline, FOX spokesperson told Wired News:

“We see virtual worlds as an extraordinarily promising new entertainment medium. We believe Multiverse can deliver an experience that will remain true to the original series, while enabling a whole new level of personal involvement for fans.”

It’s a bitter-sweet pill for Firefly fans, who will no doubt relish the prospect of jumping into a universe full of Reavers, traders, mercenaries, futuristic geishas and a whole range of bizarre and imaginative locations they know and love from the series. On the other hand they may feel slightly angered by the fact that this all but ends any hope of there ever being a second Firefly series, with Wheadon (Firefly director) stating he would never work with FOX again. If the MMO is a success then FOX will not let go of the franchise lightly.

The game won’t be based around the characters that you know from the movie/series. Instead you will build your own characters, probably in a similar vein to how Star Wars Empires worked, and plop them into the universe. The initial aim is to try and create something distinct from World of Warcraft. However, whether this MMO will be any different to the: choose character, take on quest, level up, then repeat ad infinitum, remains to be seen.

Firefly has a dedicated internet following with sites like FireflyFans.net producing fan fiction and Firefly News. There is even a site dedicated to getting a second Firefly 2 series commissioned. No doubt a fruitless quest.

Written by: Samuel K. Sloan (SoSF Producer & Managing News Director)

After the latest remarks on Wedonesque from Firefly/Serenity creator Joss Whedon, why are fans of the show and movie still not accepting the news that Serenity will be no more?

Joss seemed pretty clear in his remarks and they appear to leave little room for doubt of his meaning. “There’s no sequel, no secret project regarding Serenity or somesuch and I’m not even sure how anyone thought there was talk there,” wrote Whedon. “So let’s put that to bed and smother it with a pillow.”

Well, let me tell you a little secret about scifi fans once they get their hearts and minds wrapped around anything they love. It is never dead, will never go away, and will always return. It’s almost messianic in nature. But, is it realistic? Well, if Star Trek, Star Wars, James Bond, Doctor Who, Indiana Jones, The Twilight Zone, or The Outer Limits are any example, then perhaps the fans of Firefly/Serenity are justified in their undying hope of a return of Firefly on the small screen, or another big screen epic surrounding the motley crew of the famous space-cargo transport. As the past can attest to, regardless of what Whedon says or doesn’t say, it ain’t over until the fans say its over. Perhaps that explains today’s followup comments from Joss, “I’ll be very, very clear. There is no news. Not never, just [not] now.”

We got a note from Darren wanting to introduce all our fans to a site dedicated to Firefly/Serenity fans and Browncoats. It looked interesting and unique enough to share. Check out the site and the stories of the continuing saga of Mal and the crew of Serenity.

Hey there,

Thanks for continuing a great podcast. Just a note from us at Virtual Firefly, to let you know we’re well into our second season (5 episodes in), and would appreciate some advertising to get the word out to Browncoats, who we KNOW will love our stuff, because we believe we have a quality product.

Check us out at STILL FLYING and if you like what you see, give us a mention on your next podcast. Below is a quote from our site:

“For those of you who are not familiar with our project, Still Flying is a fan-based site dedicated to a ‘virtual continuation’ of Joss Whedon’s ‘Firefly’ in the form of scripts of additional episodes. We’ve rounded out Season One, completing it with seven new episodes (including a season finale based on ‘Serenity: Those Left Behind’ from Dark Horse Comics).”

“Season Two is dedicated to exploring the question, ‘What would things have been like if Joss Whedon had been able to tell the story of Serenity in 22 episodes rather than 2 hours?’ Our story will take you to most of the same places the movie does, but the path along the way will be a little different, and a lot longer. We’ll see some old friends and more than a few old enemies. We can’t promise that we’ll entertain you as much as Mister Whedon would have, but you should know that this project has been put together by those who care about the show, and we’re taking this bird up out of love. Like most Browncoats, we know that Whedon will return to us with another movie, book, or some other way to continue the tale he started in “Firefly.” Until that time, we’ll be here. We will hold the line. We can’t show you exactly how Joss Whedon would’ve done it, but we can tell you…Here’s how it might have been…”

Thanks again,
Darren

Stargate and Serenity fans will be getting a special treat when Stargate-SG1 Season Ten begins this summer. The beautiful Morena Baccarin (Inara Serra), who we all loved on Firefly and Serenity will be joining the cast as a semi-regular playing Claudia Black’s daughter in the recurring role.

******** SPOILER ALERT ********

At the close of Season Nine Vala (Black) was pregnant and the strong indication was that her child was the result of Ori manipulation. Well, that child will be named Adria and after she is born she will experience phenomenal growth with Baccarin portraying the adult version of Vala’s child.

Not only will she exhibit some unusual abilities but she will be one bad-ass character and major threat to the Milky Way Galaxy as she leads the Ori contingent in their bloodly quest to “convert” all its inhabitants to the ways of the Ori.

Look for Stargate SG-1 Season Ten to begin on July 14, 2006 but don’t expect to see Baccarin until later in the season as her character makes her adult debut in the episode entitled “Counterstrike.”

We want to thank one of our listeners Paul for the heads up on this story.