>>Firefly stank. Cowboys in space with a solar system with a huge number of terraformed worlds.<<
I get your drift, but I live by the phrase, “I’m no art critic, but I know what I like”.
The show entertained the heck out of me. One of the funnyest lines: Wash: “Psychic, though? That sounds like something out of science fiction.”
Zoe: “We live in a space ship, dear.”
The show had my wife and me laughing out loud on a regular basis. We loved it. ‘Course, I stopped taking science fiction seriously decades ago, which may be what allows me to suspend disbelief with this show. The actors just seem to be having too much fun.
If Firefly had been written science fiction, it probably would have done nothing for me. As a TV series, OTOH, it bordered on brilliant. Now, the first episode I saw on Fox was the one with the shipment of cattle, and I was like “WTH?”, but it grew on me. Then I got the DVD box set (for something like $20 - a bargain) and got to watch it in the intended order, without interruption. The more I watched the more I liked it - the characters made the show.