Review:

Whedon's "Serenity" premiered to a packed house on Tuesday at a special Dallas, TX sneak preview.

WARNING: THERE ARE NO SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW!

Picture, if you will, a band of stalwart friends traipsing through space... No. Hmm. Perhaps a ragtag group larcenous thieves who... Wait, that's not right, either.

Let's try this again.

Somewhere deep in space, dancing the two-step along a razor's edge between Alliance space and packs of mad, flesh-eating Reavers, lives a family. Like most families, they have their ups and downs, their sibling rivalries, their borderline-dysfunctional interactions. Perhaps they don't always get along, but although the words are rarely spoken, there exists between them all a bond of trust, of comraderie, of home.

Lead by a man called Malcolm "Mal" Reynolds (Nathan Fillion), an ex-freedom fighter who's guiding principles seem to center around what's best for his ship, they travel from job to job, taking on any task that offers itself. Inara (Morena Baccarin), a Companion for hire, was once one of his clients, hiring out the use of his shuttle and ship for her convenience. Jayne (Adam Baldwin) fills the role of gun-crazed creepy cousin, usually more heavily armed for even the simple jobs than your average small country.

Shepard Book (Ron Glass), though not always physically present, has left more than a little of himself behind in the meantime. Wash (Alan Tudyk) is a pilot of extraordinary -- and mostly self-aggrandized -- skill, while his wife Zoe (Gina Torres) is a seasoned, disciplined fighter, having served under Mal during the war. Kaylee (Jewel Staite), the oversexed yet naive backwater girl who keeps the engines ticking over, does what she can to attract the eye of the only medico on board, a dark-haired swain named Simon (Sean Maher).

But it's Simon's sister who's the problem child. River (Summer Glau), taken away as a child for tortuous military training and mind-altering psychic stimulus, driven psychotic by a government she once characterized as "meddlesome", has finally snapped, going berserk in a seedy bar, tossing around dozens of men as if they were dancers in a surreal ballet of death. And the only clue to why lies in a single word: Miranda.

Now Mal and his crew must set aside their misgivings and search for who... or what... Miranda is, goaded into feats they never would have attempted by a government-sponsored assassin riding hot on their tails.

Serenity. The only home most of her crew knows. The only one they're willing to die for.

Rating: 9