If you have never watched an episode of Firefly, stop reading this, punch yourself in the face, and go buy the DVDs. Firefly was the first hope of a science fiction TV series that at no point could be called "retarded" for any reason. It was a diamond in a pile of fermenting dung, something so fresh that it had the potential to revolutionize the genre.

And to think it was created by Joss Whedon, the guy who brought us Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a completely insipid and annoying show. And it was on FOX, a network that handles comedy well, and fails at everything else. Who could have guessed? But even before the show aired its pilot, its death knell was sounding. After 11 episodes, it was cancelled. I can think of two reasons for this show's untimely demise:

1. Culprit: FOX. Portion of blame: 95%

FOX royally screwed their own show. Why? Who knows. But they did.

Firefly begins with a wonderfully crafted 2-part episode that does a great job of introducing the characters, and showing off their interactions with each other. It also helped ease the viewer into the quirky future universe Whedon created, and had a good amount of action, including one of the coolest aerial maneuvers I've seen (The Crazy Ivan). Sounds great right? Well FOX didn't think so. So they aired the show's second episode first (probably because some idiot exec was foaming at the mouth to show viewers the death scene near the end), and the pilot second. WTF??????

In addition, FOX barely promoted the show. You would think after Whedon's success with Buffy, it would make sense to give his project a fair share of marketing resoures. But again, no.

To further add insult to injury, 4 episodes that had already been finished were never aired. Since FOX cited the budget as a primary reason to cancel the show, it seems incredibly wasteful not to air the episodes you already invested money in.

2. Culprit: The Firefly theme song. Portion of Blame: 5%

It's understandable that Joss would want to maintain complete artistic control of his project, but he is a terrible songwriter. I'm sure this alone convinced quite a few people to change the channel. I mean it sounds like it should be the opening song for some weepy soap opera.

Anyway, on to why this show rules as much as it does.

- No aliens.

Unless they are sinster, genocidal villains with decent CG effects, I don't want to see any aliens. Who wants to see some lame extra with a couple plaster ridges on his head? Firefly focuses on purely human affairs, which makes perfect sense for both the story and the plausability of the setting. Star Trek could talk as much technobabble as they wanted and fuzz the science of antimatter and relativity and such, but there was really no getting around how scores of humanoid races had evolved in parallel all over the galaxy. And speaking of technobabble,

- No technobabble.

Aside from the omnipresent issue of gravity aboard as ship that is not spinning round and round at a certain rate, Firefly's technology is free of abstract and arbitrary gadgets and explanations. Their ship does not move at faster than light speed, as the show is confined to one solar system, and the trips between planets appear to take several days. They use nuclear fuel of some sort. There are no 'replicators,' only nutrient bars and solutions. Actual food is a luxury aboard the ship, which would be true for any future space travelers. No one gets beamed up or scans for a specific human from orbit, heinous wounds are not healed by handheld devices, etc

- The ship is unarmed.

I wonder how cool and calm Picard would remain if his ship didn't have photon torpedos and deflector shields and giant phasers. Serenity doesn't have so much as a slingshot, only the guts and ingenuity of her crew.

More soon....