Nathan Fillion Is Trying to Get More Firefly Cast on The Rookie

07/28/2020 10:49 am EDT

While Fox remains open to the idea of reviving Firefly, Nathan Fillion is trying to get more of his Firefly family to show up on The Rookie. Fillion already reunited with Alan Tudyk, who played Wash in Firefly, in a previous episode, and he's staged some Firefly reunions on his previous long-running ABC series, Castle. During his spotlight panel for Comic-Con@Home, which included an unexpected appearance from Firefly creator Joss Whedon, Fillion tried to coax Gina Torres, who played Zoe in Firefly, into a guest spot on The Rookie as well. "Yes, I would. Absolutely," Torres told Fillion, adding, "You'll have to promise you'll actually be there because when I came on Castle, you bailed."

The Rookie creator Alexi Hawley was part of the panel and promised that if Torres came on for a guest spot, she'd be working directly with Fillion. "There's no way I'd bring you on the show and not write you into Nathan's story," he said.

Tudyk, who also took part in the panel, may also be game to return to The Rookie. He noted during the panel that his character, a crime scene tech, survived his previous episode of The Rookie and even started a new romantic relationship.

"We should revisit that," Fillion said. "That event in your character's life was so transformative he became a self-defense teacher."

Fox's president of entertainment Michael Thorn said in January that the idea of more Firefly isn't off the table. At last check, the existence of The Orville on Fox crowded out any space for Firefly. Who knows what may have changed since The Orville made the jump to Hulu.

"The macro answer is, any time we look at one of our classic titles if there's a way to reinvent it for today so it's as resonant now as the original was, and is, to the fans, we're wide open," Thorn said. "I loved Firefly, personally, and I watched every episode. I didn't work on it, but I loved the show. It had come up before, but we had The Orville on the air and it didn't make sense for us to have, as a broadcast network who is very targeted, to have two space franchises on our air."

Summer Glau, who played River Tam on the series, has admitted that she's torn by the idea of a reunion but would participate. "I think that... I'm torn. I'm torn because the story is like the underdog story about underdogs," she said. "I think that part of the magic about Firefly is that it didn't last and that all of you are the ones keeping it alive."

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