Well, it looks like fans of Joss Whedon’s Firefly will finally be getting their dream of all new episodes to drool over fulfilled. The SyFy Channel announced this morning that it has acquired the rights to the space western and will be working with Whedon to bring new episodes of the cult favorite back to the small screen as early as late 2012.

Initial rumor is that the story line will be a prequel. Whether this means it will take place before the events of the previous episodes or if it will just predate the Serenity movie is still unclear.

This of course brings up many questions, foremost among them being which cast members will be returning, who will be replaced, and who will be written out?

Well, it already looks like Nathan Fillion will not be returning due to previous commitments with his series Castle on ABC. The rumor is that SyFy has already reached out to a few actors about the possibility of stepping in to the roll of Captain Mal, with Mr. Dawson’s Creek himself, James Van Der Beek apparently being one of the names on that list. Just imagine, Dawson in space.

"Shiny!"

As for the fate of the rest of the cast and characters, it’s still up in the air. Some actors/actresses already have other gigs going like Fillion. Morena Baccarin aka Inara is currently on V, Adam Baldwin aka Jayne has Chuck (although that just about gets canceled every year) and Alan Tudyk aka Wash seems to have a pretty healthy film career going right now. Add on top of that the fact that the new story line may happen before characters such as Simon, River and Shepherd Book were even introduced and you have so many rumors already starting to fly about the show that it starts to get confusing.

So will the show be as good as the original? Still too early to tell, but with the potential cast and character changes, it could get a little scary, but hey, at least there will be new episodes. For those who crave more of the original cast, check out the Science Channel, who’s currently airing those episodes. As for developments on the new episodes, we will keep an ear out and let you know more details as we hear them.