[Hunpecked]

I really wanted to like the Firefly series, with its appealing cast, frequent humor, and underdog characters. But come on, we're hundreds of years in the future, we have FTL travel & artificial gravity, and our heroes earn their living transporting a couple dozen CATTLE from world to world? The government has terraformed numerous "moons" (no doubt at tremendous expense) into excellent replicas of a barren desert with (apparently) Earth gravity and then plants 'em with refugees from a John Wayne western? The ship is propelled at interstellar speeds by a rotating kettle tended by a high school dropout?

The movie, at least, had a bigger budget and more action, but was no more believable than the series, e.g. the interstellar superweapon played by a wisp of a girl that even Truman Capote could *****-slap into next week. I can see how such a quirky show could gather a small, dedicated fan base, but there's no need for conspiracy theories to explain its lack of general appeal.

BTW, rather than trying to pound his round peg into a square sci-fi hole, I've always thought that Wheadon should have set his story in the past, e.g. the late 1700s to early 1800s American coast, Gulf of Mexico, and Caribbean. Reynolds could be an American Tory (i.e. on the losing side of the American war for independence) forced off his land by the victorious Patriots, now earning a semi-legitimate living as a merchant captain, smuggler, and privateer. He could be master of a beat-up sloop named Serenity (after his lost plantation?), he could have the same scruffy crew (including women), and he could get into all the sword fights he wanted (did I mention that the Firefly series included a freakin' sword fight?).