I Sent An Email to Everyone I Know

Monday, December 26, 2005 1:19 AM

The other day I had some time on my hands. I feel like I haven't been doing my part. I had already bought my Christmas presents by the time everyone was making big plans to buy out the Serenity DVD supply when it came out. Yes, I am sort of a control freak. I would have bought a copy for myself, but my birthday was yesterday. My famliy knows I'm a fan and it was an obvious gift to get. Shoot!
So, to try and remedy my guilt--I definetly don't want to be considered one of those people who rides on the coat tails of others--I decided to encourage my friends, family and everyone on my emailing address list to check out this amazing 'verse.
Here's the email that I sent:

Just to warn you all, I’m a nerd, and this email comes out of probably the nerdiest part of me. I HAVE to say something though.
A few months ago I saw a movie called Serenity. (Some of you, I know, have heard of this movie–probably from me.) I was on a double date. The guy who wasn’t my date was all gung-ho about going to this wacko movie that I had only heard about. All I knew going in was that it used to be a television show, somehow connected with the Sci-Fi channel, and that it was about outer space (thank you Entertainment Weekly). I was not excited about this movie. I would never describe myself as a science fiction fan–although I read books that would fall under that category. I’m not a fan of Star Trek, haven’t even seen an episode. I pretty much steer clear of sci-fi television and movies. I didn’t see Star Wars III until last week. Unfortunately, the tickets had already been bought and, besides that, I wasn’t about to refuse to see a movie that my date’s best friend had insisted on seeing.
About two hours later, I walked out of the theater in a daze. What had I just seen?! Serenity was running through my head non-stop. I had no idea how to describe what the movie was. I had definitely been entertained. Who doesn’t like comedy, drama and hard core action all in one movie? I was confused, though. What were Captain Mal and his crew? How did they get to be where they were? What, what, what? There was more to the story that I had missed out on.
When I got home, I of course checked in with my parents. I found my dad waiting up for me–as usual. He asked about the night and when I told him about the movie I had seen, his eyes lit up and he said “really?” If you know Peter, then you probably know the kind of “really”that I’m talking about. It was the “I’ve heard about that and I’m interested, tell me more” kind. Over the next half-hour I expressed to him my interested confusion. (How else do I describe it?) He said that he knew about the film because Entertainment Weekly, which I subscribe to, had written a bunch of articles about it. The avid reader that my dad is, he had read all of them. He sort of filled me in on the premise of the movie and then encouraged me to read the articles that I had only glanced at.
That night before I went to bed, I dug out all of the articles and read them–all of them. The more I read, the more interested I became. I learned that this movie had started out as a television show on Fox. In 2002, eleven episodes of Firefly aired before it was cancelled. (I blame the cancellation on a bad time slot, and sports.) The show, created by Joss Whedon (a.k.a. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Toy Story), generated almost no viewers because of the stupid, fragmented way that the network aired the show. (Think World Series baseball and football.) Those few viewers, however, had grown. Those few viewers who call themselves Browncoats had made a fuss about their show, converting others, turning Firefly into what can today be called a cult hit. This fuss also elicited a response out of Hollywood. Joss Whedon wrote the movie and Universal Studios green-lit it. Serenity was born.
Okay, so there was a television show. And it was out on DVD. Humm... was it worth my time and money to invest in something like that? Duh, I’m me, of course it was, and besides, the curiosi

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