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For about three years, Whedon's been thinking about a series set in the future, but without the classic space gadgets which distract viewers from the real story: what humanity is like when you have to rebuild and life is hard. "We don't solve all our problems and have shiny clean spaceships in the future," he says. "It's the same as it was 100 years ago, and now."
Hence, though the transport ship Serenity does cruise the solar system, it's a utilitarian vehicle, as Fillion points out while walking me through five locations on this part of the set. First, the ship doesn't run on a rare, gem-based power cell, but on stinky fuel that pollutes. The cavernous, grey cargo hold is littered with oil barrels. Heavy iron chains hang from the ceiling. The infirmary is more like a dentist's office, circa 1950, than the sick bay we came to trust in the Star Trek franchise.

There's a grubby rec room with pin-up pictures of pretty girls and a 1960s table lamp with a hard plastic shade shaped like a mushroom. The crew quarters are small, sparse and bland as a sleeper car.

The ship, naturally, is a metaphor for Firefly. If Buffy was a coming-of-age horror story, Firefly tells the tale of stark reality, life on the edge. It's dark, it's lonely and there's no Internet.

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It's obvious that Whedon knows about the Fermi Paradox

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Originally posted by J:

Weird though - I thought we were going to flit about the galaxy. But that other article mentioned liquid fuels that even "smelled bad" or something. Does the Serenity runon diesel?

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Originally posted by mojoeca:
...and something wholly different when in space (magic?).

--- Joe

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Serenity does have two propulsion systems, has no one read my post in Episode Discussion?

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