OK, this will be the last plug here on SciScoop about Firefly for a while til there’s some definite news on the movie – which hopefully will be very soon. Today is Browncoat Day, the self-proclaimed fan holiday celebrating the official release of the Firefly DVD set – best sci-fi series ever, great Christmas gift, yada yada yada. Hey, it’s all true, and there’s nothing more I can say. You can lead a spacesuited horse to frozen lunar water, but you can’t make him melt it and all that. See for yourself why blending sci-fi with westerns so beautifully distills the mythic essence of humans at the edge of civilization in a way that Star Trek never has.

CFQ magazine (formerly Cinefantastique) is publishing a Firefly episode guide in an upcoming newsstand issue which will be well worth watching for. Its episode guides and reviews of various sci-fi series over the years, especially its decades-long complete coverage and reviews of all 500+ Star Trek programs, are tops in the critical review field. Some of its spoiler-free interviews with Joss Whedon and Tim Minear about Firefly are being published online as a continuing series of articles. Here are the links to the first six: Part One is a general production overview; Part Two covers the episodes The Train Job and Bushwacked; Part Three covers the episodes Shindig and Safe; Part Four covers the episodes Our Mrs. Reynolds and Jaynestown; Part Five covers the episodes Out of Gas and Ariel, which are the two episodes where Firefly hit its stride and the fans knew they were watching something extrordinary; Part Six covers the episodes War Stories and Trash. Yet to come are online CFQ coverage of the remaining even better episodes, including the superlative Objects In Space, which gets my vote for The Best Hour Of TV Sci-Fi Ever Filmed – truly an existential delight for the discerning viewer. Of course, I haven’t seen the three unaired episodes (Trash, Heart of Gold and The Message) that are on the DVD yet, either.

I just can’t mention CFQ in passing without noting it also publishes the Femme Fatales magazine I have been known to buy, ahem, just for the (OK, brief) interviews. Like this one of my personal favorite Peta Wilson (who starred as Nikita and ranked #19 on the Femme Fatales “2003 Sexy 50″ List): “I had dinner with President Putin in Russia,” she says, “and that made me feel pretty good, because he said to me, `You’ve revolutionized the woman in Russia. You’re a big hero here. Women, they like you because you’re strong.’ That’s when I went, ‘Okay, I’m part of something.’”

Update [2003-12-10 10:24:17 by rickyjames]: OK, there’s lots of Firefly DVD reviews going up with the release of the set, and they’re all generally favorable, most extremely so. I think this one from DVD Talk is the one to read if you only read one…