It’s 2020. Have you seen what’s big in pop culture right now?
Firefly might have come along and be promptly murdered shortly thereafter 18 years ago at this point, but if you can rely on anything in this life, it’s death, taxes, reboots, and the persistence of browncoats. Which is why Firefly producer Tim Minear sharing some retro behind-the-scenes snaps from the show’s final day of shooting on New Year’s Day sparked enough wistful reminiscing about bringing the show back that the media has once again turned to Fox executives and asked “Will You Do The Thing?”
the last day of shooting pic.twitter.com/WY2JPoxDo5
— Tim Minear (@CancelledAgain) January 1, 2020
That is indeed what the Wrap asked Fox’s president of entertainment, Michael Thorn, recently at the ongoing 2020 TCA presentation—and unsurprisingly, in the world in which we live, Thorn’s answer was a hopeful one. “The macro answer is, any time we look at one of our classic titles, if there’s a way to reinvent it for today so it’s as resonant now as the original was, and is, to the fans, we’re wide open,” he told the Wrap. “I loved Firefly, personally, and I watched every episode. I didn’t work on it, but I loved the show.” He even noted that the idea has already been considered by the studio, because, of course it has. “It had come up before, but we had The Orville on the air and it didn’t make sense for us to have, as a broadcast network who is very targeted, to have two space franchises on our air,” Thorn continued.
Even Minear, who was also in attendance, fanned those flames of rebooted hope—and although the original team can never be wholly reunited again, expressed a desire for at least some form of Firefly to live on. “Joss [Whedon] did sort of revive it by making Serenity,” Minear added. “But we have talked about different permutations and how that might work. Do you take two of the characters and put them in a different place and sort of retell a new story with two old characters, with new characters?”
Whether these idle thoughts from Thorn and Minear will translate to concrete plans again any time soon remains to be seen, but it wouldn’t be surprising at this point. You cannot, of course, stop the signal. The only thing more persistent than that is our entertainment’s desire to repeat the past.