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I disagree with a lot of this actually:

"From our first introductions to the crew, it’s made clear that we’re not going to meet anyone new. We know all of these characters—all we need to do is remember how great they can be. The Honorable Outlaw. The Loyal Sidekick. The Goofy Getaway Man. The Hooker with a Heart of Gold. The Wandering Priest. The Kid. The Dandy. The Doltish Mercenary. There’s a bit of an X-factor in River, but beyond that, these archetypes are comforting and familiar. That they’re brought to life by a cast with what can only be described as utterly remarkable chemistry is a credit to the entire ensemble, but as far as the types of people they’re portraying are concerned, we’ve been down this road before. By and large they don’t surprise us. But that’s the whole point. They don’t have to surprise us. We don’t want them to be more complicated than they are. We want Jayne to be a lovable sonuvabitch because he’s already a lovable sonuvabitch. We want Kaylee to be adorable, because Kaylee is adorable.

Firefly borrows not only the physical space and group dynamic of Westerns, but even the story structure, which will be familiar to anyone who grew up on late night reruns of Kung Fu or Sunday morning marathons of Have Gun–Will Travel. The crew blows into an out of the way town looking for work, only to find trouble. They topple the local petty tyrant or scam the thuggish bureaucracy, and they jet off into the sunset and over the horizon. There’s snappy dialogue and out of nowhere bits of brilliant storytelling. But the frame remains a sparse one, and less than complex."

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