Bingeworthy TV: Firefly

“You can’t stop the signal”

It’s never too late to become a Browncoat! I watched and fell in love with Firefly back when it aired on Fox in 2002 and wept when it was cancelled unceremoniously after one short season. In 2005, after a fan support campaign, the story continued with the movie Serenity and has continued since with the release of graphic novels, video games, board games, and, hopefully, an upcoming series of books. Even after all these years Firefly still remains my favorite show of all time.

Set in the year 2517 all the resources of earth have been used up and people have set out into space finding new solar systems and terraforming planets for inhabitation. The story centers around nine individuals living together as part of the renegade crew of Serenity, a Firefly-class spaceship. They live on the fringes of the galaxy taking jobs mostly within the pioneer culture of the struggling newly inhabited planets.

Each member of the crew is there for their own reasons, some transparent and others not. The captain and his first mate fought on the losing side of the galaxy’s civil war and haven’t completely given up the fight. A brother and sister are on the run from some sinister government conspiracy. The mercenary is along for the money. The preacher has a mysterious past. The pilot is there for love. The ever optimistic mechanic has an intuitive gift for machines. Finally, there’s the high society companion, slumming it on the fringes of society. Together this ragtag bunch try to keep flying, sometimes working together and other times trying to kill each other.

~Rebecca, Technical Services

Bingeworthy TV: Lost Girl

If you've read much ancient folklore, you might remember what a succubus is and why Lost Girl is not a show you'd want to watch with children. For those who are less familiar, a succubus is a feminine creature that gains power through absorbing sexual energy (the masculine equivalent is an incubus). While Lost Girl does include frank discussions of sex and sexuality, the actual sex scenes are fairly PG-13. This Canadian series aired on SyFy in the U.S., not HBO or Cinemax, so if you're comfortable with Outlander or Game of Thrones, you should be safe with Lost Girl.

Lost Girl falls squarely in the realm of Urban Fantasy where each week (or over the course of the season) our main characters face off against supernatural or paranormal dangers and mysteries. Think Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Supernatural. This show is a great mix of adventure, romance, and humor that keeps even high stakes stories from losing the fun.

Bo is our main character. She was raised by adoptive human parents and raised to believe she too is a regular human being until she discovers accidentally that she has the ability to kill through kissing or other sexual behavior by draining her partner of their vital energy. She spends years on the run, until she saves a young woman from a serial rapist and the local police (who also happen to belong to the local Light Fae Court) find her.

Bo decides to stop running and learn more about who she is and where she comes from. She takes up work as a private investigator of sorts. The young (human) woman she saved, Kenzi, has a troubled past of her own, but decides that she's going to stick with Bo. The friendship between Kenzi and Bo is probably my favorite part of the entire show. The inevitable love triangles that develop around a succubus are also entertaining, but nothing beats a best friend.

~Sarah, Adult Services

Bingeworthy TV: The Sopranos

The Sopranos and The Wire often butt heads for first place for best-ever TV drama. I just finished watching The Sopranos -- over several months. You could binge-watch it but you might lose the will to live.

Not that The Sopranos isn't good; it's excellent, but, wow, can it be intense. The seven-season show offers a bird's-eye view of one Mafia family, headed by Tony Soprano, played by the late actor James Gandolfini, who manages to imbue the role with equal measures of sensitivity and boorishness, quick intelligence and thick-headedness.

Tony is a thug, a racketeer, an extortionist, and a cold-blooded killer, but he loves his wife and kids (he also loves animals). His love of family doesn't stop him from sleeping with an endless stream of  women or brutally offing relatives who've strayed from true north. He's in therapy about all this, a secret he prefers his mob associates not know.

The real beauty of the show lies in its huge cast of characters and their unfolding lives over time -- Tony's henchmen, their families, Tony's own extended family, competing crime families, and a revolving door of comers and goers (the latter often exit in pieces). Performances are great across the board.


I liked the domestic subplots the best, involving mob children growing up and independent (or not) and sympathetic mob wives and girlfriends who love their thugs and their church and the pope. The women lunch, they shop, they refuse to face the fact that their lives are entirely subsidized by blood money; all the while their men wreak holy havoc like outlaws in the Wild West except it's today and this is New Jersey.

~Ann, Adult Services