Before she played Jessica Pearson in fan-favorite legal drama Suits, Gina Torres played Zoë Alleyne Washburne in the cult hit Firefly. Fans were unfortunate to have experienced the series for only a single season, but Torres and other cast members were able to leave a lasting impression.
Torres knew the exact moment in the series that made her fall in love with the series. It is one of the exchanges between the captain of the Serenity ship, Malcolm Reynolds, and his second-in-command, a conversation that is revered by the Browncoats.
Fox canceled Nathan Fillion’s Firefly after airing eleven out of its fourteen produced episodes. On paper, Fox couldn’t justify the huge budget of the show with its below-average ratings. Without giving it another chance, Fox decided to pull the plug by airing another hit pilot, Fastlane. However, it didn’t take much longer for fans to figure out that Fox had made a huge mistake.
Gina Torres recalls the best part about her cult hit series Firefly
Firefly‘s ascend to prominence has greatly to do with its interesting plot and properly fleshed-out characters. One of the strong female characters that immediately attract the audience’s attention would be Gina Torres‘s Zoë Washburne. Zoë had previously served under Malcolm Reynolds during the Unification War before joining him as the first mate aboard the Serenity.
During an interview with TVLine, where she recalled the best parts about her different roles, Torres opened up about her time on Firefly. She talked about the dynamics between the cast, led by a charming Nathan Fillion, sharing, “The cast was happy to come to work, see each other every day, do this and inhabit this world, and it showed.”
Torres picked an exchange between her and Fillion’s characters as one of the best moments in the series. During the fifth episode, titled Safe, siblings Simon and River Tam are kidnapped by the hill folk. When they are about to be set on fire, Serenity swoops over the village, and Mal and Zoë make an entrance to save the day. Torres recalled the exchange between them:
Coming out of the fog and a sand storm with a shotgun with Mal saying, ‘What does that make us, Zoe?’ ‘Big damn heroes.’ It doesn’t get better than that!
The phrase, “Big damn heroes”, has greater significance among the fans of the series. Torres’s favorite moment also happens to be a favorite of many fans, who consider it the scene that defines Mal Reynolds’s crew.
Torres also recalled another thing that she loved about her character in the series. She shared that the “sweet” moments between her and Alan Tudyk, who played her husband Wash, were also her favorite. She shared with TVLine:
I so appreciate that the writers would let Zoe really be a girl and a woman and a wife. That made her the ultimate chick, because she was a fully realized person. That’s what I mourn most, given the early demise of the show.
After the series got canceled, Torres joined creator Joss Whedon’s Buffy spin-off series Angel. She later went on to act alongside Fillion in an episode of Castle. Her most prominent role came in Suits as Jessica Pearson. From 2020-2025, she starred in the lead role in Fox’s 9-1-1: Lone Star.
Gina Torres blamed Fox for Firefly cancellation
Gina Torres didn’t hold back her thoughts when it came to the cancellation of the cult series. She rightfully blamed Fox for what happened to the series. She shared with TVLine, “The idea of it was fantastic. I really do think we were ahead of our time. Unfortunately… Fox just didn’t get it, and they buried us. They can take full responsibility for that.”
In 2004, The A.V. Club did a review of the DVD version of the series and highlighted the key areas where Fox dropped the ball. The review from Tasha Robinson read:
By airing the episodes out of order, withholding the pilot until months after the series launched, sticking the show with a difficult time slot, limiting network advertising support, and canceling the show partway through its initial run, Fox publicly declared that Firefly was a risk not worth taking.
A revival of the series was hinted at several times over the years, with Fox exec Michael Thorn expressing his interest as recently as 2020 (via The Wrap). Unfortunately, there are many factors that work against the show being revived.
Fillion, Torres, Morena Baccarin, and Alan Tudyk have all gone on to build great careers for themselves and are actively part of successful projects. Moreover, the show creator, Joss Whedon, has since fallen from grace after he allegedly treated actresses on his set poorly.
Firefly is now available for streaming on Hulu.
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire
