I have only seen the two-hour episode intended as the pilot, and only once, so let me offer my impression of Firefly: I was impressed and delighted.
It is a future world that is not dissimilar to our own. In fact, it’s probably more recognizeable as our own world than a distant, sterile, perfect Star Trek world is.
It is familiar because it is delightfully organic. There are no glassy computer touch-panels showing blinking neon blue diagrams. Instead, we see the ship is controlled by a mechanical flight yoke. There is no voice command: there are buttons and switches. The engine room panels have tangles of actual wires behind them, not even rows of identically geometrically shaped acrylic lit by a hidden orange bulb. At port, the ship has a cargo ramp for entry and egress, and not a fancy transporter effect.
I noticed that the set decoration was more like … Blade Runner than Silent Running. There are rich, heavy fabrics—almost Indian in their opulence—in the companion’s quarters. The mess hall (dining room?) was akin to a lived-in version of an apartment complex clubhouse.
Their clothes have pockets. That may seem like an unusual thing to take note of, but there you go: they wear real, functional clothes; I saw no space-agey body-fitting silver jumpsuits. Some of them wear low-slung gunslinger-style belts. On the surface, they even ride horses.
My brother observed to me that the show uses a lot of Hollywood-Western-style imagery because it is pushing the metaphor of frontier life, with the cowboy themes as visual reinforcement. Even the music is a very organic, almost arrhythmic blend of acoustic instruments (predominantly guitar). This musical choice gives the show much more intimacy than a grand, sweeping orchestral score. I get the feeling that Firefly would never use an arrangement with six French horns and forty violins.
In its use of character, it’s much more like True Grit than True Lies. These characters are all well-rounded, all very human. Some are deeply troubled. Some are flawed. They do their best, and they don’t always agree. I didn’t see a “ready room” where everyone gathered together to decide on the best course of action within their mutually-accepted rules. There is no Prime Directive. These people, in a nutshell, have important and deep conflicts.
How else can I compare this? It’s got the set decoration of Star Wars: things are dirty, well-used, cramped, sometimes dimly lit, mechanical instead of magical. It’s got the diverse cast of Alien, each character from a different background. It’s got the sense of culture that made Blade Runner great, and yet the sense of wildness and frontier that makes people treasure Mad Max. It’s funny, but it’s not a comedy; it’s suspenseful, but it is not a suspense. It’s exciting, but it isn’t an action show.
I’ve only seen the pilot, but I’m looking forward to seeing more of the episodes. It’s certainly worth a look, if only because you’ve never before seen anything like it.