A fusion between the mythic Wild West and a high tech future where man has left an exhausted Earth and colonised other worlds. A shamefully cancelled series.

Mal Reynolds, on the losing side on a failed war of independence, makes a living running errands in a space transport. Errands like transporting cattle. He gets caught up in the sinister activities of the Blue Corporation when he takes on board a pair of refugees from the Alliance, one of whom is the disturbed telepath River, victim of experiments.

Very strong group of characters with great interplay and promising story arcs. A shame their stories were not fully told. The setting of "Firefly" is an intoxicating blend of American and Chinese, of rich affluent society with space age gizmos against poor farmers scratching a living from the soil as they might have done in "Shane".