it would be just like the end of Blake's 7! maybe that's how joss would have ended the series...

I'm with zzetta13, Joss would have killed off Mal pretty far into the series, had it been given it's rightful chance. And though I would cry as much as when Dumbledore was killed, I'd hope he'd go out inhis signature style. Smartass and stubborn.

Though this is all pretty much academic, I would still be very angry at Whedon if he had killed Mal. I drafted several "Dear Murdering Bastard" letters when Wash and Book died. Especially Wash...


Joanna

CantTakeMySky seems down in the deep, dark recesses of my mind somewhere I do recall the death of Mal coming up on the series or BDM extras. From what understand about Joss (from hearing other peoples discussions) is that he is likely to “kill off” anyone at almost anytime in his entertainment creations. Having only becoming interested in seeing Firefly after renting SERENITY, the death of Wash and Book was a little sad but not so much a big deal. Now that I’ve seen the series episodes 20 times each I’ve asked myself WHY did Joss do that?

Anyway, my belief is that the ships captain may have at some point eventually met his death, lets say around season 14, episode 6. I don’t think that Joss and company are the kind of writers that as a show wanes in audience they would produce a “jump the shark” episode, but it may had come out in the natural order of things. Also by that time we may have had an almost entirely different crew anyway. Jayne may have been gone already, Zoey too, and even sweet little Kaylee. Scary the thought. Inara was looking to make an exit as we had gotten to the OIS eps so maybe our lovely companion would not have been around much after season 3 or 4, whose to say?

Whether in jest or had they really been thinking that far ahead ( killing Mal off at some point in the show) I do agree that replacing the captain with another actor (as Mal Reynolds) would have just been WRONG, and don’t think it woulda happen that way.

At some time I did get to thinking that killing off Wash and Book, and getting rid of Inara could have been a ploy to reduce the cast numbers to make the show less cast heavy and more appealing to tv exects to maybe pick up the show. I donno, just a thought. At some area of discussion on the dvds seems that Jayne’s character was not meant to stay on the show long. I do hope in the future that we get the chance to find out what happens in the lives of these merry band of marauders, whatever the outcome.

Peace, Z

With no Mal, my guess is that Zoe might take over the ship. She was with him before he bought the ship, so she might have even chipped in a bit, financially, to buy Serenity. I definitaly don't see Jayne as captain, even though he has shown interest in his own ship.

Not sure (as I haven't listened to the commentary for a while) this was quite what was intended. Previously, Nathan Fillion said that had the series continued he would have liked his character - Mal - killed off at the end, just so no-one else could play him. It was a joke, I'm certain of that. Knowing Joss, he could have been considering it, but somehow I doubt it. Even at the end of Angel, he isn't dead, and if you're optimistic you just know he survives. Hell, Buffy did!