Serenity

And, as promised, here's the movie that serves as a conclusion to the Firefly series. It also serves, by the way, as a pretty decent stand-alone piece. In fact, if you're interested in the series at all, but unsure about whether or not it's for you, I'd even recommend that you start with this movie. It's tough to make a "sequel" that is equal parts newcomer-friendly and fanbase-loyal, but I think Serenity straddled the balance perfectly. There are moments where a newcomer may feel lost and there are moments where a hardcore fan may feel cheated or disserviced in some way, but this movie worked about as well as anyone should have expected it to. In fact, there were some great moments of clarity within the first ten or fifteen minutes of the movie that further explained a brief history of the Firefly universe. Earth got overcrowded, so people left for a nearby solar system, terraformed all the planets, and sooner or later broke out into civil war between the "core" planets and the outer, Old West frontier-like planets. There's also a very brief but effective introduction to the members of Serenity's crew and the longest-running B-story from the short-lived series: that of Simon and his psychic but deranged sister River. The movie was like what any series-capper should be; bigger, better, and with higher stakes than any previous episode. All things considered, I think it made for a very effective piece of closure for the series. And, again, also a decent movie for those who never saw the series as well.