Social Media, for all its faults, occasionally has moments that get people genuinely, legitimately excited, and fans of the TV series Firefly have been experiencing such a moment for the past few weeks. Two of the show’s stars, Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk, host a podcast called Once We Were Spacemen, and the social media feeds for the podcast have been teasing us like Bettie Page visiting an aircraft carrier. The feed has been sharing videos, one every few days, of Fillion visiting one of his Firefly co-stars, and every time they have essentially the same conversation:

CO-STAR: Oh, it’s you.

FILLION: Yes it is.

CO-STAR: Does this mean it’s time to do the thing?

FILLION: Yes. It’s time to do the thing.

And then the video ends, usually with the two of them doing a sort of ironically “creepy” nod at one another. Fillion has shared a video with each of the remaining regular Firefly cast members: Gina Torres, Morena Baccarin, Summer Glau, Sean Maher, Jewel Staite, Adam Baldwin, and finally, Tudyk himself. Only the late Ron Glass has been (sadly and inevitably) absent. And as you can imagine, the fandom is going WILD.

Even if you’ve never watched Firefly yourself, if you spend any time in geeky circles (and if you don’t, why the hell are you even reading this?) you’re probably aware that it has become the poster child of brilliant TV shows that got screwed by the network. Firefly got only one season of 13 episodes (aired out of order), plus a theatrical movie (Serenity) that ostensibly condensed the stories that had been planned for the never-made second season into a grand finale. Despite the show having the kind of brevity usually reserved for British television, and the fact that children who were not yet born when the finale movie came out will be old enough to vote this year, the fan base is loud and vocal. It is highly unlikely that anybody in the past 20 years has publicly asked the question “What’s a cancelled TV show that deserved another season?” without somebody – probably multiple somebodies – saying it should have been Firefly. It has lived on through the sheer power of the fans and their love, not to mention a healthy (but not obscene) amount of toys, merch, novels, and comic book continuations of the universe.

And that fanbase, which has been crawling up the walls since 2005, is now on pins and needles, DESPERATE to know what the hell Once We Were Spacemen is hyping up.

The podcasters have promised that an announcement will come this Sunday, March 15th. They have also debunked a few of the more prominent theories: it’s not a convention appearance, a podcast, or any sort of crossover episode. (This last theory seems mostly based on the fact that Fillion and Baccarin, who are both currently the stars of cop dramas, made a joke about that fact in the video they made together.) So if none of that…what is it?

Obviously, the wish of fans everywhere is a full-scale revival of the series in some form. Firefly was owned by 20th Century Fox, which means it was part of the gargantuan IP package absorbed by the Walt Disney Entertainment Conglomerate and Shadow Government and Dried Plantain Concern back when they acquired the Fox assets a few years ago, so any such revival would most likely be on Disney+. People are asking if there will be a new movie, a miniseries, an animated series with the original cast providing the voices…frankly any of those would be welcome. The question is whether Disney would actually devote the resources to produce such a thing. Disney – especially in the content produced exclusively for their streaming service – has been kind of scattershot over the last few years, with shows and movies given the greenlight, produced, killed, buried, and occasionally becoming successful against all odds, with little rhyme or reason to any of it. Would they see Firefly as a valuable enough property to bring back in one of these forms?

It’s not impossible, but I don’t think it’s a slam-dunk either.

So if it’s not that, and it’s none of the theories that have been debunked so far, what could it possibly be? More toys? Books? Comics? A Doctor Who-style audio drama? The thing is, fans would enjoy any of those things, but would they really be worthy of the amount of buildup that we’ve been given over the last few weeks?

This is what I’m concerned about, frankly. The whole purpose of the OWWS videos has been to build up hype and excitement, and clearly it has worked. Browncoats (the term for Firefly fans, similar to Trekkies) have been buzzing at a level I haven’t seen in years, and people are flocking to Hulu to rewatch the original series. But with THIS level of excitement, if it DOESN’T turn out to be some sort of a revival, I’m really worried that the level of letdown will cause this shiny fandom ship to crash. 

