Well, if they're not going to remake "The Ice Pirates" ... : "Firefly"

Funny thing about cult TV shows: One can flop horribly the first time around, yet a hearty band of fans somehow manages to keep it alive long enough that someone will turn it into an actual movie. That's like not being able to handle the grill at Burger King and then being promoted to head chef at a four-star restaurant. You know, one with all the forks and everything.

Exhibit A, of course, is "Star Trek," which never thrived in prime time yet became popular in reruns and spawned a major motion picture franchise and several related TV series, not to mention an endless number of conventions that further retarded the social growth on countless teenage boys. (Go play Dungeons and Dragons instead, you losers!) Some people might think "Firefly" will turn out the same way, with its short, failed run as a primetime series offset by fervent fans and an upcoming big-screen version coming out this fall.

I missed "Firefly" the first time around -- back in '02, I think, when I was busy catching up on "The Sopranos" -- but became curious after hearing people complain that it was "misunderstood." Hey, I feel the same way about "Manimal." So when the SciFi Channel began running the short-lived series recently -- the same night as the new "Battlestar Galactica"; yes, I'm a geek -- I wanted to see what was what, as the kids say.

Helping matters was that SciFi ran the original two-hour pilot for the show, which was not used to launch the series a few years back. "Firefly" fans bitch about this, I've gathered, and they probably have a point as the pilot, "Serenity" -- also the name of the forthcoming big-screen version -- seems to set the stage well enough for a series vs. making viewers feel like they've come in midstream. As someone whose spouse tends to ask a lot of questions while watching TV -- "Wait, who is that again? Why did she do that? I'm confused" -- I appreciate this.

Our story: A ragtag spaceship crew is just trying to get by in a universe run by some "Alliance" and populated with planets that seem to resemble the Old West instead of the high-tech future. Within this odd combination of genres, the crew picks up a mysterious brother and sister on the run from the Alliance, putting the ship's captain in a tight spot.

Not bad, I guess, and the "space western" thing is unique for TV, although I don't know if this is all good. I mean, it's a little jarring to have these guys zipping among the stars, then strutting around in boots with six-shooters on their hips. If you can bounce from planet to planet, can't you come up with a cool raygun, Buck Rogers?

The other thing is the length, which could have been shorter and cut down on some of the exposition upfront. I know this is setting up a series, but there's a whole lot of talking and not much action in the first hour. The second half makes up for this a little, between a shootout and a spaceship chase, but the movie probably could have been closer to 90 minutes and given us a leaner, faster-paced story.

One final note: While the cast is mostly unknowns, two bear mentioning. First is a preacher man played by Ron Glass, whom you may recall from the sitcom "Barney Miller." Now that's going back. The second guy is the ship's captain, played by someone named Nathan Fillion. I don't expect you to know the name; I didn't. But he looked familiar, and I realized he played the boyfriend of the girl in "Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place," perhaps the most absurdly-titled sitcom of the last decade. Not something at the top of his resume, I'm guessing.