My First Converts...

Sunday, February 5, 2006 11:20 AM

Had an especially shiny day today for my day off. Looks like some of my plans are coming to fruition rather nicely and infected a few more people with an obsession of all things Firefly. So if things go how they look, I may have finally earned my browncoat ;p

I was originally dissapointed with my lack of success at trying to turn my friends into fans. My brother is the one who ruttin' rented Serenity in the first place, and he's a beige-coat if I ever saw one. Hasn't even seen more than a few episode of the series, and he frelling lives with me, gorramit!

However, I think I've hit on a winning plan to converting people now, cause this couldn't have gone better. Takes a bit of time, but I think that helped in this matter. For me, it was all about not seeming too overt and shoving it down people's throats.

Here's the story, maybe it'll prove useful to others. My sister's boyfriend (John) happens to be a good friend of mine. (We'd better get along, too, cause well... like I said, he's my sister's boyfriend. Otherwise he'd landing in a whole heap of trouble ;) Spend alot of my days off over at their place, and they happen to be pretty big movie fans.

So, step one: We trade off movies every once in awhile anyway. Cancelled series can sort of bring a stigmata with them. (If they didn't last what's the point, is the way alot of people seem to view it.) So, I figured I'd start them out with the movie. I lent them my copy of Serenity, which wasn't anything out of the ordinary. However, I also lent them my first disk of the boxed set, and told them to watch the pilot first so they'd have a better idea of who was who and such.

They seemed to like it, no big deal. I was careful not to launch into fanboy mode a few days later when we were talking about it. I just made sure they understood the finer points of what made it so good, and tried to plant some seeds for later on. Stuff like "Yeah, the movie was good, but I really liked the series." They liked all the banter and such from the movie so I made sure to talk that up as well. (We all have a running thing about the Star Wars movies and how that's what we really felt was left out in the prequels was all the great dialoque between Han, Luke, and Leia.) So, seeds firmly planted in their heads, I figured I'd let them stew for about a week or so. (Also cunningly managed to 'forget' to take disk one of the series back with me, so they could watch through The Train Job and Bushwhacked.)

So phase two then was all about trying to play it cool. They'd seen three episodes now plus the BDM. They thought it was good, but weren't exactly jumping on the bandwagon, so to speak. This part was all about planting seeds. The next week or so, I'd try to casually insert some conversation about Firefly and how I have to watch an episode every day before I go to sleep and such. Had to play this very cool, as too much would turn them off. The point was to get them to wonder. If this show was good enough to pry me away from my videogame obsessions, then maybe, just maybe, there was something to this after all.

So, I came up another day off. Hung out during the day before they went off to work, and again I'm playing it cool. Just happen to mention that maybe I'd bring some more Firefly for us to watch later on, you know, if nothing good is on tv.

Luckily, there's never anything good on tv. So we're getting bored and I'd strategically placed disk two of the series on their coffee table. I didn't even have to mention it. John makes the decision all by himself to put on some Firefly, and it all goes rather swimmingly after that.

So, Shindig is the first episode. I've been very specific that they are to watch these in order. Otherwise they're likely to miss things, like the cows they pick up in Shindig are the same ones they're dropping off in Safe, for example.

Now, I've got a soft spot for Kaylee, so I'm a little partial to Shindig (plus you've gotta love that swordfight at the end.) John wasn't really that into it, though.

Still, they are like potato chips, you can't w

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