Yes, what happened to the show Firefly is a tragedy of stupid proportions. I'm glad they got to make the movie as it was excellent.
I have both the series and the movie on DVD and Blu-ray. Getting to be time to watch them all again, I think.
Farscape is another good one that died before its time only to have fan support finally bring a movie about... though at least Farscape had a really good run before the Sci-fi channel canceled it.