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Angel’s nemesis, the evil law firm Wolfram and Hart, was established, Angel’s sidekicks, other transplants from Buffy, had formed a unique new chemistry, and new sidekicks were emerging. The Buffyverse had expanded to include the Angelverse, and now that the Angelverse was in place, Whedon again began to delight in toying with the limits of where he could take it. In some ways, Angel takes even greater narrative risks than Buffy, and goes to some pretty dark places. While I’ll always have greater affection for Buffy, I think I consider Angel to be the overall superior show.

Whedon wasn’t satisfied with just monkeying around with vampire lore, however. His next big thing came along, and he called it Firefly. In 2012, Firefly is almost synonymous with a network bungling the potential of a budding new show. Certainly in the wake of its cancellation, we’ve seen networks take more and more chances with low rated, though critically acclaimed programs. I don’t know if the backlash FOX continues to suffer for mistreating Firefly has anything to do with that, but I do know that, were it to have debuted in, say 2008, there’s a good chance we would have gotten more than 14 episodes.

Such speculation is, of course, pointless. We got what we got, which is those 14 and a movie. Much of the lore behind Firefly contends that Joss does more with 14 episodes than most show runners do with 100. While I’m inclined to agree, looking at the typical Joss structure, he spends the first season or so planting the seeds for the insanity to come. Were Firefly to have followed the same pattern, imagine how far he could have taken the story of Malcolm Reynolds and his misfit outlaw crew.

Where no Buffy has gone before, of that I have little doubt. Presented as a sort of anti-Star Trek, Firefly is like a show, not about the Federation, but about a bunch of Han Solos (if you’ll indulge my metaphor mixage) on a space ship. Told from the point of view of the losers of a civil war, Firefly isn’t quite dystopian, but it also doesn’t glorify the establishment of the year 2517. Because of the sprawling nature of the story, the Fireflyverse certainly had the potential to be more far reaching than the Buffy/Angelverse, even if it does lack aliens or supernatural elements. Had Firefly been allowed to continue, the possible directions Whedon could have taken it were pretty much the universe.

Of course, as is now legend, it was not to be. The fanatical yet tiny audience was such that Whedon was able to make a movie to tie up loose ends, and in this movie he certainly pulls few punches, killing off some main characters, including a fan favorite. Yet one wonders how similar to his initial vision for the back half of season one the movie is, had it gone that route, and where Whedon was thinking to take it beyond that point. If Buffy and Angel are any indication, Firefly’s initial 14 episodes would prove to be quite tame in comparison.

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