Jewel Staite: There's 'A Better Chance' Of L.A. Complex Revival ('There's Always Rumblings') Than More Firefly
Jewel Staite is all too familiar with the heartbreak of a cancelled TV show. The actress co-starred as mechanic Kaylee in the cult fave Firefly, then was part of another short-lived drama, The L.A. Complex. With their devoted fanbases, both series are often the subject of revival talk. (Firefly did beat the odds and got a follow-up movie, Serenity, in 2005.) But if Staite had to place her bets on which show is more likely to come back, her answer might surprise you.
"I get asked all the time about Season 2 of Firefly, which makes me laugh because it's been like 20 years, but when I get asked that, I'm like, 'There's a better chance of L.A. Complex than there is of Firefly,'" Staite tells TVLine while promoting her current series Family Law.
"There's been rumblings and talk about that with [L.A. Complex creator] Martin [Gero] a little bit over the last few years in the hopes that maybe we could get to do that again someday," Staite says.
In 2018, a reboot was eyed by The CW, which aired the original Canadian drama in the U.S. for its two seasons. However, in 2020, Gero confirmed that the project was "sadly" dead. Still, Staite says "there's always rumblings" about the series, which followed a group of aspiring Hollywood entertainers who live in the same complex, getting a new lease on life.
"For all of us that were a part of that show, it's like the one that got away kind of," Staite shares. (The cast also included Degrassi: The Next Generation's Cassie Steele, Arrow's Joe Dinicol, Blindspot's Jonathan Patrick Moore and The Game's Andra Fuller, among others.)
"It was so unfinished when it was left off and just feels like we could have kept going for a while," Staite continues. "It's the kind of show that just gets zanier and zanier, too, as time goes on, like a juicy sort of guilty pleasure kind of show, and it felt that way to work on it, too."
Staite describes her character Raquel — an acerbic thirtysomething actress who goes to morally ambiguous lengths to stay in the limelight — as "a blast in so many ways, one of the most fun roles I've ever gotten to play," and one that she would love to revisit.
The odds of her getting to play Firefly's Kaylee again, however, are far slimmer, but Staite does have a wish for that fan-fave character: "Oh, I just wanted her to be a mom," she shares, assuring TVLine that Simon (played by Sean Maher) would be the baby daddy. "I think Kaylee would have made a wonderful mother, and I love the idea of a baby being on the ship and raising the stakes so much. I feel like it would just show different sides to every character's personality to have a baby around. I would love to have seen Captain Mal holding an infant and not sure what to do with it.... I feel like there's way more than one kid there. Kaylee would just want to have as many as possible."
But wait! There's yet another beloved but cancelled series in Staite's filmography: Flash Forward, a YA drama, also starring a young Ben Foster, that aired on Disney Channel from 1995-1997. Staite and Foster played Becca and Tucker, two longtime best friends and next-door neighbors navigating the complexities of middle school and being 13 years old. The final episode abruptly ended with the pals privately sharing their first kiss as part of a school play rehearsal.
"I feel like every show I've done has been cancelled [on] this weird pivotal [moment]. Just left on this, like, big gaping cliffhanger," Staite says with a laugh.
So what might have the future held for the pair if the show had lived on? "I feel like Becca and Tucker were meant to just always be together, don't you?" Staite replies. "Like, stay in the family home on the same street and raise kids there. They were just meant to be."