Okay, this has got me thinking. How could they ‘bring Wash back’ while staying true to the spirit of Firefly? Wormholes, temporal reversions or alternate dimensions are, IMHO, right out - none of those really belong in the Firefly verse.
My first thought would be secret Alliance medical tech - I could see them having some special gear, usually reserved for the members of Parliament or C-level executives at Blue Sun, that would be capable of reviving somebody whose heart had been punched out, even a moderate amount of time after the event. Figuring just why such tech was used on the pilot of an outlaw spaceship found under those circumstances would be the interesting part.
Another option might be that Wash had an identical twin or clone all along that few people knew about. But that wouldn’t really be Wash as such, just another guy in the verse who could be played by Alan Tudyk.
New episodes set between Firefly and Serenity, full cast returns
This is already being covered by the comics, besides, it’s not that long a period of time, and would be too prequel-ly.
Ignore events of Serenity, full cast returns.
Heretic! Serenity is not and will never be apocryphal!
New episodes post-Serenity, Wash and Book stay dead.
Clearly the best option. We can service Wash and Book with the occasional flashback or secret origin episode.
Note my previous comment that any resurrection needs to be with a multi-season commitment by HBO. That gives us all sorts of options with Kaylee (who just might be a spy) being interrogated by Inara. Restraints, whips and leather would be involved.
This. It would be very hard to cast, but I could see them taking on a couple new crewmen some time after the movie takes place.
(Side note: the poll questions have horrible spoilers for those who haven’t seen the movie yet, and the spoiler warning in the OP is after the poll questions appear.)
I’ve added a spoiler warning to the thread title because the question contains spoilers for Serenity. I had to shorten the thread title a bit to do so. The title was originally “Hypothetical: If Firefly were to be resurrected, which of these three scenarios would you prefer?”
Option 1, definitely I’d be happy with option 2 as well, but that could only work for one season, so after that it’d have to go AU or continue after Wash and Book are dead. Tequila Mockingbird (BTW: AWESOME name!) is right about the actors being older.
While I’ll miss Wash (I thought he was one of the best characters in the show, and really got a kick out of his marriage), I think he should stay dead. I wouldn’t mind if they did stuff that was set in the time while he was alive, tho so he could be in a show or two or something.
I also think Book should stay dead, but that’s because I have my own idea about who he was:
[spoiler]I’ve always thought that Book was a clone, one of several, of some highly placed official in the Empire and that he somehow became disheartened with his actions but not entirely with the concept of the Empire, so he sought refuge where he could be anonymous: a monastery.
I’d love to see them come across another “Book” who hadn’t gone thru the same change of heart, and thus they (and we) could work another piece of Book’s puzzle into place.
(Joss, if you read this, PM me and we can talk )[/spoiler]
Definitely don’t want the series back with Wash and Book immediately dead. I normally hate retcons, but given the extraordinary circumstances of a series resurrection, I could forgive it. But that’s not necesary.
I would like the series to develop at the pace it was originally intended - so… include the events of the movie, but do so at whatever pace you was originally intended. If the stuff in the movie was intended to be season 4 stuff, then we’re essentially cheating ourselves out of seasons 2-3 by demanding that the series start off on season 4-5 because of the movie. Wash and Book can still die, but we could get some seasons based on the time between the show and the movie first.
Essentially - the question is, do I want my enjoyment of the series hampered significantly (Wash and Book are awesome) in order to not have the discomfort of overlooking one potential retcon? Definitely not - that would just be punishing myself for very little reason. And, as I said, it doesn’t even require a retcon since you could have as much of the show as you want take place between the events of the original series and the movie. Quite frankly I’m surprised at all the people who are ok with Wash and Book being gone, River being not crazy but having over the top ninja skills, etc.
I’d say take it up from the end of the series and decanonize the movie.
In my opinion, Whedon must have had plans on where he was going with the series and I assume Book and Wash were part of it. But the series got cancelled.
So Serenity was not written as part of an ongoing series. It was written as a conclusion. If you were going to revive the series and make it ongoing again, you have to take back that conclusion.
The canonical Serenity comic “Those Left Behind” shows that such technology exists and was used on the Lawman after Mal shot him in the head in the pilot.
)[/spoiler]