I have ranked the top 68 television shows of the '00s, and will be presenting them, one-by-one, starting with 68 and working down. The rankings are more or less based on the show's popularity, it's cult status, it's critical acclaim, and my personal liking of it, with a heavy dose of arbitrariness added in. If a show was a big enough phenomena, I'll keep it on the list - but if I don't like it, I may drop it some spots. One other caveat - these are primetime shows (I apologize if I put a cable show that wasn't, I thought they were all primetime shows - the main point of this is just that no talk shows, no Colbert and Daily show that would be on otherwise).
Gone too soon - that can be said about many, many shows, but on this list, this is the probably the show I feel second or third strongest about it (yes, I can't decide whether I would have preferred this or another show on the list to continue more), and the other shows at least lasted more than one season. As I seem to have counted Buffy as more of a 90s show and Dollhouse is not making any list (I haven't seen it yet, so I can't comment on its quality, but certainly hasn't been all that successful or acclaimed), I can talk about my love for all things Joss Whedon in this entry.
Firefly is a member of an underused genre, the space western (probably joining Cowboy Bebop in the elite ranks). A crew of outlaws, the leaders of whom fought for the wrong side in a few years old civil war, traveling around the world fulfilling missions for hire, but not without helping out a few down and out people along the way. It's got all the Whedon staples - there's two ongoing on and off love interests (Captain Mal Reynolds and Inara, the companion and engineer Kaylee and doctor Simon Tam), strong female characters, twisting traditional things on their head - companion Inara, essentially a high class prostitute, is treated as in a position great respect, and the show is fulled with very distinctive dialogue, including some chinese because I think somewhere in the back story China was supposed to have played an important role in getting into space.
Although most episodes contained a single main plot, as in Buffy, the world of Firefly was rife with possibilities - exploring the background laid out within the universe - the civil war that had made Mal an outlaw, further the back stories of each of the characters, making Shepherd Book interesting by actually revealing whatever it was that was so mysterious about him.
To be honest, it took me a couple of episodes to really get into Firefly - I had to get a feel for the different characters and just the way the show goes - which I think is the way I felt about the beginning of Buffy as well, but when I got into it, I was hooked. The second half just flew by - even though the show was not particularly serial, each time one ended I wanted to see another one, and of course, as happens with a one season show, just when you're right in it, it's over.
I liked Serenity, I know some people who didn't. Basically, my view was that I'd take anything that was more Firefly, and it was, so I liked it, but it certainly does things that probably would not have happened had the show been renewed.
So there will always be a dream of what could have been. Alas, all I can do is wear a browncoats T-shirt and award it a place on the list for the cult value it generated and wonder if Fox gave Dollhouse a second year, why not Firefly?
