my favourite thing about Firefly so far...
...is the absolute lack of boilerplate justification. You are told what you need to know to advance the plot and bring the drama, and nothing more. Why do they all use colt peacemakers, and why do those peacemakers make funny high-pitched noises? Who cares? In a star-faring setting, is ground transport technology really not cheap and transportable enough to make it preferable to horses? Pfeh. But most of all, thank god, at last, nobody feels the need to explain how they get around the galaxy in time for next week's episode. They have a ship. It goes. Except when their fan belt tears, which is when we get reminded that they're in a tin can in vacuum. Except the artificial gravity doesn't go out. I guess that works differently, somehow.
Also (as of ep. 10), no space storms, space tidal waves, or space whirlpools (really, really no black holes). No space monsters or anti-universes, alien star-system-spanning nets, beings of pure thought, or adherents of absolutist philosophical positions. No bug-men, yeti-men, elves or rubber foreheads, and no faux-Egyptian-by-way-of-Mary-Quant eye makeup. I cannot tell you what a relief that is.
Also (as of ep. 10), no space storms, space tidal waves, or space whirlpools (really, really no black holes). No space monsters or anti-universes, alien star-system-spanning nets, beings of pure thought, or adherents of absolutist philosophical positions. No bug-men, yeti-men, elves or rubber foreheads, and no faux-Egyptian-by-way-of-Mary-Quant eye makeup. I cannot tell you what a relief that is.