There are few things that will crush a fandom’s spirit more effectively than feeling like the payoff doesn’t match the buildup. A lot of fans of the TV show Lost, for example, abandoned their faith in the series because they felt as though the finale didn’t provide enough answers to the show’s many mysteries. I happen to disagree, by the way; I felt like the final season gave us all the answers we actually NEEDED, and those questions that remain unresolved are okay that way. But whether I felt letdown or not, it’s undeniable that a LOT of people did, and that hurt. The same goes for the highly divisive ending for the sitcom How I Met Your Mother, which ended in such a way that a lot of fans (I include myself this time) felt somewhat cheated, that the story we’d been told for nine seasons was not building up towards what we thought it was. Both of these shows do still have devoted fans, even all these years after they went off the air, but virtually any conversation about either of them will include somebody griping about the ending.

For a less soul-crushing example, let’s look at Quentin Tarantino’s film(s) Kill Bill. I’m going to give you a very minor spoiler here, but I can’t imagine anybody who is concerned about it hasn’t already seen the movie. Tarantino decided during production to release what was intended as one film in two volumes because of the length, and the first half built up the identity of Uma Thurman’s character, referred to simply as “The Bride,” as a secret. The character’s actual name was not revealed in volume one. Some characters called her “B,” which we took to be an initial, or perhaps a reference to her status as, naturally, “the Bride.” A few times she was referred to as “Kiddo,” as well, a simple nickname. The one time a character actually said her name out loud, it was bleeped out, a sound effect that is virtually unheard of in the profanity-laden universe of Quentin Tarantino.

So speculation started to build. What was her name? Why was it being played as such a secret? Was she going to be revealed as having a link to another character in Tarantino’s world? A historical figure? Someone from pop culture? 

Nah. When the reveal finally came halfway through volume two, it fell flat on its face. Her name, as it turned out, was “Beatrix Kiddo.” Friends call her “Bea.”

It wasn’t enough to ruin the movie, mind you. All things considered, I still enjoy the film(s) quite a bit, although I still contend Tarantino demonstrated that he doesn’t understand Superman in the slightest. I just feel like it was a mistake to build up the secret that much for something that, in the end, turned out to be of absolutely zero consequence.

And that’s the fear I have for the big Firefly reveal. I want a revival, I can’t lie. I’m hoping that we’re going to get the news that there’s going to be a new movie or TV series that picks up on the adventures of the Serenity crew, and I really want there to be a good explanation for how Tudyk is involved, because…reasons. 

I would have welcomed a new comic book or an audio drama or any of the other possibilities. But after the way it’s been built up, I’m very worried that anything less than a revival will be met with a resounding “meh” from the fanbase and the project – whatever it is – will lose support it would have had otherwise.

Hype is kind of a necessary evil in the entertainment field. We’re not talking about food or clothing, or anything essential for life. Entertainment is, by its very nature, a luxury. So in order to get somebody to choose the entertainment that you have made as opposed to any of the other millions of possibilities out there requires you to get them interested, get them excited. Hype is a skill in and of itself – a skill that I, it should be mentioned, possess in roughly the same amount as my skill as a prima ballerina. But just because I suck at hype doesn’t mean I can’t recognize it, and recognize when it’s gone too far.

I really hope that it hasn’t gone too far in this case. I really hope that, when the announcement is made, the fans that are buzzing on the internet will explode in excitement rather than spiral in disappointment. Will it be a big damn heroes moment? Or will we be shot down like a leaf on the wind?

I guess we’ll all find out on Sunday.

Blake M. Petit is a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure series Other People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon. You can subscribe to his newsletter by clicking right here. He’s also started putting his LitReel videos on TikTok. He is, in fact, a leaf on the wind. Watch how he soars.