The story is that "Star Trek" was sold as "Wagon Train" in space, but Harlan Ellison says that is actually just a joke he made up to show how unoriginal tv execs were, who couldn't understand anything except in relation to Westerns already on. To me, it was much closer to "Rawhide"

Maybe I never watched Firefly deeply enough but the Space Western aspects of it never really seemed that obvious to me. The idea of this mysterious little girl who could actually kick anyone's ass being the key to the whole story, that is a very SF element that I can't recall being a major part of any Western I ever saw.

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Alizee Jacotay, the reason god invented hips

Well, that's the thing with tv and movies... you aren't supposed to watch them "deeply", your supposed to switch your brain off, sit back, and be entertained. Sure, some sci-fi episodes try to have some "moral to the story" to make you think a little, but I just think this type of media (visual) is mostly meant as a way to relax, not think.

Like I said, I've never seen the show... but this key character who can kick anyone's ass? Yeah, she sounds an awful lot like Clint Eastwood's spaghetti western characters. Just sayin'.

Her character isn't anything like Clint Eastwood. She is the product of some pretty sophisticated mind reaming and is a major league psych case.

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Replace "little girl" with "David Carradine" and you have a description that could fit Kung Fu.

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He's come to save the day!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVFdAJRVm94

Great show. The star, Nathan Fillion, now stars in Castle, a pretty fun detective show. In a Haloween homage, he dressed up in his Firefly outfit. His daughter asked, "Who're you supposed to be..."

"Well, a space cowboy, obviously!" he replied.

Speaking of Nathan Fillion.
YouTube - PG PORN: NAILING YOUR WIFE with Nathan Fillion & Aria Giovanni

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Meh, I'm sure there have been crazy characters in westerns as well. That's besides the point though. This show has been categorized as a "space western", probably because it's set in some kind of frontier setting, with some lawlessness, fighting, etc.

Pretty much but there is a back story about fighting against a bad government and the forces of oppression. The Alliance is just about a perfect characterization of "big government trying to make people do what they want them to do." The Alliance is willing to use any tool to further its aims. As I told my wife earlier Firefly is pretty much a Libertarians wet-dream.

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I have some friends at work who pick a series every 6-months or so to rent and go through. The one they're on now is Firefly, its apparently really good from what they say, but I have never watched it.

As far as to the claim of this thread though..... Star Trek was the greatest TV series of all time (esp for the genre being considered here). I don't see how it can be argued otherwise. If you count the impact that Star Trek has had worldwide in terms of spinoffs and genre influence, it simply is massive. Everyone across the world knows who Captain Kirk and Spock are, but there's people in this thread who haven't even heard of Firefly.

For more modern series, the one I liked the best was Farscape.

I happen to not like series where if you miss a couple of episodes you're completely screwed. "Lost" is aptly named because thats how I feel everytime I see bits of it, because I don't bother to keep up with it. Too detailed and involved plots that require you to watch many many consecutive episodes makes for bad TV for my own tastes. That was the beauty of Star Trek .... you could miss a few episodes and it didn't really matter because each show was self-contained, and there were only a couple that were 2-parters.

The wiki page describes Firefly as a "space western", but I wouldn't be surprised if the show had other sci-fi themes as well - it's not unsual to overlap sub-genres.

Turns out there's a sci-fi movement for Libertarians. Just found this:

Libertarian science fiction - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Also, I liked the Red Dwarf series, which was a british series with the typically unusual british humor. (If something can be typically unusual)

Joss Whedon.

Whedon is a bit of a God among Ants when it comes to creating compelling characters, brilliant dialogue and getting a point across without being annoying.

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"Jesus said: I have cast fire upon the world, and behold I guard it until it is ablaze."
Gospel of Thomas

Yeah... Imagine what would have happened if the studios hadn't forced him to do 15 years of vampires.

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He's come to save the day!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVFdAJRVm94

Lol I don't know, I really like Buffy. I've watched through the first half of season six, I think.

I like Dollhouse, I watched the first season. I'm bad about watching tv when it airs, so I'll probably do dollhouse catch-up session sooner or later.

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"Jesus said: I have cast fire upon the world, and behold I guard it until it is ablaze."
Gospel of Thomas

What if I dont want to rent it?! My Netflix queue is special, only the best get put on it. If you love Firefly so much, you probably own it. If so, mail it to me!

Jefe - there is a great porn, Aliens Gone Wild or something weird like that, I really dont want to google it at work. But it came on Cinemax. Oy, pun.

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"You know you were way too high when you wake up next to a handwritten list of all the things you would do for a Klondike bar." - Unknown

"What happens if a big asteroid hits Earth? Judging from realistic simulations involving a sledge hammer and a common laboratory frog, we can assume it will be pretty bad." - Dave Barry