For all its snappy one-liners and rousing chases through deep space, Firefly is most beautiful—and most effective—in its simplicity. The show envisions the depths of outer space and humankind’s very future into the classic setting of for any Western, and does it so with the utmost elegance. Firefly’s space is the space of an untamed frontier, shattered by outlaws, vigilantes and lawmen. It’s a rough and tumble place, a future made primitive, where the progress of mankind means trudging through plenty of cow flops, and making victims out of whole societies of innocent people. It’s the American Old West writ large, and there’s perhaps no surprise in the fact that every planet that the motley crew of the Serenity touches down upon looks like it could have been pulled from Monument Valley or the scrub plains of Oklahoma. - Ian Chant

(via bloodberryandblazers)